Journey of Saransh Goila: From Veggie Roots to Butter Chicken Fame

[00:00:11] Hi, this is Kiran Manral. I am back with another episode of Chasing Creativity and today I have

[00:00:16] with me a very dear friend Saransh Goila who was on the food scene with food reality shows

[00:00:24] and then he has gone on to a trademark or dish that we are also familiar with but infuse

[00:00:29] it with his own special something, Goila's Butter Chicken. Welcome to the show Saransh.

[00:00:34] Thank you Kiran. First of all it's a pleasure being here. We became friends on Twitter and

[00:00:41] that means we are pretty dated. We are carbon dating as well. This was way back before you

[00:00:49] even launched your Butter Chicken. Absolutely. And I've been watching your journey since

[00:00:53] it's amazing, it's inspiring and it's everything a young person who wants to get into the food

[00:00:59] scene but doesn't know what to do. It's like a step by step how do I get there? So I'm

[00:01:05] very curious Saransh. I just learned that you're a Marwari and you're a Marwari who

[00:01:12] trademark Butter Chicken. The tough one. How did that happen?

[00:01:17] So I'm like my grandmother is a Marwari. Dad's side is Baniya. So we are Baniya Marwari.

[00:01:24] Baniya. Both. And mom is a Sindhi. Okay. So yeah, like I'm like a combination of Baniya

[00:01:29] Marwari, Sindhi. So I think business is in my genes. Lovely. Maybe not not Butter

[00:01:34] Chicken for sure but I think when you grow up in Delhi and I grew up like in a very

[00:01:39] North Delhi neighborhood, you feel like you're a Punjabi. Also a surname Goila

[00:01:44] feels like it's a Punjabi surname even though we are not. I realized that when I became a chef,

[00:01:52] I had to let go of my vegetarianism household. Like as a chef I had to try everything. Did

[00:01:59] you grow up a vegetarian? Yes. For the first 18 years of my life, I was a vegetarian. So I'm not

[00:02:05] one of those people who say Butter Chicken was my favorite dish and I made something out of it.

[00:02:10] I ate my first Butter Chicken when I turned 20. So that's pretty late to the Butter Chicken Party.

[00:02:15] That's very, very interesting. You were late to the Butter Chicken Party but I'm sure there was

[00:02:19] always food on the scene while you were growing up. So how did the interesting food come about?

[00:02:24] How did that start? I think if you look at two decades back where Indian households were

[00:02:29] still pretty stereotypical where housewives or women of the house are supposed to be

[00:02:36] the cooks and men do all the work and now it's fully shifted. But in that time,

[00:02:43] when I would only see my mom and my grandmother cooking in the kitchen,

[00:02:47] every weekend my grandfather would step up and be in the kitchen and spend the whole day

[00:02:52] Saturday and Sunday either helping my grandmother or helping my mother and I found

[00:02:58] that unusual because I did not see any other kid speaking about it or even being a part of

[00:03:04] it. So my family always encouraged stepping into the kitchen even as a young boy and I have a younger

[00:03:11] sister. So it was never like, oh, this is the boy so why should he go to the kitchen? So they were

[00:03:18] very supporting of the fact that food was a happy place and my grandfather would make me a part

[00:03:24] of his weekend cooking ritual. I would be cooking like some Pahadi Dum Aloo with him for

[00:03:30] rolling out like a Sack Paratha with my grandmother. So it is funny but I it became sort of my

[00:03:37] playground early on I would not be playing cricket outside, I would be rolling chapatis or

[00:03:42] making Jalebi's helping my mother in the kitchen. So then it came to me naturally also

[00:03:49] and my family was pretty supportive of me being in the kitchen so that's where I picked it up

[00:03:52] from. So my grandfather's Sunday binge and watching chefs and jeef Kapoor on Khanna Khazana.

[00:04:00] I used to maintain a recipe book of all the recipes that I saw on his show. It was 100 plus recipes

[00:04:06] that I maintained and I was only 13 years old when I started watching his show. So that time span

[00:04:11] from 13 to 18 year old is those five years I really cooked a lot with my grandparents and

[00:04:19] my mother. So I think that's where it all started. That's the start of your journey into

[00:04:24] food but back then also it's not so back then but you know you and it still is continuous today. You

[00:04:32] get into engineering or you get into medical or you get into CA, lawyer when you told them you want

[00:04:39] to be a chef and you want to train and study in food for say resistance. You know Paniya family

[00:04:46] What is this guy doing? So to be honest my parents vision of for me was to become a biotechnologist.

[00:04:54] That's how they saw me so I took science after 10th grade you know how you take science, commerce or arts

[00:05:00] so I was the science student in school so their expectation was that I would I would

[00:05:06] enroll myself into a biotechnology course. I wanted to become an actor really it was first

[00:05:13] an actor and then a chef. So for me number two priority was to become a chef. So they thought

[00:05:19] the chef was lesser of the two evils. Yes that is exactly how it plays out but my grandfather

[00:05:26] always thought that I will make for a fabulous cook. He kept saying,

[00:05:30] get him to do hotel management. His hand in food is very good and I'm assuming all

[00:05:37] grandparents or parents have their bias towards their kids but he really felt that I had

[00:05:43] this is how he would put it and after listening to him I was pretty excited. I was like,

[00:05:50] okay if you are not an actor then I am very happy to go to a hotel management school and

[00:05:55] try and become a chef because I used to love cooking and I still love cooking but

[00:06:01] when you are young and you like something very from a pure hearted sort of passion

[00:06:08] that's what I had for food and I cleared all the best colleges like admission wise it was

[00:06:15] IHM Aurangabad that I chose which is a Taj Gu Po hotel's college and I straight up went for a

[00:06:21] culinary course so I didn't do a proper hotel management course. I did a three year diploma in

[00:06:26] culinary arts so it was through and through about food. Okay specialized in food but

[00:06:31] I think you got an opportunity to satisfy the actor the unfulfilled actor and you when

[00:06:36] you went from the reality show eventually I did. I did not let go of it even in school I was a theater

[00:06:42] actor and when I went to college I sort of kept it alive in small formats doing activities in

[00:06:49] college a culinary college does not give you much opportunities but when I got my first job at

[00:06:55] the Leela I still remember there was this huge Christmas gala that was happening

[00:07:03] in the Leela and the exact chef there pointed out that this kid knows has got a gift of the gap

[00:07:11] he knows how to talk so how about we give him the opportunity to talk to our audience today

[00:07:19] about the Christmas menu and they put me on the podium so instead of getting a stand-up comic

[00:07:24] they got me. Oh lovely. So they were like you leave the kitchen thing you go out and you

[00:07:29] that was your first taste of my first taste of being a food presenter or a food emcee

[00:07:36] in a way on the stage and I did so well that they gave me a bonus that month and I quit my job

[00:07:45] because I realized that I am actually so good at this that not many people have the skill

[00:07:52] of being able to speak or orate about their love for food so I realized that the way I can talk about

[00:08:00] food not many other people can I can explain myself and that gives me an edge over other people

[00:08:07] in the industry so I straight away quit my job moved to Mumbai and I did an acting course

[00:08:13] I went to Barry Jones acting studio this is a very interesting nugget I did because

[00:08:19] I had this weird idea in my head that if I became a professional chef and a professional actor

[00:08:24] I would combine the two and become a TV chef okay so I thought that there was

[00:08:31] a way of cracking this from technically and not just be like

[00:08:38] So a Sanjeev Kapoor like an icon at that point 100% because you were watching him from 13 to 18

[00:08:45] you said yeah he was the mentor or he became a mentor later but for me he was my idol

[00:08:52] the way he presented himself on on television the way he conducted himself the way he narrated

[00:08:58] his recipes people were like we were all starstruck for two decades and so I think I used him as

[00:09:08] an example to be able to crack this in a way where I actually dropped a shory to his office

[00:09:15] saying that I'm a chef who's also an actor after after graduating from Barry Jones acting studio

[00:09:22] where I did a six month course and I made a shory of me doing a little cooking show

[00:09:28] and I heard back from them one and a half years later oh mother of Christ one and a

[00:09:33] half years later I was I got lucky that they remembered me actually I find myself lucky there

[00:09:39] because I had knocked a lot of doors at that time there was an NDTV Good Times there was Foxen

[00:09:45] Foxen Travel there was Nat Geo there was Food Food Z Cafe they were like the food channels

[00:09:52] are mushrooming up everywhere but I think the CEO of Chef Sanjeev Kapoor's channel remembered me

[00:10:00] and they were going to do this reality show called Mahachalenge and they said this young boy might

[00:10:07] just fit perfectly in that show so let's invite him for an audition so that's how I got my call

[00:10:14] and a little risk to reward ratio is how I look at it I think my risk paid off it took some

[00:10:20] time it paid off in two years of me quitting my job but once I found that opportunity I held

[00:10:27] onto it with my whole soul and then I was the youngest participant on that show how old were you

[00:10:35] then I was 24 24 and it was the show was spread over 13 weeks it was pre-master chef master

[00:10:46] ship India was just coming to India and chefs and jeeps and he's always ahead on these things

[00:10:51] he launched his own master chef called Mahachalenge and Madhu Hidikshit was the co-host on that show

[00:11:00] and yeah after 13 weeks of battling it out on the set I went on to win that show

[00:11:06] and I think that changed my life because the winner of that show gets to do his own show

[00:11:12] on the channel called Food Food so that gave me that opportunity that I was looking for

[00:11:18] and I and Cherry on the cake was the show that I got as a gift after winning this show

[00:11:24] was a travel show okay which fully changes my life because that is a travel show where I got to

[00:11:31] travel to 60 cities of India 20,000 kilometers by road across 100 days and I was almost 25

[00:11:40] by the time that show was filmed and I was done I think I started looking at food very

[00:11:47] differently from where I started to what I experienced to what I wanted to become I think it changed

[00:11:54] my entire notion about food I was like oh my god I know nothing about Indian food and I realized that

[00:12:02] people or chefs cooking in the kitchen also knew nothing about Indian food what we were taught

[00:12:08] what we learned on the job it was only an iota of the ocean and it was all untouched

[00:12:16] like in today's day and age now we speak about regional cuisines we talk about different communities

[00:12:22] not so not so so like recently like 2010 or 2012 I remember nobody

[00:12:30] speaking about Litty Chokha or speaking about Dhooska from Jharkhand or you know speaking about

[00:12:37] cheese from Jamu Kaladi so all of this has come to the forefront now and I got to see all of that

[00:12:46] 10 years back and I felt like I felt pretty rich as a person because I had gained so much

[00:12:54] from just traveling meeting people in different cities sitting in their homes

[00:12:59] like sharing meals with them that was a very simple formatted show it was literally about you just show

[00:13:05] up to somebody's house we had done of course some research we'd spoken to people and it was

[00:13:11] pretty free flowing they're like you feed him whatever you want to feed him and people

[00:13:15] in India are incredible because they will pull out as a Khazana they will take out okay I got this

[00:13:22] mid-high for you from this person this lady has been making it for 40 years and suddenly you start

[00:13:28] realizing the value of food in our country and even though I run a butter chicken venture but

[00:13:37] our cuisine is not just about butter chicken darling of course and and I'll write it to so

[00:13:41] much more so I remember that you brought out a book on this entire journey and I remember

[00:13:47] moderating that conversation at the launch and because I had to moderate the conversation I read

[00:13:53] the book and I remember thinking that this guy is so lucky he gets to travel he gets to eat

[00:13:59] he has to be on a show and then after that the book came out and after that you went in

[00:14:04] a different direction completely I mean you had your show of course but you got into entrepreneurship

[00:14:09] yeah and you sort of I would say patented the butter chicken with a very different

[00:14:17] texture flavor all of that so how did this idea of taking something as generic as butter chicken

[00:14:24] and making it your own come about sometimes it's you know as in you rightly pointed out that I was

[00:14:32] going on a very different path I wanted to be this chef traveler who collects recipes from across

[00:14:39] the country sometimes life just has different plans for you and in this in this in my story

[00:14:47] tells how to be butter chicken I every time I'm asked which is this your favorite dish and I tell

[00:14:54] people no butter chicken is not my favorite dish I think it is a dish that is so loved that

[00:15:01] when I found a good recipe of it I think it became my favorite thing to cook because

[00:15:08] while I was pursuing my TV career and I was traveling across the country I used to do these food

[00:15:15] pop-ups in Mumbai where I would meet people from Twitter from Facebook friends whom I had met I

[00:15:21] had not never met but I met them online but never met face to face yes so I would invite them

[00:15:26] to my home or sometimes to my pop-ups to come and experience my cuisine or things that I've

[00:15:32] learned from my travels and butter chicken would feature there because it would remind me of

[00:15:36] from Delhi or my friends would love butter chicken and interestingly the butter chicken recipe that

[00:15:43] I was making was derived from a vegetarian recipe okay which I had made for my parents because my

[00:15:49] family is fully vegetarian no goela has ever eaten butter chicken apart from me they haven't even

[00:15:54] been tempted to try yours no because they get exactly that but with paneer okay

[00:16:04] vegetarians or people who eat butter paneer masala or you know paneer makhani sometimes feel cheated

[00:16:10] because they're like oh my god look at the butter chicken eaters they are all like licking their

[00:16:15] fingers ordering extra naans while we have to eat methi because there's too much sugar too

[00:16:20] much cream for some reason they make the butter paneer look like you know like a shahi

[00:16:25] tukda I don't know why so I wanted to change that for my parents so I made a recipe which

[00:16:31] was robust it had extra smokiness it was low on fat it had a bouquet garni or spices so it had more depth

[00:16:43] good balance of khatta, meetha only fresh tomato no puree no ketchup things like that

[00:16:50] so I think they would they'd love they said this is the best butter paneer they've had in my life

[00:16:55] but I am like okay my parents of course they will say that but then from parents it went to

[00:17:01] uncles and aunts from there it went to extended family then to friends and family then to these pop-ups

[00:17:07] in Mumbai this recipe started featuring in all my places because people were asking for it again

[00:17:13] and again but in Bombay it took a different whole shape because when friends whom I had made on

[00:17:21] Twitter and Facebook they started coming two of those now my few of my best friends in Bombay

[00:17:26] they started a hashtag called Goyalap butter chicken so the name is Nikhil Naanish both of them are like

[00:17:32] food people Nikhil Merchant and Anish Parsi yes foodies both foodies yeah both both great food people

[00:17:41] so they made this hashtag and that hashtag picked up on Twitter and Facebook where people started

[00:17:48] asking where do you find this Goyalap butter chicken and it it literally started hounding me

[00:17:55] like people started catching me at airports really started like any chat like if I would drop a recipe

[00:18:01] or I would give a life update people like both sub to the keva butter chicken

[00:18:07] it literally was like my life became about this butter chicken even before the venture

[00:18:12] launched so I realized that it would be a disservice to not give to not give people this recipe

[00:18:21] I in fact shared the whole recipe on youtube you did so they can make it at home but they like

[00:18:27] you want to eat it because you invite people at home this can't be this is not done you can't

[00:18:33] be that elitist chef who's inviting people at home but not serving people who love what you do

[00:18:39] your recipe so I think I got sort of caught up in this emotion of wanting to serve people

[00:18:47] that recipe that they wanted to be served and my friend and co-founder Vivek he had recently

[00:18:55] moved from Indore to Mumbai he was my batch mate from college okay and and he's the one who had

[00:19:02] seen this recipe being made in college because I actually came up with this recipe back in college

[00:19:07] back in college okay and that's when I had made it for my parents and I had no clue it's going to

[00:19:12] become what it has today so he moved here and I took that as a sign that I'm like you know what

[00:19:19] this is coming back a full circle I made this recipe with him he's here and he was looking for

[00:19:24] work to do in Mumbai so I asked him will you want to start this venture with me we'll keep

[00:19:29] it old school we'll open until dhaba in indheri only takeaway and delivery I don't want any

[00:19:36] restaurant because if I open a restaurant then I will not be able to pursue my other side of things

[00:19:43] which is I love television I love to make content I don't want to let go of it so delivery kitchen

[00:19:50] might give me that opportunity to do both and he agreed on it and June 2016 we launched goelab

[00:19:57] at the first kitchen started in Andheri and from there it grew and I remember your initial

[00:20:03] launch campaign you were all over Twitter it became huge it became really really popular

[00:20:09] at what point did the chef become and decide that I'm going to be an entrepreneur first and a chef

[00:20:15] secondly because that was a huge decision I think like no it's not something you can't take that

[00:20:20] easily it's a tough one like I think I still feel divided about it okay it's a constant struggle

[00:20:27] to remind yourself that everything that you do as a person it it comes from a place where you love

[00:20:37] food that's how this journey started like my grandfather used to say a friend in need is a

[00:20:42] friend indeed but a friend who can feed is the friend you need okay so it's a fun play of words

[00:20:50] and I come from that school of thought that that's my love for food but when you take it up

[00:20:56] when your passion becomes your profession of course there's a lot of change that happens in the way you

[00:21:04] look at your passion in the way you nurture it and in the way it grows sometimes you have no control

[00:21:10] over it and I think that's what I've learned out of this journey of goelab at a chicken

[00:21:15] where I realized that donning a hat of an entrepreneur was the most important to make

[00:21:21] this successful which which meant that when we started it both awakened me or chefs

[00:21:26] it was self-funded we invested whatever a small amount of savings I think about 10

[00:21:33] 10 lakhs each into this venture and it was it wasn't much so we started it from

[00:21:41] like a bear shell kitchen we wanted to just serve eight dishes including breads and one or two

[00:21:50] starters and we wanted to keep it very simple but as soon as you start serving it to people

[00:21:57] it's like a expectation versus reality sort of a situation but you also realize that people

[00:22:02] follow you they've been following you for years in my case they had seen me on television

[00:22:07] their expectations were more they're like okay we need to see nice packaging we need to see

[00:22:14] while they were appreciating the food they also wanted to appreciate other parts of it

[00:22:18] what kind of branding do you have okay okay is it cool is it young is it vibrant so those

[00:22:25] kind of questions started to come in and and I realized that for this to live a long life we'll

[00:22:33] have to think of it as a proper brand okay this can't just be adhabah like the way I started it

[00:22:40] or in my mind how it was so we started looking at it from a more entrepreneurial side or a business

[00:22:48] perspective okay right side of marketing right kind of packaging how do we make sure that we are

[00:22:57] delivering it on time how do we crack our partnership with Zomato and Swiggy data became

[00:23:04] like as a chef I had never heard of the word data in my I knew what data is but I never bothered

[00:23:11] learning about what does data mean in the world of food I think it was non-existent before the

[00:23:16] delivery apps came because all of us would start restaurants on a gut feeling my family likes it

[00:23:21] my friends like it let's start a restaurant or you would feed feel there's a gap of an Italian

[00:23:26] food restaurant or an Indian food restaurant in this market and you will open it so

[00:23:30] but in today's day and age if you want to open a restaurant you will get proper data

[00:23:35] which means how many people here are working what age groups families or individuals so you get all

[00:23:45] that data and then you use it to start a restaurant or a cloud kitchen so informed decisions now

[00:23:51] informed decisions so I think we started making those we realized that producto is key we have

[00:23:58] to serve the tastiest butter chicken that you would have ever eaten but coupled with tech and data

[00:24:06] it could become into something that we did not have in this country which meant a standardized

[00:24:13] curry venture or a north Indian venture that one could put some method to this madness where you

[00:24:21] do it for the new for the Gen Z or the millennial audience that's the audience we were going for

[00:24:30] so so yeah so I think that's where I started to realize that I will have to be more open to

[00:24:37] looking at this venture from a different perspective and not just ever chef so I started going to

[00:24:43] a lot of panels where I met founders for different brands I started meeting a lot of

[00:24:49] different kind of founders not just in the world of food okay which meant founders who started F&B

[00:24:58] brands maybe retail brands or D2C brands so that really opened my mind that it's not as a chef I

[00:25:07] don't have to think of it from a uni-dimensional standpoint that a chef can run his kitchen

[00:25:14] only like this I realized there are several possibilities of running this business

[00:25:20] and I found myself not on the restaurant side of things I found myself on the cloud kitchen side

[00:25:27] of things and I was a we were early movers in that space which meant there were no chef-driven

[00:25:33] brands in the cloud kitchen space in 2016 we were practically the only ones okay which meant

[00:25:42] there was a whole side of tech who was selling food and that was the only food that was being sold

[00:25:49] on the matter in swiggy or their restaurants who were listing themselves on these platforms

[00:25:54] but there was no focused delivery brand that had started which was done by

[00:26:01] chefs so we were sort of I think one of the first few ones and that sort of I think paid off

[00:26:09] you started it you said with only eight dishes eight or ten dishes and you were the only cloud

[00:26:14] kitchen brand that is driven by a chef that is headed you were the face of the brand now when

[00:26:19] you're going to scale up A you need more dishes yeah B scaling up means that the sort of control

[00:26:27] that you have on the quality of the product also needs to be standardized and uniform across

[00:26:31] so what are the challenges you faced and especially now that you've scaled up so much

[00:26:34] how many of your hundred outlets hundred kitchens with food and especially with Indian food it can be very

[00:26:41] challenging every time you're meeting investors they'll tell you no it is you can't scale up

[00:26:48] an Indian food brand no you can't become a McDonald's you can't become a Dominos okay because

[00:26:55] Indian food for the Indian audience is definitely a challenge when you're scaling up because

[00:27:00] you have competition every two kilometer kilometers with a local dhaba or with a local

[00:27:06] eatery which will which takes good care of you because it's run by two friends like how

[00:27:15] a vacant you started or it's run by families but it's just run by people who like selling food so

[00:27:24] technically you're going to become competition to all of them when you start scaling up

[00:27:27] and you're going to go to different cities you're going to go to different regions

[00:27:31] and you will not be there yourself physically so how do you instill the same value same emotion

[00:27:38] same passion when you grow and for Indian food it becomes all the more important

[00:27:44] so first mistake we made was we thought that if we instill the same values and passion

[00:27:51] is going to work and if I get the right chefs if I get the right managers if I pay great salary

[00:27:58] it's going to all work out really well and we did that for our first five or six stores when we went

[00:28:05] from one to from from Andheri to Bandra to lower Pareil to chamber there was a first scale

[00:28:11] up within the city even then we realized okay this is not how it's going to work okay we had

[00:28:16] a large 2000 square feet kitchen in chamber which shut in the first year of opening really because

[00:28:21] we made so many mistakes what were the learnings from that it was that as chefs we hold on to few

[00:28:33] things very close to our heart which means if I have to cook my butter chicken in step A B C D E

[00:28:40] I am not going to sacrifice that it has to be cooked in A B C D E format it can't become A B C and

[00:28:47] it's done so I held on to that for almost four years of starting this venture and I think that

[00:28:54] became the biggest problem of me holding on to things very close to my heart then we found

[00:29:02] a great mentor and his name is Karan who was running this cloud kitchen business and he was already

[00:29:11] running some 2025 kitchens he said I just want to help you guys out where I want to break this

[00:29:18] notion of yours he cloud kitchen business as chefs you can only run like that he just

[00:29:22] tried few things out with me I want to see if you like them so he made us change our process

[00:29:30] of the way we manufacture I'm literally want to say manufacture because not when you start cooking

[00:29:36] at scale it's no more cooking you're manufacturing you're a factory and people get very scared of

[00:29:43] of thinking about food like that and I don't know why because it's it's obvious when you're feeding

[00:29:50] food at scale you're mass producing food even temples do that for longers you do that

[00:29:57] so I find it odd when people think of food at scale the thing like oh my god something is getting

[00:30:02] compromised I used to be the same person despite being technically sound and and seeing how food

[00:30:10] is made when you think of food being produced at thousands of kgs or in quantum that you can't

[00:30:17] sort of fathom you feel like there's going to be some sort of compromise in this process

[00:30:21] is not going to taste the same like the way we were making that handy in our in our small kitchen

[00:30:26] in Andheri so he broke that notion for us so so Karan helped us and he is a proper investor

[00:30:35] so he thinks of it like that so he's an entrepreneur and not a chef so I think I was able to learn

[00:30:43] that side of entrepreneurship from him and yeah so we change the process the way we make our butter

[00:30:51] chicken and as soon as we did that and it was tasting exactly the same and no change in the

[00:30:57] ingredients only change in the process of the way we cook it okay so we we invested in better machinery

[00:31:07] got bigger tools automated equipment so we are able to consistently provide the same taste to people

[00:31:16] who are going to order from us so that changed our horizon a little we realized okay now we are

[00:31:21] ready if we have to open 10 stores 20 stores I don't want to make a classic Indian kitchen

[00:31:26] I will make a kitchen where we can use modern machinery to make

[00:31:34] thousands of kgs of base gravy and then yes our smaller kitchens in smaller spokes from where we

[00:31:42] deliver there we grill fresh tandoor chicken and there we'll make fresh naans and all of that

[00:31:48] but our gravy is now produced at scale in one spot so the taste remains the same okay so those

[00:31:56] kind of decisions sort of helped us go from one to ten and now 10 to 100 but the biggest

[00:32:02] decision that we made was to join hands with biryani by kilo and I would like to thank Vishal

[00:32:10] who's the co-founder of biryani by kilo in fact him I met at a panel oh lovely it is you know

[00:32:17] it's one of those things I am very thankful that I go for all these panels because you get to

[00:32:21] who are like-minded and what they did with biryani by kilo was incredible which meant that they took

[00:32:29] that biryani na matka where they do fresh dum for each biryani in 40 cities and from 110 kitchens

[00:32:39] it is unbelievable how they were able to pull that off because doing it from one or two locations

[00:32:46] is easy but imagine every order that goes out of their kitchen goes in a seal fresh mudka and I was

[00:32:54] amazed my mind was blown I'm like okay there are also people who do this kind of stuff at scale

[00:33:02] so when I met him and I told him that we are you know now looking at scaling of

[00:33:07] goela butter chicken in a format where there are no I don't see any north Indian brands

[00:33:12] that have a pan India presence and we really want to change that we want to become

[00:33:17] the KFC someday someday I would love to be that uncle

[00:33:22] Colonel Sanders but Colonel goela sitting on that little grand mascot for goela so any love then

[00:33:30] he's like you know what you're right like we like we have been able to break into this biryani

[00:33:36] space and biryani by kilo is one of the largest biryani players in the country said but there are

[00:33:42] no north Indian synonymous brands we have some old school ones yes but there aren't any that

[00:33:48] that were popping up on our minds at all so he said why don't we do a little pilot how about you

[00:33:56] start goela butter chicken with us in banglore we'll plug you in our eight kitchens in banglore

[00:34:01] and let's see where it takes us so that happened in 2022 and 23 for a year we did a pilot

[00:34:08] maybe launch eight kitchens with them tried it out we found a lot of love in banglore so we realized

[00:34:14] that okay even outside Mumbai the brand has legs and people appreciate our food even outside

[00:34:20] the city we were born in and that made both of them biryani by kilo and goela butter chicken

[00:34:27] confident that okay this sort of marriage can work out for us at a pan India level so yeah so we

[00:34:35] shook hands with biryani by kilo and now we are scaling all across India with them and hence we've

[00:34:42] been able to do 100 stores in the last 18 months as well as going international yes we have a presence

[00:34:50] in London we have two cloud kitchens there hopefully by the end of year we want to go to

[00:34:57] the Middle East as I said now from being that person who wanted to say

[00:35:06] now the vision has changed to oh my god this needs to travel the world like it'll be a shame

[00:35:11] if goela butter chicken is not there in at least 50 countries in the world in the next 10 years

[00:35:17] lovely so wherever I travel I should find a goela butter chicken yes we should be able to do that

[00:35:21] we would love to be that Indian brand who went from India across the world and you know we

[00:35:29] Indians get very glamourized when western brands come to our country and I think it's time now to do

[00:35:36] the reverse where when we go out to the US or the UK or across Europe should be able to spot

[00:35:43] some cool Indian brands and I just I don't mean that just for goela it could be there are so many

[00:35:50] good Indian food brands now and Indian chefs are already traveling like like look at legends like

[00:35:56] chef Vikas Khanna and then there are so many chefs who make us proud across the globe so I think it's

[00:36:02] the right time lovely wish you all the best in that and I'm hoping to eat from goela butter

[00:36:08] chicken when I travel abroad next I am also curious because your process is taking food which

[00:36:13] has been time tested and which is traditional but yet you have to bring in something that

[00:36:18] is contemporary something that is unique so what is your creative process for your recipes

[00:36:23] that's a great question actually as I said we cook food for our future audience in a way to

[00:36:33] put it out like that today's audience is very well read they are they have everything at the

[00:36:41] tip of their fingertips they can google anything and they would have information about whatever

[00:36:46] they like so because an informed audience people who are more conscious about their

[00:36:51] diets people who are who are careful about what they eat we want to engage with them in a format

[00:37:01] where they feel like they're eating clean and they're eating well despite the fact that

[00:37:06] they're ordering from outside our agenda is pretty simple we say okay this is the restaurant

[00:37:13] valakhana made by chefs but it is going to make you feel like you are eating at home okay so which

[00:37:25] means we are using our chefness or our technical knowledge to be able to give you food that is

[00:37:32] tasty but without that addition of extra ghee extra mackan extra sugar because I don't

[00:37:42] which means as a person who loves his food who loves ordering in I don't want to

[00:37:51] be the person who's also selling food that I might not order myself so we try to invite that

[00:37:57] philosophy and I think that has helped us we feel like people end up ordering more from us

[00:38:06] because then they think of us as a brand is friendly for lunch as a brand is friendly for

[00:38:12] dinner as well so we've expanded our menu which fits different times and pockets of the day if you

[00:38:18] want to indulge yes there are a couple of dishes on the menu which are very indulgent you will

[00:38:23] want to eat once a month and then you know go back to it and then we have dishes on the menu

[00:38:27] let's say our chicken curry or rajma chavan very very old school basics but I feel like

[00:38:34] nobody takes the effort to do these things well or clean anymore which means like if I wanted to

[00:38:42] get rajma chavan from outside that still felt like home is someone serving you that

[00:38:54] yeah cream or something something they will want to do because everybody wants to show their creativity

[00:38:59] so it's not wrong but I feel like we are not in that space we're in the space we were like okay

[00:39:05] I will use my chefness to make sure that this can travel to 100 locations

[00:39:11] technically sound I want to make sure every time you order the rajma chavan from me it will be

[00:39:16] the same okay so I'm going to use my technical knowledge to get that right I'm not going to get

[00:39:21] two creatives with my recipes so what we've done back is recipes we try and keep as close to as what

[00:39:28] people like we do a bit of goela twist everywhere whenever we find an opportunity we try to better it

[00:39:35] in a way or if not better it we make it different okay so that we separate ourselves from the

[00:39:42] competition a little on that part at least so when you order butter chicken from us or a classic

[00:39:48] butter chicken both are very different that's why we call it goela's butter chicken so

[00:39:54] um classic butter chickens also have many variants so every person you will ask what's your favorite

[00:40:00] butter chicken someone will say spicy someone will say creamy or somebody will say masala

[00:40:06] so people have their own versions of the butter chickens they like and then we say we are goela's

[00:40:15] butter chickens that's why we don't pit ourselves to competition with legends like when I go to

[00:40:23] Delhi I will still go to Pandaya road and might enjoy butter chicken it have more because it's got

[00:40:28] a different vibe altogether when my favorites is invitation and Ashok Vihar which is my like

[00:40:34] personal favorite butter chicken so I feel like this space for all but what helps us stand out

[00:40:41] is the fact that we are we put our own little differentiation on each recipe we keep it simple

[00:40:49] and we try to be very very consistent with our product lovely another very important thing Saranj

[00:40:56] because you are a chef you are also a content creator and you have a huge following on youtube

[00:41:02] you have a huge social media following how does that pressure you to constantly keep coming up

[00:41:07] with content and how effective is that in terms of building your brand as a chef

[00:41:14] it is definitely like a pressure cooker if I have to put it out like that especially when I'm trying

[00:41:20] to juggle between being a content creator and running the business on the side because

[00:41:26] content creation is equally demanding if not more I have often told myself maybe that can

[00:41:35] be a side gig but it's never that no content creator will survive if it's just a side gig

[00:41:42] for them you have to be extremely patient when you are growing from numbers from

[00:41:49] like a thousand followers to a million followers it's it's a long journey and

[00:41:56] it's it's tough to sort of keep up with that creativity every day you have to come up

[00:42:02] with new recipes every day you have to come up with new ideas of engaging and entertaining people

[00:42:08] and there is a certain amount of fatigue or monotony that can set in even there

[00:42:13] even though you're cooking new dishes every day even though you're cooking

[00:42:17] with new formats every day and in in those cases I found myself

[00:42:24] switching off digitally and I take travel I call them travel digital breaks

[00:42:31] okay which means as soon as I I have become one of those people who will pull out their phones

[00:42:39] when they are traveling I will not lie like my phone will shoot and record but I don't post

[00:42:44] I travel I enjoy I let myself soak in the beauty of the city

[00:42:52] and the conversations I've had with people sink in two weeks later or 10 days later

[00:42:58] I will upload that content okay and I'll get back to my digital life so I have started taking long

[00:43:04] digital breaks as in in the digital world seven or eight days if you're disappeared it's like yeah

[00:43:11] so yeah so I take I've often started taking these I think every 45 or 60 days okay I do a one

[00:43:18] week detox and I use that time to travel and learn more lovely I am a big Anthony Baudin

[00:43:26] and his his words always stick with me you know where he says that when you travel to a new city

[00:43:37] there is something that you leave and then there's cars at the city leave on you

[00:43:41] and I feel that is true for even small trips that you do to like recently I went to

[00:43:48] Patna and oh my god there was this girl who took me around the entire city very sweetly she said I'll

[00:43:58] take you to my best meet high shop I'll take you to where I grew up when I went to college this was the

[00:44:04] guy I used to get my pita from and it's things like those that really

[00:44:11] change your perspective again and again about food and it reminds you of why did you start

[00:44:16] on this journey in the first place so I think I find it very inspirational that the simple food

[00:44:22] trips two day trips you just go and it changes everything lovely what's coming next from Sarvansh

[00:44:28] oh I think next is a first is a keep of these many stores it's a uphill task I wake up with 30 40

[00:44:37] DMs of my packaging technique I today there was less chicken in the butter chicken so with

[00:44:45] you know great power comes great response sort of a situation where I'm like now we've opened 100

[00:44:52] kitchens we have made so much noise about it now we have to keep up with the pressure of delivering

[00:44:57] the promise of the brand so that is the next year of the next 12 months look like that for me

[00:45:06] plus I am of course as I said I love content I am building I'm writing a show

[00:45:14] OTT show where I want to

[00:45:19] share Indian food stories a little differently so I'm working towards that and building that

[00:45:25] that is something that I'm very passionate about so between that and Gauila Butter Chicken

[00:45:31] and sharing reels with people I think there is no time to do anything else I love the fact that

[00:45:37] you're going back to where you started from yeah I feel like reels are great I'm not going to take

[00:45:45] away from short format content and because I also make a living out of it so I'm thankful for

[00:45:52] that but I do feel like after having done this for so many years I feel like going back to it

[00:46:01] I feel like meaningful content that 60 seconds maybe you can express yourself of course

[00:46:10] but the joy of telling long format stories is just different so I don't want to forget

[00:46:17] where I started from so I think it's an attempt to go back and see and see if people still like

[00:46:22] watching food content this long lovely final question you never did tell us what your favorite dishes

[00:46:29] my favorite dish is a very simple home cooked mini it's singhi curry

[00:46:52] aloo or agri too

[00:46:53] love you I love it thank you so much Saranj for all this information which I think anybody looking to

[00:47:02] get into entrepreneurship should definitely listen to and all the best for going global

[00:47:06] I'll be feeding you much definitely now you've got me salivating at the thought of it thanks