Latest news with #MotiMahal
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Business
- Boston Globe
From physician to food entrepreneur: Meet Tarun Bhalla, cofounder of Meal Mantra
Food is a family tradition. Anu's grandfather, chef Kundan Lal Gujral, pioneered tandoori cuisine. He's credited with creating butter chicken and chicken tikka masala at his restaurant Moti Mahal, a landmark in Delhi. Someday, the couple aim to open a similar chain of Indian restaurants, building off their sauces and family recipes. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up How did you get into the food business? Advertisement We leaned toward where our heart and passion were. And, also, we had a wonderful legacy in our family. I was an internal medical doctor in India, and we went down the entrepreneurial path in India as well. We started a pharmaceutical manufacturing operation that we ran for 20 years. What brought you to this country? We moved to the US rather late in our lives. We were both about to turn 50. Without a job in hand, nobody really makes that move — but we always felt that the US had something that we might want our children to grow up with. For us, the decision to move wasn't one of career or finances. We were doing quite well in our lives in India. It might sound just crazy to you, but it might not. As the years piled on, we found that strength to embark on another adventure. So far, we've been very happy with that choice. Advertisement This sounds like a huge switch, culturally and professionally. It was an idea that was germinating for a few years. When I was a kid in India, physicians would advise on lifestyle changes. When you went in with a chronic disease or something, they would delve a little deeper into your history, ask questions, and offer a few suggestions, which doesn't happen now. We felt that everything cannot be treated with a pill. Our food affects our moods, our health, our bodies. We wanted to be very deliberate. We were runners in our previous life; I'm sorry to admit we kind of let ourselves go after this move into the US. We did marathons and things, but that part of our life got neglected with the pressures of moving. But diet was something we celebrated. India has a slower-moving pace. With family, you often like to eat and celebrate together. Food is always a wonderful part of it. When we moved to the US, our intent was to start a restaurant. We'd often traveled to the US earlier before we made the move. My brother is an oncologist here. We'd visit him, and we always felt that every other cuisine is very well-represented by a chain of consistent restaurants. Advertisement But, with Indian restaurants, you never find that. In fact, it's sad to say that you might have the most wonderful meal today at an Indian restaurant, and you go back a week later, and it just doesn't feel the same. Anu's family has a chain of restaurants in India. Here, one of the primary challenges is finding chefs. Indian cuisine is very intricate, in the play of spices and balance of flavors. Chefs often change. It's hard to have consistency. With the sauces, we really wanted to put in the back end of our business correctly before we took on the challenge of [opening]. How did you get underway here in the US? When we moved here, we got talking to people, and one thing led to another. We found that there were commissaries and shared kitchens where we could test our recipes. Believe me: It took many, many months before that, in our home, where we tried to work on recipes that we could then scale up. This is where my prior experience with my pharmaceutical background helped. We became very good at operations. I'm a methodical person, and my wife is totally differently abled than me. She's the creative one. What was your first impression of Boston? I have a lot to say. In retrospect, we're so glad we chose Boston. For us, it was just [throwing] darts on a board. We didn't have any connections to Boston when we chose it. But my wife was very keen that we go to a place with good schools, since our son was still in school. It was kind of a global city where we could set up and hope for an Indian food business to find success. Advertisement We're so glad we made that choice. We've not felt out of place for a day. It seems we've lived here all our lives. We've just been very fortunate and lucky. Was the Boston Public Library your first public venue? Where else can we find your food now? It was the first. It was an experiment for us. I'm so grateful for whatever conspired. We had such a wonderful experience and success. We're still receiving letters — emails, really — from the staff at The Catered Affair saying what a wonderful success it was, that they're still hearing from people who visited during our takeover and wondering where we are. Now, we're at Whole Foods and local farms: Pemberton Farms and Volante and others. Boston Public Library was our first public-facing venue, but our sauces are served at Boston College and, of late, at the Boston Public Schools. We're looking for our next opportunity. We'd like to team with other people and maybe achieve that dream of opening a chain of restaurants. We can't do it by ourselves, but we've proved our concept with this takeover: We'd often run out of food. You know, you can get paid $800 or $900, on a good day. Maybe you don't make that. But what you make is far greater because people stop by. They take the time to call you to their table. They talk to you about the food. There was a couple who were celebrating an anniversary at the library, and they called for us from the kitchen to say what a wonderful meal they had and how memorable it was for them. It's kindness that sustains you far more than money can, and we'll carry it in our hearts. Advertisement How do you describe your food? We're bad at getting the word out. But, you know, it's our sauces: Some sauces have ingredients as starch. We don't use that, and neither would you, if you were an Indian cooking in your own kitchen. They're just to make commercial products. Our sauces are made with real ingredients. There are no artificial ingredients. They have a signature taste. People write to us who have used them, and it's so gratifying to hear from them. Our best-selling sauce is the tikka masala, which is essentially something my [wife's grandfather] invented. If you Google his name, you'll find him mentioned, even though he died many years before the internet. He started a restaurant [Moti Mahal] 100 years back. There are more than 200 of them globally; so far, none in the US. There are knockoffs, because nobody thought of trademarking the name of the restaurant. In fact, there's a wonderful story. Soon after independence, the Shah of Iran visited India. On his visit, he was told by the education minister who took him around: 'While in India, you have to make two visits. One is the Taj Mahal. The other is Moti Mahal.' It was just comfort food and good food, and at that time, there used to be entertainment and live performances. Where do you eat when you're not working? We love Thai. Our current favorite is a Thai restaurant in Brookline called Advertisement Do you ever use your medical experience in your cooking? Yes, in the sense that I'm very conversant with a lot of chemicals, which we used to use in pharmaceuticals. Sometimes, I'll tell my family not to consume too many over-the-counter medicines, when you know all the chemicals that have gone into it. When it came to deciding on the acid we use for our sauces, you have to have a certain pH for it to be shelf stable. We chose an acid, glucono-delta-lactone, which is non-GMO, plant-derived, found in honey, fruits, and other fermented products. Our sauces are really deliberate in that respect; it's a very mild acid that gets converted to sugar — a glucose precursor that's very nice. Your food is healthy. It's good for you. It is, I'm proud to say, with a little care and love. What's one snack that you can't live without? Food I'll never eat? I'm not sure. I'm happy to experiment. When I was a kid, for example, I never ate eggplant. I love it now. Our tastes evolve over time. If there's a food I don't like, maybe give it time, and I'll like it. What do you snack on? I snack on a lot of nuts every day: Trader Joe's toasted, unsalted almonds. Interview was edited and condensed. Kara Baskin can be reached at
Mint
04-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Daryaganj Hospitality aims to more than triple restaurant count to 50 by FY30
North Indian restaurant chain Daryaganj Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which is locked in a legal battle with rival Moti Mahal over who invented the popular butter chicken dish, plans to expand from 15 outlets currently to 50 in three to five years, co-founder and chief executive officer Amit Bagga said. Also Read | Sake sips and elevated Japanese at this new restaurant in Mumbai The company has earmarked ₹60 crore for the expansion, which will be funded through a mix of internal accruals and private investments from family offices. 'We're profitable since the pandemic and could fund our growth internally as well, and will focus on the top eight cities in India to grow for now," Bagga told Mint. In FY25, the company registered a gross revenue of ₹100 crore. 'We expect to grow to ₹120 crore by the end of FY26 on the back of both same-store growth as well as some new outlets being added," he said. Also Read | Aloo tuk bravas and butter chicken romesco at Vicky Ratnani's new restaurant "Cuisine wise, the country's biggest eating-out cuisine is north Indian food and we wanted to primarily build restaurants which target families and wanted to go after the middle-of-the-range price point of ₹800-900 per person, which is a sweet spot where we did not see much competition," Bagga said. So far, the company is bootstrapped and self-funded. "We are now looking at funding from family offices," he said. The company's founder and promoter is Raghav Jaggi and all restaurants are owned and operated by the company and not franchised. By the end of the FY26, the company intends to increase its restaurant count to 20, including a few delivery kitchens, and has a strong presence in north Indian markets like Delhi-NCR. Next, it will target the top eight cites of the country to grow, including Mumbai and Bengaluru. Also Read | Profit squeeze drives Indian restaurants to seek new delivery paths The growth push comes even as Daryaganj remains locked in a legal battle with Moti Mahal over who owns the rights to inventing popular dishes like butter chicken and dal makhani. Owners of Daryaganj have contended that their ancestor, Kundan Lal Jaggi, was key to the founding of the original Moti Mahal in Peshawar in 1947 and also in the creation of the butter chicken recipe. Moti Mahal counters that by saying that its late founder, Kundan Lal Gujral, invented the dish and brought it to India from Peshawar post-Partition, and has filed a case against Daryaganj, alleging trademark infringement, passing off, and using a manipulated photograph of the original Peshawar restaurant. Daryaganj has emphasized that the photograph used by Moti Mahal is a joint property, as the restaurant was established by both Kundan Lal Gujral and Kundan Lal Jaggi. Daryaganj registered the "Inventors of Butter Chicken & Dal Makhani" tagline as a trademark in 2023 without any objections. The matter is currently before the Delhi high court. Moti Mahal in Daryaganj, Delhi, was founded by Kundan Lal Gujral, Thakur Das Magu and Kundan Lal Jaggi. In 1992, all three partners of the Moti Mahal business exited and sold the business to a fourth person Vinod Chadha. Since the early 1990s, Chadha has overseen this restaurant. The overall food services market is projected to grow from ₹5.69 trillion in 2024 to ₹7.76 trillion by 2028, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1%, according to a July 2024 report by the National Restaurant Association of India. In FY24, casual dining, the segment Daryaganj operates in, held the largest share in the organized food segment, accounting for 48.6%. Today, about 25% of the company's business comes from deliveries. "We pivoted to deliveries during covid, but have still seen a consistent demand in business in this segment. Delivery has eaten into the home cooking segment, but not the dining-out segment, so we don't feel there is any cannibalization," said Bagga. Earlier this year, the company also expanded to its first international location, in Bangkok, Thailand with a higher end, more modern restaurant version of Daryaganj Gold, with some modern fusion dishes. It also plans to enter other markets like the UK and the UAE. In future, it intends to add other divisions like fast casual dining in elevated or premium food courts as well as in the artisanal Indian sweets. It would also consider taking its Bangkok Gold concept to other five-star hotel locations in India as well.
Time of India
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Yadav announces development projects for monuments & forts built by Gond kings
Bhopal: Chief minister Mohan Yadav announced development projects for monuments and forts built by Gond kings of tribal community while participating in the two-day ' Aadi Utsav ' at Ramnagar in Mandla on Monday. He also declared that Rs 1600 crore was being allocated under the PESA Act for conservation of water, forests, and land in Baiga, Bharia, and Sahariya tribal areas. Yadav said structures such as Moti Mahal, Rani Mahal, and the memorials of Raja Shankar Shah, Kunwar Raghunath Shah, and Rani Durgavati in Ramnagar and Mandla will be included in the development projects. While addressing the gathering at the event, the chief minister asked collector Somesh Mishra from the stage to make a proposal for developing 'Madhya' — a site in Ramnagar — which will include a seating arrangement for 5000 people, drinking water facilities, and accommodation infrastructure. "Great tribal heroes like Raja Hriday Shah, Raja Shankar Shah, Kunwar Raghunath Shah, Rani Durgavati, Birsa Munda, and Tantya Mama fought with pride, dignity, and valour for the country's freedom. They stood up to protect water, land, forests, and their identity. These tribal legends of our state and country made us proud. In their honour, Krantisurya Tantya Mama University has been established in Khargone," Yadav said. On the occasion, the chief minister visited Moti Mahal built by Hriday Shah and inaugurated a folk art exhibition. He also laid foundation stone and inaugurated development work worth Rs 61 crore in the area.
