Savvy Home Chefs of Bombay

Home chefs have gone beyond the theatre of their home kitchens and are doing stellar work in preserving and perfecting homestyle cooking and bringing them to us in creative ways. Here are a few of Bombay's top guns

Text: Kalyan Karmakar

‘The food will be cooked the previous the day and sent to you. A few of the items are best kept in the fridge. You are supposed to eat the food the next day. Traditionally it is meant to be had cold, though honestly it tastes better when heated.’

Can you imagine placing an order for a meal if you were told this? You might, if you knew it was coming from someone’s home. Knowing that they would eat the same food. Welcome to the world of home chefs, for that is what they do.

The meal was the thadri platter. Consumed by Sindhis on the day of the festival dedicated to the Goddess Sitala Devi. The day before sees a busy kitchen with family members getting together to cook this feast. The next day everyone gets together and enjoys the delicacies.

The practice is slowly fading out among urban Sindhis with lifestyles becoming more fast-paced and with nuclear families becoming the norm. This spurred Sangeeta Bhambhani, a ‘hobby home chef’ for three decades, to start the thadri platter in 2020. After seeing the warm response, her daughter, Saanya Bhambhani partnered with Sangeeta to open a cloud kitchen in Thane in March 2022. Their enterprise is called Indie Sindhi.

‘Cloud kitchen’ or ‘dark kitchen’ refer to spaces where food is cooked commercially and delivered to customers. There is no dine-in facility. In most cases customers do not know where the food is coming from. The operations are engineered towards scale.

Sounds very different from the world of home chefs? Well, if you think that a home chef is someone who cooks at ‘home’ and retails the food, then think again.

The home chef phenomenon has evolved over time and the cloud kitchen run by the Bhambhanis is an example of that. "My mum is completely involved in the cooking process. It is her kitchen and our clients love the homestyle food coming out of it," says Saanya.

The cloud kitchen route has been adopted by some of the stars of the first UpperCrust Home Chef Studio. Sherry Mehta’s Kanak and Debanjan Das’ Bhutu’s Kitchen run out of hired spaces. They have a fixed team with whom they work. Their emphasis on freshness and quality of ingredients remains constant. “We only use ingredients that we would use for our personal consumption,” says Debanjan. This has prevented them from listing themselves on delivery apps. “I had listed on Swiggy and Zomato but there was too much wastage and we removed ourselves,” says Sherry. Private caterings and orders placed in advance have the main route for growth at a time when the world seems to have gone back to its post-COVID self. Marina Balakrishnan of Oottupura, has discarded her initial plans to open a restaurant. “People come to eat my food and it will not be so if I do not cook it myself. I want to cook when I want to and not when I am forced to, and that would happen if I was to open a restaurant,” adds Marina who has focused on private caterings and restaurant collaborations to grow. Pallavi Amberkar of Flavours of Malvan has listed a part of her menu on delivery apps, but runs specials through the week which can be booked in advance.

While on the lookout for growth, the first UpperCrust Home Chef Studio stars have stayed true to their roots of homestyle cooking and this has helped them grow a loyal customer base. “Those of us who focus on ethnic food are playing a role in preserving the diverse food culture of India,” says Mudit Srivastava of The Oudh Kitchen. Indicative of the passion and zeal that fuels this segment.

Home chefs have gone beyond the theatre of their home kitchens and it is time that we acknowledge that and applaud those who are doing stellar work in preserving and perfecting homestyle cooking and bringing them to us in myriad ways. We need to recognise the category of home chefs as one that has come into its own and is here to stay as a channel that is independent and distinct of the restaurant industry.

We spoke to some of the home chefs in Bombay who have done great work in recent times to understand what motivates them and how they look to grow. We are sure that their stories might give just the burst of inspiration that you are looking for.

 

Mahrukh Mogrelia: Mahrukh’s Kitchen

Mahrukh ran a beauty parlour and made Parsi condiments for sale on the side. She offered home private suppers for international tourists before the pandemic hit. She then started her home chef enterprise and has grown from strength to strength.

Aim: To introduce Bombay to the ‘rustic’ Parsi food of Navsari, her place of birth, which is distinct in flavour and spice profile from the Parsi food that is generally available in Bombay today.

Growth: Mahrukh continues to run a one-woman show and cooks from her kitchen. She has used social media well to announce the diverse menus that she creates. Recipes learnt from her mother and her aunts, spices sourced from Navsari, make her distinct, and she has leveraged that to stand out and grow.

 

Jasleen Marwah: Namak Swad Anusar

A former media professional who specialises in Kashmiri food, she learnt her cooking from her mum over the phone when missing her home food in Bombay. She subsequently made many trips back to Kashmir to perfect her art by learning from local home chefs.

Aim: To acquaint people with both wazwan and homestyled Kashmiri dishes. She offers both the Kashmiri Muslim and Pandit repertoire.

Growth: Weekend private caterings and pop-up festivals with luxury hotels. She uses shared and hired kitchen spaces when orders are larger than what she can cook from home. She has a staff of two who work with her on orders.

 

Misbah Mitha: Tadka Tales

A former fashion designer who, encouraged by the appreciation she got from her friends for her cooking, began catering from home during the lockdown and has not looked back since. She learnt her cooking from her mum and over the years added her own stamp to it through "experimentation and a spirit of adventure."

Aim: To make people realise that home- cooking is not boring. That is strikes the right balance between health, hygiene, wholesome and finger-licking food. She has made it her mission to change current perceptions about home food.

Growth: Apart from her home-cooked meals, she has launched a line of dehyrdrated curries and ready-to-cook dishes. These are aimed at overseas students and young professionals yearning for home-cooked goodness.

 

Madhumita Pyne: Insomniac Cook

She was a documentary filmmaker who started off by making jams, sauces and condiments, before establishing her delivery enterprise and now specialises in Bengali food. She learnt her initial dishes from her mother, then from friends and family; and with time has done research using cookbooks and YouTube videos to perfect and broaden her range.

Aim: To introduce the vast array of dishes available in Bengal and to go beyond conventional Bengali restaurant menus with her offerings.

Growth: She moved to a small independent kitchen set-up in January 2022 and hired help, who she has personally trained.

 

Aaron D’Souza: The Goan Poie

A hotel management graduate and former manager in a restobar who started his home chef enterprise after being forced to sit at home because of the pandemic, he specialises in Goan food. He is inspired by the memory of his father’s cooking, who he lost at the age of eight. He learnt his cooking from his mother, who shared some of his nana’s ‘secret recipes’ too, and his godfather.

Aim: To bring alive lost flavours from his childhood. Of dishes cooked by loved ones who are no more..., "to hear someone say that my cooking reminds them of their dad’s or their nana’s cooking."

Growth: He hired help as business grew to make his poies, puffs, cutlets and rissois. Apart from his weekly menus, corporate pop-ups have offered growth, as have collaborations with fellow home chefs.

 

Anuradha Joshi Medhora: Charoli Foods

She used to be an advertising professional before setting up Charoli Foods to offer the cuisine of the royal kitchens of Malwa (modern Madhya Pradesh) as learnt from family elders.

Aim: To preserve and popularise a cuisine which is slowly fading away.

Growth: After starting from her home kitchen, Anuradha now has a cloud kitchen. She has listed Charoli on Swiggy and Zomato and has collaborated with food curation sites, restaurants and cooking studios. She has standardised recipes and processes but still spends most of her time in the kitchen to ensure that the food retains the touch of her home.

 

Gautam Welkar: Welkar’s Kitchen

A trained chef from Sophia’s with 30 years of experience in running professional kitchens. Gautam opened his home chef enterprise when depression and anger got to him after sitting at home for seven months, “doing nothing unlike earlier when I had 18-hour days. I realised that the only way forward was to start afresh.”

Aim: To introduce Bombayites to the food of Maharashtra which is relatively unknown in the city. Dishes made in home kitchens and which are not to be found in restaurant menus. Inspired by hand-written recipes from his mother, his wife, aunts and friends, and which include recipes from the Pathare Prabhu (to which Gautam belongs), CKP, Saraswat and Goan communities. He used techniques and practices learnt from top chefs through his career of 30 years, to refine cooking processes.

Growth: From starting with a nine-portion order in November 2020, Gautam recently hit 79 orders a day and averages 30 to 40 portions every Sunday. This gave him the confidence to open a cloud kitchen where he hopes to replicate his weekend format on a grander scale.

 

Ashwin Nair & Marian D’costa: Aiyo Patrao

A husband and wife duo who left their jobs to set up their enterprise which offers Kerala and Goan Portuguese homestyled food. They learnt their cooking from their respective mothers and Marian embellished her skills by spending time in the kitchens of her Goan neighbours and relatives. They try to constantly evolve through intense research and practise.

Aim: To contribute to the community of home chefs that promotes regional Indian cuisine.

Growth: After having started from home, they rented a separate kitchen space and have two helpers now to keep up with the growing demand. Their personal involvement remains the same. They have done successful collaborations with a few restaurant brands and fellow home chefs and this has helped them expand their footprint.

 

Shilpa Gupta: Ttttapas by Shilpa Gupta

After running a bespoke furniture brand for 14 years, she started Ttttapas two years back when the pandemic put a brake on her business. She stands apart with her offer of grazing boards, which started with yogurt-based cream cheeses made at home, and is aimed at the audience which is looking for a gourmet international food experience at home

Aim: Shilpa’s biggest joys come from the fact that Ttttapas has served as an outlet for her creativity and has led to considerable appreciation over the last couple of years. The aim is to capitalise on this appreciation and market demand to scale her business.

Growth: Despite the ‘unexpected’ growth, she continues to operate from her home kitchen. This allows her to be able to maintain the quality standards that she has set. Tying up with reputed suppliers and importers and learning to delegate the work to some of her key staff has helped her meet the increase in demand.