‘Business is all about hard work and building long-lasting relations’

Before cooking up the recipe for a successful entrepreneurial idea, she conquered the corporate culinary world, rising through the kitchen ranks at ITC Hotels. After gaining an extensive experience in bakery, patisserie and Western cuisine, Chef Akanksha Gulati co-founded Bonsai Hospitality, a consultancy firm, to help restaurants take off successfully. The company has so far opened more than 60 restaurants, be it a fine-dine or a microbrewery. In a conversation with BW HOTELIER, Gulati speaks on balancing her role of a chef with that of an entrepreneur, the services her venture offers and her mantra for success. Excerpts:

Tell us more about the consultancy services you offer?

Bonsai Hospitality is all about creating superlative memorable experiences through food and beverage. I start a project with research on the latest food trends and brainstorm multiple ideas with the client to form a concept. Post that, I undertake menu engineering in agreement with the client. Once this is 80 per cent finalised, I design the kitchen space, flow of work and equipment required in the kitchen. Then I move to assist the clients in selecting what small ware is needed to produce the menu. I also hire chefs and service staff to run the operations and vendors to provide everything required to set up and run the business. Simultaneously, I choose cutlery, crockery and glassware for presentation and service. With the team in place, food trials begin, leading to the presentation of food to the customers. Standard Operating Procedures and menu recipes are defined for training the chefs and servers. Finally, once the client is satisfied, I exit the project physically, but with handholding resolution services over call for the next 60 days.

How do you balance the role of being a chef and a consultant? How much of your time is spent in the kitchen vis-a-vis the time spent on the side-lines guiding others?

My passion of creating happiness of taking new trends in the food industry to the customer and not getting stuck in producing the same food product in the same establishment led me to open a chef-run/ owned consultancy firm. Bonsai Hospitality’s USP is that I, myself, execute the end-to-end kitchen solutions for the client. My work begins with business development for my own company to starting the restaurant, hotel, café or bakery till the first customer walks in. I would say that 70 per cent of my bandwidth is utilised in the kitchen to ensure the backbone, which is the food, beverage and service is strong for repeat clientele. 

Why did you choose to become an entrepreneur instead of following the popular path of establishing an F&B outlet?

The most popular path for most hospitality graduates is to join hotels or branded standalone establishments for training and then join it. As most people, I undertook that path too, rising to the level of Sous Chef at ITC Maurya, after opening ITC Royal Gardenia and ITC Grand Chola. During this period of five years in core luxury hotels, working with the best of chefs from across Europe, UK and USA, I had an epiphany to experiment more with food that gives solace to my creativity rather than producing the menu matrix in the same establishment. To achieve this, I joined a German company as an R&D chef where I had the opportunity to develop new products and dig deeper in the science of cooking. During this period, I met multiple F&B business owners and they gradually started approaching me for out-of-the-box and fusion product development. Having understood the business side of the industry, I decided to take this plunge of being a chef entrepreneur. Chef entrepreneur in F&B industry in the 21st century has become very dynamic and ever evolving as we have the Gen Z who wants to experiment with food. My ability to stand in the hot environment of kitchen and be hands-on due to my passion has let me learn and evolve with time.

What are the latest trends in the F&B industry and where do you see it in the next 10 years?

Sustainability is one of the obvious future trends. The global population has crossed eight billion but unfortunately, our resources aren’t increasing at the same rate. Sustainability is such a broad term as it could start from enveloped plant-based food habits, moving away from dairy and animals in the food chain to, of course, adopting environment-friendly operating procedures such as use of biodegradable packaging. People are now also moving away from processed sugar towards natural sweeteners in smoothies and fresh ingredient-based beverage options.

Another key trend is driven by the fact that the social media has made one of the biggest impacts on the F&B industry as a whole. We need to embrace that online SEO and digital marketing will have to be the core of any restaurant or hotels. Take-outs and delivery, enjoying food in the comfort of the home, will increase its market share in the industry with catalysts such as Zomato and Swiggy. Meanwhile, people also crave fine dine or unique experiences to celebrate occasions, whether it’s travelling to an offbeat destination on the weekend or maybe ordering in at home. Inclusion of AI and ML in marketing campaigns through insight research of consumer data will lead to a paradigm shift in the F&B industry. Use of robots in cooking pre-packaged food is a trend in the Far East and now is picking up a lot in India. Visual immersive experience has become a reality with VFX playing a major role in unique dining experiences.

What’s your mantra for success and your advice to youth, especially young women, starting out in the industry?

My advice is for business leaders of all genders. It’s all about doing hard work and developing long-lasting business relationships. Keep those two things at the top of the list. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from people who know what you don’t. But don’t mistake your inexperience for incompetence. You can always figure it out. And don’t mistake expertise for infallibility. An expert is just someone with more experience than you. It doesn’t mean they always know the answer. Never be afraid to fail and take risks but always remember to fail fast and learn faster.