11 hours ago
What parenthood brings to hospitality
At Masque restaurant's eighth anniversary celebrations in Mumbai, the service team had a new member helping out. Eight-year-old Aaryaveer Dugar, the youngest of owners Aditi and Aditya Dugar's three children, was assisting a Masque chef in preparing jamun cheesecake kakigoris (Japanese shaved ice dessert) and doing a great job of convincing guests to try them out. It's safe to say that Aaryaveer's station did brisk business that evening. Later, when I asked Aditi if her youngest had any dreams of joining the industry, she said, 'It's not like I'm looking to raise future restaurateurs, but I do believe it's nice for the kids to be in rooms where they learn how a business is run and the kind of hard work that goes in every day."
With Mother's Day and Father's Day behind us, it seems like a good time to examine how parenthood is influencing India's food and beverage scene. At the very core, parenthood and hospitality are both demanding, high-stakes scenarios, and their paths often intersect, particularly during holidays when the pressures in both realms tend to intensify. Balancing a personal and professional life with children is challenging, regardless of the chosen career path. But, how are India's young chefs and restaurateurs dealing with this challenge?
'One of the things I often get asked as a mum and entrepreneur is how I balance it all," said Akhila Srinivas, founder of Bengaluru's Conservatory, which houses several F&B establishments such as Naru and Wine in Progress, in a previous conversation. 'The simple answer is that there is no such thing as balance. It's a matter of prioritisation, at that moment. That's true in business and life."
After several failed experiments with a nanny, chef Bani Nanda and husband-partner Akshay Handa, who both run Miam Patisserie in the National Capital Region, decided to raise their two-and-a-half-year-old Yuv, without professional help. 'It hasn't been easy, but being your own boss makes things easier," says Bani as she tells me about how she's planning to incorporate a day bed, shower and separate area for Yuv at her new central kitchen. 'There is this idea that children take over your entire life. We were clear from the start that he would be a part of our lives and not vice-versa," she explains. Becoming a mother has made her more organised and efficient as a leader. 'I no longer have the luxury of time. Parenthood has taught me how to plan efficiently, work faster and become more productive."
Along the way, parenthood has taught her some unique lessons that she brings to her business: 'I didn't expect Yuv to teach me about management, but from him I learned how to pick my battles and identify non-negotiables." Being dependent on her parents and in-laws to help raise her child meant giving up a certain amount of control. 'There are generational clashes around parenting that happen constantly. It used to bother me a lot. But now that I've identified certain non-negotiables (screen time during meals is an absolute no, but a ladoo at 10pm can be forgiven). It's reduced my anxiety around parenting, and also taught me how to navigate difficult situations at work too."
Chef Vinesh Johny echoes a similar sentiment. 'Much of parenthood is about accepting and adapting. You may plan everything out perfectly, but things will never go as planned. As a chef and especially a baker, this is a very difficult idea to grasp." Vinesh tells me about how he's achieved a certain 'zen-like" quality when dealing with disasters. He narrates an incident about when he and wife-partner Joonie Tan had to scramble to find another location for their Malaysian eatery Kopitiam Lah in Bengaluru, when a neighbour complained about a restaurant moving into the location they had locked, paid for and designed. 'On the first day of construction, we were told we couldn't go ahead. We were three months away from opening. An older version of me would've been riddled with anxiety. But having Zev has taught me how to quickly adapt to tough situations."
For Mumbai restaurant Americano's chef-founder Alex Sanchez, parenthood impacted the kind of leader he is. 'I used to be a young, hot-headed chef. As a father, I've become more attuned to the innocence in other human beings. Being a parent moulds you into a different version of yourself. I now want to create an environment where my people feel supported and encouraged to learn and express themselves," he said to me in an earlier conversation.
Apart from lessons for the parents, hospitality also offers much to the next generation growing up in it. The benefits of being raised by chefs, restaurateurs and professional cooks are many: Bani tells me of her two-and-a-half-year old who relishes everything from dark chocolate to blue cheese and Aditi tells me of how Arjun, her firstborn, staged at Eleven Madison Park for a few weeks last year, an experience he said was very fulfilling for him.
In my interaction with children of hospitality professionals—Pankaj Balachandran and Lakshmi Poovaiah and Vinesh Johny and Joonie Tan—who hang out at their parents' restaurants and establishments every now and then, I've encountered confident, friendly kids who freely interact with people of different ages and backgrounds. Presumably, the social aspect of their parents' jobs has helped their own interpersonal and conversational skills, an invaluable tool in today's day and age when even adults struggle with strangers and social anxiety.
The kids growing up in hospitality are not just unconsciously inheriting a profession; they're cultivating a toolbox of skills, confidence and connections that might well shape the future of the industry itself. When hospitality is woven into everyday life, it ceases to be just a career and becomes a catalyst for building a more connected, curious and compassionate generation.
Word of Mouth is a monthly column on dining out and dining well. Smitha Menon is a food journalist and the host of the Big Food Energy podcast. She posts @ on Instagram
