The Cloud Kitchen Boom

'You can't keep a good Delhiite down', goes the saying and nowhere is it truer than for the pandemic with which we have been living with for the third year running. Restaurants have been a big casualty and sadly, many brands have not been able to weather the storm, so Delhi's restaurant-scape has become smaller. Specifically, NRAI has put out a statement that "the closure of over 25% of food business operators has resulted in losses of 24,00,000 people." Being quick on the uptake, cloud kitchens sprang up and started delivering to Delhiites who craved the delights of restaurant food but had no way to access it. Many restaurateurs themselves turned into operators of cloud kitchens. The most notable ones include Varun Tuli: restaurateur, caterer and the operator of a cloud kitchen. Cloud kitchens are lockdown-proof, curfew-proof and real-estate-proof.

Many restaurateurs who turned to cloud kitchens have realised how painless it is to operate out of a kitchen in an obscure area where rents are affordable, kitchen staff need to be efficient but do not have to have educational qualifications, as they will not work as a hierarchy as they do in restaurants. Jasjit Singh Kochhar, prominent South Delhi restaurateur, goes as far as to say that many restaurateurs have realised just how huge a burden they have been carrying all these years: trained staff, the vagaries of important cricket matches or school exams when restaurants can remain empty, but most of all the lockdowns and protocols of the last two years: open late, close early; no alcohol to be served; now close down your eatery; okay, now you can open up but only for deliveries. Kochhar’s take-away is that sellers of footwear, household furnishings and garments have a much easier - and more lucrative - life than beleaguered restaurateurs.

It has taken the restaurateurs of the NCR one lockdown to realise the huge potential in cloud kitchens. Says Chef Anuj Wadhawan, "What is ordered in restaurants is not reflective of what diners really crave for, because they perceive that they are being judged by the staff and fellow diners. When you order at home, however, you only order the kind of food you crave for and so, our 1990's Chilli Chicken and Chilli Garlic Rice are the two most widely ordered dishes."

Varun Tuli makes the interesting point that many home-delivery orders do not include starches.  "One economises when one can, and our customers tend to order starters and main courses from us but I suspect they cook rice and make rotis in their homes, if I look at the KOTs (kitchen order tickets) that come in on any given day." 

Lastly, one of the chief problems of the industry, complain insiders, is one of optics. Governments seem to view restaurants as a cash cow to be milked as brutally as possible. But, NRAI figures quote 73 lakh persons being employed in the industry. Surely the overwhelming majority of them are of modest means, and suffer hardship when their places of work shut indefinitely!