As his latest venture Qualia Bombay opens in Mumbai, chef-restaurateur rahulakerkar revisits the milestones that made him a household name. design cityscapes newissue
The man behind the wildly popular but now-shuttered Indigo and the newly-opened Qualia writes about his experiences of the good ol’ days….
In the early ’90s, cooking here was not craft-driven, and the restaurant business wasn’t chef driven; the seths counted money in the front while the cooks worked in sweatshops in back. So, when Under The Over opened in Mumbai in April 1992, on my birthday, there was no other dining experience quite like it in the country, outside of a hotel. And when we opened Indigo in a beautiful heritage bungalow in Colaba seven years later, at the turn of the century , there was nothing like that either.
Indigo’s growth graph defeated any expectation. Usually, an establishment has a peak phase and then a plateau before it starts to ebb as a restaurant loses favour. We peaked for 10 years! Even we couldn’t understand it. I spent 5.5 crore rupees on Indigo in 1998. Unheard of! If I looked at that business plan today, I’d throw it in the freaking garbage. I was foolish. But I was driven by something I had to do, more than how I was going to do it.
I like really bright food now, with good acidity, a good play of sweet and sour. The margarita cocktail profile, the chaat flavour profile. That’s why we’ve been doing a lot of pickling of late. I’ve got 500 to 600 jars of pickled produce on the walls at Qualia, a sort of live installation, which we’ll use in the food so that it’s also an interactive experience in some way. Should be fun. Guests will watch us cook and chat with the chefs. It doesn’t matter as long as it’s fun and relaxed.
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