The Indomitable Culinary Spirit

CHEF MANJIT Gill is one of India’s most celebrated culinary icons. BW Hotelier got the opportunity to hear him speak in an exclusive conversation with Consulting Editor, Sourish Bhattacharyya, entitled Being Manjit Gill, at the BW Hotelier Indian Hospitality Awards and Summit held on March 21-22, 2016 at the Leela Ambience Hotel Gurgaon.

One of most influential people in Gill’s life, he shared with the audience, was his father, who had fought for the British Forces, been captured by the Japanese, joined the INA, before becoming a POW again imprisoned at Red Fort, from where he was released a few days before Independence.

“My father had a very hard life, but he lived to be 98 completely disease free and without medication,” Gill remembered. It was his father, who advised Gill in 1971 to apply for the Hotel Management Course at PUSA, because he thought it was going to be a great career in the future.

However, there was a little problem which Gill had to overcome before becoming the culinary legend that he is. He had grown up a complete vegetarian. “After Partition, my sisters used to attend a Jain school and my parents had made a commitment to be vegetarian, so I grew up without ever having tasted meat or even eggs,” Gill told us.

The first class at catering college changed all that. It was in the larder section and the smell of eggs almost made him vomit. Gill remembers that he could not even break an egg. But he overcame that, like many other obstacles placed before him and after finishing his course, joined the Oberoi as a chef trainee.

“I spent one year working as a coffee shop chef (after two years training) and remember working on the grill, having to make a hollandaise sauce from 90 egg yolks,” he said.

That didn’t however mean that Gill became a non-vegetarian. He insisted, “I managed for many years to cook without tasting meats. But when I reached the level (of executive chef) where the buck stops, I could not say that I won’t eat. Now I can taste--even half a kilo a meat--but my dinner will always be vegetarian”.

Gill joined the Maurya in 1977 in the month of September, when the hotel was still under construction. His job was chef at the Mediterranean restaurant called Takshila where he had the opportunity to work under the legendary Roger Moncourt, who was brought to India by Nehru.

“What we learnt from him were the finer points of French food and of course the basics of European cuisine. He was always standing behind the range with you and would taste everything that you made,” Gill remembers.

His stint at the ITC got a speed bump of sorts, when the young chef quit--after being looked over for promotion--and decided to apply to Cornell University to do some professional courses. Because he didn’t have the money to pay for the course, Gill decided to do a two year stint in Abu Dhabi. “ITC said: we will give you holiday for two years. I earned the money in nine months, went to Cornell for a three month course and was back at work in one year,” he recalled.

When Gill returned, the Maurya didn’t have an Executive Chef, Ashok Ohri was on his way from Stateside. In the meanwhile, Gill was given the responsibility of working out and producing the Christmas and New Year’s menu for the hotel, a huge responsibility on such young shoulders. He excelled at it and later, when Ohri left the company, Gill was given the job of Executive Chef at the age of 27.

When asked who left lasting impressions on him, Gill cited two people. “In February, this year, I had the opportunity to cook for the PM and some dignitaries and after the meal, Mr Modi came to me and shook my hands and said, khana bahut badhiya khilayaa aap ne. I was really touched by his gesture,” he told the gathering.

The other person to be called Gill’s hero would be his friend South African chef Bill Gallagher, who according to Gill is the complete chef.