India Should be known for its Quality of Ingredients: Chef Sanjeev Kapoor

INDIAN CULINARY Forum (North India) and BW Hotelier presented the Fifth Chef Summit 2017 at Hotel Ashok, New Delhi on November 1, 2017. Several hospitality experts and young aspiring chefs came together under one roof to discuss upon ‘Making India a Global Culinary Destination’.

After the enlightening inaugural address by Anil Bhandari, Chairman, AB Concepts who spoke about the need of taking India as a cuisine capital of the world, the first panel discussion focused on the very theme of the whole event ‘Incredible Taste: Making India a Global Culinary Destination’. The esteemed panellists were Gautam Anand, Senior Hotelier (formerly Executive Vice-President with ITC Hotels); Chef Davinder Kumar, President, Indian Culinary Forum; Chef Alex Moser, Executive Chef, Andaz Delhi and Ashish Nehra, Director F&B, Leela Ambience Gurgoan and Sanjeev Kapoor, Padma Shree awardee. The session was moderated by Sourish Bhattarcharya, Consulting Editor, BW Hotelier.

Chef Kapoor paid emphasis to focus upon the food to promote tourism in India. According to the data shared by Chef Kapoor, food as per research is the second most important reason to choose a destination for any traveller. Many countries are using food as their single focus to attract tourism.

Kapoor believes that India is already blessed with a rich heritage; the only thing needed is that India should be known for its quality of ingredients. He gave several examples like the countries Spain and Australia are promoting their tourism through their cuisine.

Bhattarcharya raised the question for Chef Kumar to know his points of action towards making India as a culinary destination.  On replying to that Chef Kumar said, “I believe a chef’s role here plays major importance, our Government need to use the chefs into right perspective. We need more culinary trails happening and there is a need to create various pockets in India.”

Chef Moser spoke about how to turn Indian ingredients as an asset by giving example of Annamaya at The Andaz and how they use the local and available produces as their core ingredients. “For me everything is about the ingredients and why not to work with the products that are available,” he said.

The panel discussion ended on a positive note, expecting some bright output from the World Food India 2017.