Chef Varun Inamdar

Chef and Restaurateur,

Mumbai Local Tawa

Before we introduce Chef Varun Inamdar, you need to know three things about him. One, he loves, loves food. Two, he is very filmy. And three, he is a go-getter. He loves smiling for the cameras, too

Interviewed by SHRADDHA MISHRA

The Go-Getter Chef

Chef Varun Inamdar loves food! Loves food! He also loves anything filmy and the camera, posing before it, as you can see!

Popular as the Bombay Chef, you won’t be surprised at where he is today, if you know where he started from. As a teenager, he was engrossed in a culinary programme on TV where Chef Martin Yan was demonstrating a recipe. Food can be so much fun, he realised, and right then made up his mind to work in the food industry when he grew up. He was just in eight grade, so this future career decision was not taken seriously by his family at the time. Cut to four years later, on his last day of school, he told his father now that school is done, can we talk about my career in hotel management?

Seeing this perseverance, his parents realised that Varun’s dreams were very much real. He went on to pursue hotel management from Rizvi College. Eager to buy a cookbook that cost a lot of money back in the day, Varun took on a part-time job at the pot wash in a restaurant. His aim was clear, to just earn enough to be able to garner savings for that book, but his curiosity had no limits. His observation was so strong and his keenness to learn so fierce, he was soon enough offered a position in the kitchen when a fondue chef was on leave and Varun volunteered to step in. And with this, he became a chef.

Apart from his hotel management background, Chef Varun walks with pride at being selected in the OCLD premium hotel training­ – a reputed certification by The Oberoi Group, seeing which prospective employers would ask no further questions. While at The Oberoi, as chance would have it, he was assigned to work in the chocolate shop for some time. It was a whole new zone for the chef, but he took his time; he watched, observed, learnt, at times paid attendance in several different shifts in order to be able to perfect the entire process of preparation. Expertise comes with such dedication, he proved. At that point he set a goal, “Whatever dessert awards are announced henceforth, we will bag them all!” And they did!

Chef Varun Inamdar has been places, we can tell you that! He has worked in Kuwait, with opportunity to serve the royalties of the Gulf as the Corporate Chef of Kuwaiti Royalty. It was after returning from this stint that he was popularly called the Prince of Chocolates.

A title quite apt, as he does put chocolate on a royal pedestal. What with managing a one-of-its-kind chocolate mannequin for the launch of Bombay’s most happening shopping, leisure and entertainment destination, Palladium Mall. The six-feet tall delicious beauty stood there for days beyond the original contracted period; such was its attraction there.

Chef Varun has also bagged the world record for the world’s largest chocolate mud pie, that weighed a massive 3000 pounds (1360 kgs)! How and why did he do this, was the question that came to us. You see, Varun was a charming hit with masterclasses and recipe demos. When he was approached for yet another masterclass for a large-scale event, he was inspired to do something more grand and memorable. "A Guinness World Record, and nothing less!" He had made up his mind. And he got that record.

How do you ask a chef who has cooked for around 75 presidents and prime Ministers around the world about the most memorable meal he has served? You don’t, because you want to hear all the stories, not just one. Did you know that Chef Varun made then US President Barack Obama taste one of his dishes with his hand? An impulsive act that broke major international security protocols, let alone threaten his job at the time. But receiving a special telegram from President Obama praising him made it worth everything for Chef Varun.

That’s Varun Inamdar for you; he will not cease to be his friendly, impulsive and excited self. After all, wasn’t it Marco Pierre White who said to him, “You, my friend, have got more rock and roll than Freddie Mercury!”

Closer to home, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Health Ministry has entrusted Chef Varun with spreading the word to raise awareness about health and wellness, through the Swastha Bharat Yatra and Eat Right India campaigns as the hand- selected Brand Ambassador.

One may wonder how a young lad who started off in the industry without a godfather did so much within 19 years of his career. The answer is simple. In the apt millennial term, he got swag!

Very early on in his career, Chef Varun had a friend who offered to play the role of a manager for him. Another friend let him convert his house into an office space. Varun sure knows how to present himself and be taken seriously. So when word spread about the swanky chef who does well on screen, it was soon enough that he got a call to visit the Rajshree Productions office. He makes no pretense about the fact that he went there expecting to check out posters of Madhuri Dixit and enjoy the filmy vibe, only to realise that the production office means business. And on the business note, he got home with an eight-episode deal for a YouTube release for a food show. We’re talking about a time when the digital space was very new for content creation. It took time, but when the eighth episode demonstrating pav bhaji without any readymade masala was released, it took off and garnered great traction.

He found success on the screen, as was his ambition all along. But there was another mental seed waiting to take root and flourish. During the lockdown in 2020, Chef Varun gave birth to a very special project – Mumbai Local Tawa, a restaurant that pays homage to his love for Bombay and Bollywood. How is it doing? Bite into dishes named Murgh Deena Mastana, Cocktail Bhidu Biryani or The Dilip Kumar Chicken, and you'll know!