Evolving palates
At the second level of Bangalore?s showpiece mall UB City, celebrated chef and entrepreneur Abhijit Saha signals a waiter at his Mediterranean gastronomical joint Fava to ready ?Surf and Turf?. It would combine the goodness of the sea and the land? grilled prawns and a leg of chicken would be cooked in their own juices in this Spanish dish to create an interesting dining wonder. ?
?The world is becoming one large global society,? he says. ?People from Bangalore are travelling abroad; people from abroad are coming here. The eating out culture is on the rise.?
Ask IT honchos and they would say that for every direct employment in India?s technology industry, three to four indirect jobs are created. Lot of Bangalore?s hospitality services boom is because of well-heeled and globe-trotting techies who want new culinary experiences every time they dine out.
Over the past two years, there has been a boom in restaurants serving international fare in Bangalore. The city has seen a rise in the number of celebrity chefs who talk in a language the tech industry can perhaps relate to?they practice ?molecular gastronomy? (marriage of culinary skills and scientific methods); their dishes can be ?techno-emotional? (applying technology to a dish to elicit and emotional reaction); or simply one that propagates wellness (less oil and fat, quality ingredients, lots of herbs).?
Abhijit Saha, for instance, uses avant-garde cooking techniques such as sous-vide, which is a method of cooking under vacuum and fluids such as liquid nitrogen.
Five years back, the city predominantly had Italian and Indian-Chinese restaurants. Wider international cuisine was restricted to the star hotels. With the number of people wanting to experience international food now on the increase, standalone joints have mushroomed. Eating holes now serve French, Spanish, German, Lebanese, Turkish, Moroccan, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Mongolian, Japanese and Tex-Mex, among others.
Celebrity chef of ITC Royal Gardenia Madhu Krishnan says Bangalore is trying to catch up with the gastronomical nerve centres in the country?Mumbai and Delhi?cities that have evolved much faster in terms of variety of food. In September, Gardenia is launching Edo, a Japanese restaurant with a cuisine that would be ?simple, deeply contemplated, and offering premium quality seafood? sourced from Japan.
Japanese cuisine has managed to create its own niche market in the city?what started with Japanese executives from Toyota coming to Bangalore has now expanded to many Indians flooding standalone restaurants like Harima on Residency Road. Many Indian IT firms now do business with Japan or are attempting to crack the market. Many of their employees are being trained in Japanese language and culture and some of them inevitably flock to these restaurants.?
?The demographic profile of the city has changed. Diners now have an evolved palate. They are becoming intolerant of a bad dining experience and don?t want to pay for mediocrity,? Madhu Krishnan says.
The rise of international cuisine in Bangalore has also been boosted by the supply-chain ecosystem. Executive chef of The Taj West End Sandip Narang says there is a spurt in farming in Bangalore that is helping restaurants locally source herbs required in European dishes. ?Besides, India and Bangalore has also seen a lot of chefs who have worked internationally coming to India as salary differentials have now dropped. While Indian salaries have gone up, salaries in recession-hit countries have stagnated,? he says.??
However, in the future, higher real estate and manpower costs can upset the standalone restaurant applecart in Bangalore, many say.
?Margins have come under pressure in recent times. We are not able to charge customers as we need to because of market dynamics,? says Abhijit Saha. For a standalone place, on an average, monthly rental can be 15-20% of the expenses; manpower makes up 20%; food cost is 35% and overheads another 10%. About 15% is what the restaurant can make. Net margins can be lower if the projected sales are not achieved, Saha adds.
A few standalone restaurants have already closed shop over the last few months?one of the last was French Quarters in Indiranagar that served French food from the colonies.
Nevertheless, hospitality entrepreneurs believe that as long as a restaurant is packaged and priced right, it would continue to draw executives from the technology industry looking for innovation on the plate. C’est la vie, a restaurant serving food cooked in Parisian homes and located in the hot IT corridor of Outer Ring Road, has done reasonable numbers thus far. Its owners, Seven India Hospitality, plan to open two more restaurants in the city now.