FOODIE SPECIAL...................Focaccia in Patna, Lemongrass in Jaipur...

Focaccia in Patna, Lemongrass in Jaipur...





Restaurants of all hue and flavour are booming in non-metros and hitherto "non-cosmopolitan cities"

At Chaandi, a new “Indian“ restau rant at the Hilton Jaipur, I walk in expecting a somewhat lighter “five-star“ version of laal maans, paanchmela dal and the usual mishmash of Rajput and Marwari cuisines that you may expect to eat in the Pink City. Jaipur, of course, is one of my favourite getaways: it has the charms of a small town, still intact in its su pari and kachori, gotta-patti ap pliqué work, faux and “real“ jew ellery -even if these have faded somewhat in the polo matches for which all of Delhi society turns up, the fraying pink of its architecture, and the general crammed chaos.

What comes out from the kitchen is somewhat different.

As I spoon up the gehun ka shorba with lemongrass and bird-eye chilli, the nalli-nihari accompanied by roasted, rose mary flavoured veggies on a sin gle platter and more, I almost let out a little gasp.

This is an incredibly “modern“ meal, the kind you would possi bly encounter in a credible con temporary Indian restaurant in Delhi and Mumbai. And given that we are here at a hotel oper ated by a global chain, that the sophisticated Chaandi should sit here and not in one of the foodie metros is a surprise.

Market perceptions have al ways held Jaipur to be fairly con servative, demanding its own kind of food -and sometimes bastardised versions of Italian (pizza-pasta) or Chinese (that even Niro's, one of its bestknown, “posh“ standalones, dishes out along with laal maans). So, is Chaandi a risk?
If it is, it may be worth it, I am told. It is not just the weekend visitors from Delhi and tourists flocking the Golden Triangle, but even the younger well-to-do Jaipuriites who are keener than ever to go out and experiment.

The new Anokhi café in the city, sitting on one floor of the flagship premises of the retailer, is already a destination of chic citizens -those who like their organic juices and salads; the freshness of ingredients and simplicity of its preparations reminiscent of the likes of Café Turtle that kickstarted the genre in Delhi. Plus, with the new industrial corridor being developed in the region and its resultant young execs and visitors, the demand for interesting food & beverage (F&B) is likely to only go up, I am told by almost everyone I meet.

Jaipur is not the only tier II city that may surprise you with its experiments with more cosmopolitan F&B ideas. Instead, much of what was thought of as “smalltown“ India is slowly but surely ushering in a gastronomical revolution of sorts.

Newer bars and cafés offering food ranging from contemporary Indian to sushi and teppanyaki, from Lebanese and a smattering of Moroccan to Anglo-Indian is making an appearance in places like Patna, Pune, Bhopal, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow, Surat and more.

While the boom in F&B, and the emergence of new and exciting restaurant concepts in the last few years has been focused in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai primarily, other towns are tapping into the aspiration for these now.

“Beyond the four metros, and the four mini-metros -Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Chandigarh, which are already seeing a very visible restaurant boom -the next 5-6 most interesting cities to see a bigger boom would be Pune, Coimbatore, Surat, Jaipur, Vishakhapatnam, and Kochi,“ says Arvind Singhal, chairman, Technopak, a retail consulting firm.

Dinner with Strangers...

Even amongst the four metros, the market for modern food retail is uneven. Restaurateurs with top brands have always been wary, for instance, of entering a market such as Kolkata -despite its stature as a home of connoisseurs.Low APCs (average price per customer) and a clientele seen as unwilling to experiment have been two main worries.

But recent developments may be the beginning of a new turn.The Corner Courtyard in Hazra is a charming boutique hotel, in a restored old home last inhabited in 1904. With just seven rooms and a restaurant, it is a passion project for a young entrepreneur, Megha Agarwal, whose family belongs to the city. Like Agarwal, young blood of an established business family, the restaurant too is modern and young in its sensibilities, even if it sits within a boutique hotel that reminds you of lost Colonial connections.

The menu, done by a consultant chef from Mumbai, focuses on fusion -beetroot hummus, shrimps in chocolate sauce et al.Agarwal has been trying to rev up the business with innovative marketing activities, including a “dinner with strangers“. While both Mumbai and Delhi have their share of such ideas, it is startling to come across it in a city like Kolkata, where, at least the impression is, that “everyone knows everyone“! If Kolkata is an unlikely destination for inventive food retail, what could seem even more unlikely is Patna. But a café called Indian Summer is doing brisk business serving up “world cuisine“ -a mishmash of Indian, Med and other easy-to-eat bites, served in a contemporary way. “The bakery counter there does sales of `12,000-18,000 per day, with people wanting focaccia and ciabatta, custom-made cakes and party desserts“, says Sonia Mohindra, a food consultant.

Sonia and her husband Manu Mohindra run Under One Roof, one of the most successful restaurant consulting companies in India. “Of the 985 restaurants that we have done the world over, only 20% have been in the Indian metros,“ says Mohindra, who shifted focus, about five years ago, to setting up restaurants in cities like Lucknow, Chandigarh and Thiruvananthapuram.

“People do not have options in many of these towns but there is an aspiration to have `something like Big Chill or Zoe,“ says Mohindra. While the cost of lower real estate makes restaurants at least 40% cheaper to set up in many of these towns (except, in the likes of Chandigarh, where real estate is relatively expensive), most of these projects are funded by family money.

Arvind Singhal says that most of these projects are driven by the passion of “entrepreneur-restaurateur“ and are unlikely to become regional or national since they, generally, are difficult to replicate or scale up.Restaurants from smaller towns may be unlikely to scale up. But brands from the metros are nevertheless attempting to penetrate the “hinterland“. With high rents and saturation levels in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, Indian restaurant companies are looking at the Tier II and Tier III cities, though, of course, each step is fraught with risks, given the high level of customisation required to execute the same concept in a smaller town, given lower paying capacities and different exposure levels.

Metro Brands in Smaller Towns

Cybiz Corp, a franchising-consulting company helmed by its chairman Sam Chopra, is now taking some of Delhi's best-known brands to cities like Hyderabad, Pune, Jaipur and Chandigarh. These include brands like OTB, Boombox, Fork You and the Embassy restaurant, one of the oldest in the Capital.

“Not everything can be taken to every city and therefore the idea is to have a bouquet of brands that people investing in the business can pick up,“ Chopra points out. There are three formats that he will operate in: the more formal restaurants, caféswith-bars, and a non-vegetarian Haldiram-type, QSR format.

“In all these smaller towns there are younger entrepreneurs whose families have been business veterans. But these young people want to do something of their own. This is a good option for them to step into the business under some supervision and not merely as investors,“ points out Chopra.

Chopra's company helps potential restaurateurs select the right kind of concept for their location--“in Hyderabad, for instance, it is easier to set up a bar, because licence fee etc is lower; in Bengaluru, it is much more expensive... In Pune, something flashy may not work, while in Chandigarh, it will...“. It customises the menu, hires “good“ chefs because “consistency is key“, and finally places four key executives in the restaurant: the chef, manager, inventory-handler and cashier. It enables national-level media and promotion, including the launch of the restaurant, though local promotion is the domain of the partner.

The modified franchisee concept may be a sensible way of entering the smaller towns. Other restaurateurs are doing similar tweaking. Kylin, a popular Delhi concept by restaura teur Saurabh Khanijo, who is part of a team to now bring Jamie's (the Jamie Oliver brand from London) to India, came up in Chandigarh about two years ago and is a best seller. “It is a good fit for a place like Chandigarh, where people are well travelled and like to eat out. Even so, who would have thought that sushi and teppanyaki would do well in that city,“ says Khanijo.

If Kylin is a brand from Delhi, most of the other restaurants, however, are home-grown. “It is a mistake to think that metro brands will necessarily do well in smaller towns. Many of the home-grown restaurants are frequented by the small upper crust of diners because it is somebody's friend's relative's restaurant. People all know each other and therefore there is greater loyalty to homegrown brands,“ points out Sonia Mohindra of Under One Roof.

In Sync with Global Trends

While diners in smaller towns may not have access to many choices, it is a mistake to assume that tastes are less evolved and the recognition of global trends non-existent.

Places like Goa, Manali and other tourist towns obviously have a pretty high level of exposure to international cooking styles because of the high influx of travelers. But others are catching up. At the Welcomhotel Raviz in Kollam, chef Satyan Pillai, newly returned to his hometown after a long stint with restaurants abroad, is trying to implement concepts such as local gastronomy. He places food firmly in his local, cultural context -going to the local fishmarket every morning, sometimes taking guests along too.

And it is not just the travelers or the tourists who are lapping it up.“Every small town has its gastronomic leaders -younger generation of old inhabitants, who are better travelled, better exposed and who influence tastes,“ points out Sam Chopra. These are the people leading much of this small town gastronomic revolution.

In other places, rising industrial activity, and student populations are all contributing to this sense of cosmopolitanism, so that when a housewife from Surat says she wants to open a health café -it surprises no one!

Anoothi Vishal

ETM23AUG15