Gauri Khan's Torii Restaurant Founder Says Fly Or Hair In Food 'Will Happen': 'Nothing Can Change It'

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11 hours ago

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Gauri Khan's restaurant Torii faces heat as co-founder Abhayraj Kohli admits a fly or hair in food is 'part of the job'.
Gauri Khan's Mumbai restaurant Torii often makes headlines when Bollywood stars are photographed dining there. But this time, it's the restaurant's founder Abhayraj Kohli who has sparked a conversation about food safety and hygiene, In a recent chat with Pop Diaries, Abhayraj spoke openly about the challenges of running a high-end restaurant. While stressing that Torii maintains strict hygiene standards, he admitted that certain slip-ups are unavoidable.
'A lot of restaurants, they are not very clean with what they do but restaurants of our caliber, we pay utmost and most importance on how food is treated," he explained. 'It's not only the hygiene of the kitchen or how clean it is but also how the food is stored from the time it comes in from the suppliers to the time it gets on to a person's plate."
The restaurateur went into detail about the importance of storage, especially when it comes to raw dishes like sushi, sashimi and ceviche. 'At Torii, we serve raw meat. We have sushi, sashimi, ceviche, we have raw meats. Is it safe to just remove the meat from the freezer and serve it? No. The food has to be kept in a particular piece of equipment called a superfreezer. And the superfreezer takes the food down to -60 and -70 degrees, which does not let any bacteria grow in the food."
He added that this specialised equipment is essential but still rare in many restaurants. 'I won't be surprised if not more than a handful of restaurants actually have this equipment in their restaurant, which is a standard in any big city. If you don't have this, you can't serve this kind of food."
Despite the emphasis on high standards, Abhayraj admitted that some mistakes are bound to happen. 'And a small probably a fly or insect or a piece of hair that comes into your food, that's part and parcel of doing work. It happens at your homes, it happens at your workplace and it will happen at a restaurant, and nothing can change that."
Torii Paneer Controversy
Torii recently faced controversy after content creator Sarthak Sachdeva accused the eatery of serving 'fake" paneer. The restaurant's chef, Stefan Gadit, later told SCREEN that the buzz only worked in their favour. 'It increased our business and I got more than 20-30 followers on Instagram, so that was a blessing in disguise, I would say," he shared. He added that the video was later taken down after a discussion with Sachdeva.
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