What made this chefpreneur brings 'Old Delhi' flavours to his Restaurant
What made this chefpreneur brings 'Old Delhi' flavours to his Restaurant

‘Ghar ki roti and daal’ always satisfies you. So going back to the roots is the way forward. Keeping this in mind Ashish Massey opened The Ancient Barbeque three years back as he sensed that people are going back to their roots and are were tired of international cuisines as what excites them is their own home-grown original flavour. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Running on response

The response for both of the restaurants has been really good. We are doing well as a restaurant both in Noida and Gurgaon. People are liking our food and based on the response we received we are coming up with two more ventures – one would be a biryani brand called ‘Biryani Bhaijaan’ and other would be an online venture focusing on vegetarian delicacies named ‘Hara Patta’. ‘Biryani Bhaijaan’ would serve flavours from Jama Masjid, Old Delhi area ranging from paaya, shorba, korma and other offerings.

Growth plans

The brand will be catering to Noida and Gurgaon people as they lack the connectivity of being close to Old Delhi charm. The brands will be operational by March. Online would be focusing on DLF Cyber city and Biryani Bhaijaan will start with Sector 50, Sector 62 in Noida, Indirapuram and Xpress way. We are planning to enter franchise next year with Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Why online?

Biryani Bhaijaan is an online cum take away joint because now a day’s rental plays a very important role in any restaurant business. We wanted to eliminate the rental part so as to minimize our cost and that’s why we are coming up with a very pocket friendly model.

Infusing ‘Old Delhi’ flavours

I did my studies from Lucknow exploring the culture and ingredients of the city. After that I moved to Hyderabad inventing spices and recipes from the city of Nawabs that helped me understand the cuisine and culture of Mughal’s and Nawab’s. I learnt and grabbed a lot of things from these cities. The techniques, the spices that they utilise and incorporate in the menu. We will be sourcing the ingredients from Lucknow, khadi bowli to bring out this taste. People should feel that they are eating the lost flavours of Purani Dilli.

Why this food fest?

As the name says, The Ancient Barbeque we wanted to focus on only barbeque food with this festival. We have curated the whole menu from mahi tawa, churrasco machine, sigri and tandoor rotating around barbeque. People should remember us as a barbeque restaurant and not a regular restaurant because when we do buffet concept people have different palates so what happens we curate a menu keeping the varied customer base.

Counting the numbers

In January we got around 13,000 people visiting our both restaurants. We want to cross 18,000 by end of March and hence we are doing the food fest to cross the number. We will be coming with some more festivals in few months to target our customer base.

Food is passion

It is good to be a chef. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and so I thought Why not combine my passion with my profession as restaurant business is never ending business. If you are doing good food people will stick to your brand. We are growing and will grow big soon. I wanted to be a chefpreneur. 

 
Stay on top – Get the daily news from Indian Retailer in your inbox
Also Worth Reading