Akshay Bhardwaj | Family-Run Restaurants, Indian Fine Dining, and Finding Balance - Ep 161
Episode Notes
Born in Queens, Akshay Bhardwaj studied business at Fordham University and Baruch College, and then pivoted to his passion: cooking. His ascension in the culinary world was extraordinary; between 2012 and 2017, he worked his way from working the line to executive chef at Junoon. Junoon was awarded one Michelin Star eight consecutive years from 2011, and held the title of the only Indian restaurant in New York City with a Michelin Star from 2018-2019. He was also selected as a Gohan Society Culinary Scholar — and traveled to Japan to study the delicate art of omakase — and became the first Indian chef to be selected for the Forbes “30 under 30: Food & Drink” list. Bhardwaj showcases a menu that reflects the diversity of India, steeped in the classics while offering deft touches of modernity.
In this episode, we talk about Akshay’s journey running a family business, creating an indian fine dining place and how is it different from a “fusion” restaurant, and finally Akshay shares some wisdom for young folks based on his experience.
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Show Notes:
Akshay's Site: https://www.junoonnyc.com/team-member/akshay-bhardwaj/
Akshay's Social Handle: https://www.instagram.com/akshaycooks/?hl=en
Junoon's Website: https://www.junoonnyc.com/
Junoon's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/junoonnyc/?hl=en
7shifts: https://geni.us/7shifts
Adin Langille: https://www.instagram.com/adin_langille/?hl=en
Noma's News: https://repertoire.simplecast.com/episodes/nomas-news-the-menu-and-ai-eating-food-ray-delucci-ep-160
Forbes 30under30: https://www.forbes.com/profile/akshay-bhardwaj/?sh=6bb47c105eba
CHEF MATT X CHEF BYRON| Junoon: https://www.junoonnyc.com/menu/valentines-day-2023-copy/
Matt Broussard: https://www.instagram.com/acooknamedmatt/?hl=en
Byron Gomez: https://www.chefbyrongomez.com/
Setting The Table by Danny Meyer: https://geni.us/settingthetable
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This episode’s transcript is auto-generated using software. Typos, misspellings, and errors might appear. If you have questions or fixes you’d like applied to this transcript, please reach out to hello@joinrepertoire.com.
[00:00:19] Justin Khanna: what is up folks? I've got a very exciting interview for you today. My guest is Akshay Bhardwaj he believe it or not studied business first and then pivoted to cooking his Ascension in the culinary world between 2012 and 2017 has been phenomenal. He worked his way from cooking the line.
Two executive chef at Junoon in New York city, it was awarded one Michelin star, eight consecutive years from 2011 and it held the title of the only Indian restaurant in New York city. With that Michelin star from 2018 through 2019, he was selected as a Gohan society, culinary scholar, and traveled to Japan to study the delicate art of omakase and became the first Indian chef to be selected for the Forbes 30, under 30 for food and drink.
I was really excited to not just talk to chef Akshay, but also do this in person inside of the restaurant in New York. And it was on a recent trip that I had. The timing just ended up working out. They actually changed locations and the new dining room is absolutely gorgeous. We talk a little bit about the operational changes that he's made.
We talk about some current events that have happened in fine dining, as well as some full philosophical and psychological things that I think that all chefs should strive to keep in mind, especially. Especially if they're thinking about launching a project of their own. If you want to go ahead and check out. Akshay, you want to check out Junoon restaurant or any of the specific linkable things that we discussed. Please do check out the show notes, which are always available on join repertoire.com/podcast or in the description.
Hope folks enjoy this one.
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See, if you can say that seven times fast. Thanks so much for seven shifts for sponsoring this episode. Yeah that was like a seven out of 10 attempt I'm trying to get better.
[00:02:40] Justin Khanna: Well, thanks for coming on the show. Can you at least set the stage for the audience on where we are right now?
[00:02:45] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah, so hi everyone that's listening. My name is Akshay Bhardwaj and we're at Junoon Restaurant located in Manhattan, in the heart of Manhattan Chelsea Flatiron district. And yeah, we've, I've been the executive chef now since 2017, and the restaurant originally opened in 2011, 2012.
It's a fine dining Indian Michelin starred restaurant. We received one star from the guide for the first eight years that we opened, and we closed in 2020 and relocated to a new location. we've been back and running for about a year and a half now.
[00:03:22] Justin Khanna: with the way that you think about coming out of something like the Pandemic, all these changes that you made, does it feel good?
Does it feel weird? Does it, like, would, did you have any trouble adjusting.
[00:03:32] Akshay Bhardwaj: it actually, I think on a case by case basis, I think for some people it might have been weird. It might have been, you know, definitely a lot of people I know struggled during that time. For us, it was actually very organic and kind of something that was very refreshing for us because we were in our old location for 10 years going on 10 years.
And in our minds and our own opinions, when we used to have internal discussions as a team, we were thinking of actually making some drastic changes to the overall concept and the look of the restaurant, the feel of the restaurant. And my job as the chef was to kind of overhaul the kitchen. And so we were redesigning the kitchen and the layout.
So it was actually. Pretty good timing. We built out, I had built out the kitchen, the new, the, the new style of it and whatnot. And the pandemic happened. We closed down and just by chance, two doors down, the restaurant had vacated and the kitchen still fit perfectly to the specs that I had built out.
For the old restaurant. Of course, the size was very different. The original location was 17,000 square feet. It was actually two nightclubs. It was massive. Yeah. It was in the two thousands. Very famous, well known nightclub, and we basically took it over. We wanted to build out a, we like to compare it to like the Del Posto of Indian Co.
Of Indian cuisine. Something that would have a massive wine program, beverage and cocktail program. And then of course, the kitchen and the cuisine. So, . That definitely changed because the new location now is 2070 5% smaller. It's, it's about 4,000 square feet, but it still is a 75 seater. It still is. It is fairly well sized, and yeah, we are very happy with it because it is something that we were looking to do.
It was a little more drastic of a change in terms of just changing completely where we, you know, where we are now. But it feels good. I
[00:05:42] Justin Khanna: was talking to you a little bit before we started and you almost kind of like apologized for the fact that there might be like motion in this, but I think this audience, specifically the cooks and sous chefs and papa posts love the fact that there's motion happening.
Like this is like a true, you know, like restaurant and you're, you're, you're, you're firing. What I wanted to ask you is what you were talking to me about with how you've changed the production. . Mm-hmm. . Can you talk about how you guys structure your weeks now? And that might give some insight into, people are talking about four day work weeks.
People are talking about, do we add lunch? When should we be open for certain things? Do we have to have takeaway hours being different? How, how have you guys structured your, your
[00:06:19] Akshay Bhardwaj: hours? Yeah. I was a big proponent of trying to close the restaurant for one day a week so that all of the cooks and the chefs and the team could have that one day guaranteed off that they know.
So it's a real big peace of mind that, you know, going into the week that your goal is gonna have either a Monday off or a Sunday off, something like that. Of course, we were in the game and open for seven days a week at the old place seven days a week, lunch and dinner. So we had that reputation. and this is a family business.
my father's the owner of the restaurant, so of course I definitely have a lot of conversations with him, not only at the restaurant, but definitely at home about these kinds of, you know, topics and whatnot. he's definitely of the old school, he's been in hospitality since the eighties, so he always, you know, thinks that okay, you know, since we've opened we can't really go backwards and, and close.
that was kind of the reputation to uphold At the old location we had two. Kitchens. We had a prep kitchen downstairs and we had an upstairs kitchen. We had seven walk-ins, so there was no shortage of space. Oh my God. So yeah, we definitely, when it came to production, had no real issues in terms of who's gonna work where, when, and why.
I came in as a line cook, worked my way up to Sue and then head chef. So I didn't really have to change too much of the structure of the restaurant. Then when we moved to this new location it's only one, one kitchen. An upstairs kitchen. We have two candy stoves, one combi oven two six range burners, and then our tooth and door ovens.
with that, keeping in mind that we have a pastry program as well as our regular menu, which has 10 appetizers, 10 entrees, you have to make bulk curries and whatnot. We really kind of struggled early on to figure out like how we were gonna do what when it comes to Indian food, you have. So many different things that needs to be done before you know you can serve the guest.
[00:08:17] Akshay Bhardwaj: You're making your base curries. So if you have 10 entrees, you got 10 curries right there. We have two different dolls. Those are the lentils. Then you have your marinations for your kebabs, and then you have your fried appetizers. And with us being fine dining, we have of course a Garde Manger aspect of it in which we're doing salads and purees and chutney fermentations, things like that.
So everything, if I were to call everyone in at the same time at 12 o'clock to, to close and just to work that one shift, it would be a total, you know, shit show. So I finally got my way. We were able to close on Mondays. I said, let's just close the restaurant down on Monday. And that way myself as the head chef, I can come and do production early on and and get the ball rolling for the team.
Tuesday and Wednesdays, we closed for lunch as well, so that we could once again have all the cooks come in and the entire kitchen was free for everybody to be able to work and do what they needed to do. dinner service would start at 5:30 PM And then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday was both lunch and dinner.
So their production was definitely very tight because you have service going on and you have the cooks coming in, but some setup would still need to happen. So that was the main thing. We still did make a decision that at 6:00 AM I have two cooks come in and they make a lot of my bulk curries because that takes up so much space and that takes up the two candy stoves and you're chopping, they're, you know, they're, they're chopping on a weekly basis, about 450 pounds of red onions, 400 pounds of plump tomatoes, mincing about 50 pounds of ginger, 50 pounds of garlic, and then doing all of our spice blends.
Wow. And those, you know, the Garam Masala spice blend that we use has about 12 spices that you're roasting in the oven and then taking off and then putting in a spice grinder. So it's definitely a lot of space and time and effort that goes into it that we just can't have at 12 o'clock when the rest of the team is there.
that's pretty much the schedule right now for us. I mean,
[00:10:15] Justin Khanna: the takeaway for me there and, and also potentially for the listener is that these decisions don't have to be binary. , you know, you're having this moment of feeling pressure from, you know, we have less space. We still want the standards to be where we want to keep them.
And especially with the pressure coming from family saying, this is how it's always been. Mm-hmm. and, and you to, to navigate that decision from not saying we're gonna take away lunch completely, but like, how can we potentially have some nuance in this? I, I, I feel like that gets lost on some people sometimes.
[00:10:44] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. And definitely when you're talking about ownership and, and management, at the end of the day, service is great and myself as a chef or any chef, we go into this industry. , you know, caring about the food, the plate, and that's our passion. But then you start to realize that, damn, I gotta, I have numbers, I have to actually hit, you know, this event of sales.
I, we were aiming for this kind of profit. This is my payroll, my food cost, all of that. So I had to really sell it to, to my father and, and management that we can, we'll still hit these numbers just on lesser days. And it's a real supply and demand. And it was very interesting because we were in, our name has been around for 10 years that I said that.
Okay. It's a 75, 80 seat restaurant at our old. , it was a 150 200 seat restaurant on a slow day over there, we would do maybe 80 to a hundred covers during slow, slow, slow season. Absolute dead was technically 80 covers here. If we do that, save number of 80 guests, that's actually a full house. We, we, we are literally sold out.
If Justin on a Tuesday wants to come in and make a reservation at 3:30 PM he's gonna look on open table or whatever and be like, damn, there's no tables available. So there's also that kind of psychological thing going on with the consumer that, with our guests, that Jan Nuon is a hard reservation to get, which not necessarily used to happen at the old space when it's such a big place that you could get a reservation pretty much the day of.
So these were all kind of facets that, that we thought about and we discussed at large and. , we were able to make it work that with supply and demand and to pack the place out that instead of doing 14 services in a week of lunch, dinner, lunch dinner, lunch dinner, we could get those same sales and, you know, keep cost relatively lower because we have less people coming in during those production times and really make it work for us.
[00:12:54] Justin Khanna: I want to go deeper on that family aspect with you because mm-hmm. , this is called the Repertoire podcast. I, I, I love giving lessons from my experience, but I'm just, I'm just one guy. Yeah. And that's why I love doing these interview conversations because I get to, you know, get some insights from, from other folks', experience and upbringing.
And the one, you know, there's, there's a lot. But the, the, the one there, there is a gaping hole in my experience, which is I don't have family in restaurants. And that is just such a core part of, of, of how you came up. Mm-hmm. . And so maybe to start, what do most people not understand? About having that family dynamic in not just being a chef, but, but you, you already talked about you have to take these issues home with you almost.
So, so what do most people get wrong about that
[00:13:39] Akshay Bhardwaj: dynamic? It's, there's definitely a lot of balance that I try to keep because it is so, such a stressful job, . It is. And, and there's been a time in the past where I literally walked out of the restaurant and, you know, was in tears and I said, I, I can't do this anymore.
I was a sous chef. It was about 20 15, 20 16, and I was so overworked and just so poorly, managed and whatnot that I didn't understand what to do. I was about maybe 2021 at that time, and, you know, the last straw was had and I just like walked out and.
I've definitely had good moments and bad moments when it comes to family. The one thing I always have done, and, and I would say was the most important thing, was never really try to act like the owner son. You know, when I, because I joined as a line cook, so I purposely would never call him dad at the restaurant.
[00:14:41] Akshay Bhardwaj: I always say boss, no matter what it is. No matter who it is. So there's still some staff that come in and they don't even know that, we have that relationship because I don't want people to consciously or subconsciously thinking about it you know, once they do know that, oh, this guy is, so and so, and he's the son, they might or might not start thinking and acting differently towards me.
So I never really wanted that. I wanted. it to be as fair as possible. And definitely the kitchen, that's probably why I love the kitchen so much, is that no one really gives a flying F about who you are, whose son you are. They're gonna treat you based on merit. They're gonna give you the respect that you earn.
They're, they're never just gonna be like, oh, you know, okay, yeah, let's let, you're working the line, you're working the line. If you go down, you're screwing all of us over and, you know, you're messing with our you know, with the food we provide for our families. So that was, that was very clear. My dad also did a very good job of that in terms of making it very clear to me that you're going to work under the chef.
You're not working for me. I'm in my office. I'm in, and you're, you know, not to come to my office. You're not really, you know, you're a line cook, so you're gonna act like a line cook work. You're gonna have family meal with the team and all that stuff. So that was, I think, very, very important early on. And that's some that's somehow we've been able to maintain over the years.
And then of course, I think it's a good thing also that it is family run because I've, since have always taken everything very personally about the restaurant. You know, to me it's not a job. It's literally like I've seen my dad's blood, sweat, and tears go into this business growing up as a child, he was going to work at 7:00 AM and coming home late at night, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, missing birthdays and missing, you know, holidays and New Years and all those things.
So I saw it from a first, you know, point perspective. And that's something that kind of came to me when I joined the industry as well, is that I gotta put in that. That effort and that sacrifice. And you know, he started, we started in a small apartment in Queens and he's worked his way up to opening, one of the first Michelin star Indian restaurants in, in the country.
So now I have to take it to the next level. And, you know, I can't really half-ass this, A couple
[00:17:10] Justin Khanna: of threads to pull on there on that day when you walked out or you were really feeling the turbulence. Mm-hmm. , I get messages like that all the time of people who have that day and they're just like, my motivation is as low as it's ever been.
X, y, z. What is that self-talk like when you, when you, when you get in that head space or I guess how, how do you navigate moments like that or what's been
helpful?
[00:17:33] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. For me actually, my motivation, I would say was at an all time, hi. It's so weird. Wow. I, I actually, so I was working under a chef and I was very young and I got the bump to sous chef under him.
Superbly talented, like worked at all the top restaurants, Danielle country, you know, Aquavit, and these kinds of restaurants. And so I was learning so much under him that I was so motivated. I didn't wanna let him down. I didn't wanna let the team down. And I was kind of that combining force because the interesting part about Jan Noon is that we've had about four or five head chefs before me.
Only one of them was Indian. Everybody else was actually French trained American Japanese trained chefs that were coming in and kind of giving their spin to Indian. And then my father would kind of you know, being trained in hospitality and being a a great chef himself, understanding Indian food, he would kind of guide them along that route.
So we had a lot of traditional Indian cooks and chefs working the line. And I was that median in between them and then this chef that was superbly talented and constantly creating new dishes and teaching me new techniques like terrines and you know, gastriques and all, all and sauces, whatever it was.
It was a whole new world for me. The only issue was, and I, learned a lot and I learned a lot of what not to do also because there was a lot of mismanagement going on where, you know, we're not hiring necessarily the right guys and it's like, we're not teaching, bringing people up to speed.
[00:19:13] Justin Khanna: And that's what was contributing to the pressure you were feeling?
[00:19:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: Absolutely. And it was something where I was kind of doing the job of like three, four people Got it. there was times I would go downstairs. it's happened twice in my life where we've had a really bad service and I felt like I was, I I really let the team down and I, I went downstairs.
The restaurant being so big, there was no shortage of rooms for me to go. And I literally like, just cried, like balled my eyes out. And my mom can attest to this, that there was a few times during that time when I was a Sous where I felt like we're gonna get murdered the next day and dinner service is over and whatnot.
And I would call her and be like, I don't have money on my card or whatever. Can you please book me the hotel room next door? And once or twice she felt so like bad that, you know, she actually would like help me. Also, I'd be downstairs in the prep kitchen and we'd be prepping till three in the morning. I would go next door, sleep in the hotel, then come back at seven, eight o'clock and like start, you know, the day over again.
and so how often can you do that? You know? that was the main contributing factor was I actually came in on my day off the day that I quit, came in on my day off because I knew that things are not gonna go well when I come back. , and it was actually my father and the operations, the director of operations, they were having lunch that day.
[00:20:33] Akshay Bhardwaj: It was maybe three 30. So lunch service had ended. All the cooks went on break. So they said, Hey, can you make us some lunch? I said, no problem. So I made them some bread, some curry some, some entrees, whatnot. Gave it to them. They called me over and they started kind of criticizing the food, saying like, you know, the bread's too thick.
There's not enough cheese here, there's not enough spice in here, whatnot. And at that point, I was so exhausted. I was so like over it that I said, what am I doing here? I'm here on my day off. I sacrificed like enough and I'm just getting shit on, you know? And no, you know, sometimes it's a little bit of appreciation, goes a long way.
And I just felt like there's none of that going on. I see no finish line here. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. So I grab my stuff. Walked out and you said, like, what was going in my headspace. I immediately called my first chef, which was Adin Langille. I, I called him, he was the toughest on me when I was a line cook.
He suspended me once or twice for, for like misbehaving and whatnot. we ended up having a great relationship. But early on it was very, a big struggle. And I called him, he was working, he was the executive chef at David Burke Fabric at that time.
And it was located maybe like a 15 minute walk from the restaurant. I said, can I like, just come see you? And I was like, crying on the street. my mom had called me like, what's wrong? dad said you left, my dad called me like, what are you doing?
And I was like, I don't, I don't wanna talk to you guys right now. I'm sorry. I went, spoke to him. He just kind of said, listen, , you know, obviously go speak to your father, sort that out and you've been working there for five years. If you wanna come, you know, work for me for a little bit and, you know, get out of there a little while, you know, do that, you know, you have options.
[00:22:23] Akshay Bhardwaj: Just, you know, take a deep breath, it'll, it'll work itself out. he showed me around the restaurant, showed me around the kitchen, and I, funny enough, you know, going into another kitchen made me feel much better. I felt so much, you know, so much more at peace. I took about a week or two off. I did go like Star with him, went and stared at a bunch of other restaurants and then went back to ju noon once, maybe like a month or two after, or like a month after.
And kind of like once things had settled and that we kind of established like what the roles were and that I wouldn't have to go through something like that again.
[00:23:00] Justin Khanna: That's another. You know, when you're in that head space, it feels like such a binary. I either have to continue being in this industry or like, fuck it, I'm gonna leave.
Mm-hmm. the whole industry period. Yeah. But I had that moment too. Like you, I took three months. My timeframe was three months being out of a kitchen. Mm-hmm. , and I was like, never again. I'm not going in a kitchen, blah, blah, blah, blah, three months, and then I'm craving it again. Yeah. Like that little buffer of space between you and, and, and the work itself.
It's, it's that moment of kind of getting outside of the washing machine when you're inside, it feels so, you can't see what's happening and then you just take a little bit of time or space and give your, give yourself that. And that tends to be valuable.
[00:23:41] Akshay Bhardwaj: And, and yeah, like I'll preface with saying I'm very lucky and blessed because of course I have family that's in the industry.
having my father at the top of his game, you know, so to speak as a restaurateur that I've been very blessed with the, you know, the doors that have been open for me. I also, sometimes it's, I overcompensate for that, maybe that, I've gotten this position and I have this opportunity even though I'm being treated like, you know, like crap.
[00:24:11] Akshay Bhardwaj: And, even a year before that, I actually fainted and broke my jaw from, from exhaustion, low blood sugar, . So it's like I'm clearly, my body is saying something to me, like with, with these kinds of things happening. But, but at the same time I'm thinking like, I've gotten this because of, because.
Him that I shouldn't let him down, So it's almost, I don't want to call it a curse because it's not, it's a blessing. But at the same time, sometimes it's like finding that balance is very, very tricky. And when you're young, it's even tougher. I, I would say
[00:24:44] Justin Khanna: you can't believe everything you read in the internet, but I think that the way that you tell your story and the way that that things get spoken about, about your background, it was like, oh, you just became a line cook.
It was natural. But then there's also the side of, you went to business school, right? Yeah. And so why become a line cook instead of charting the path of, I'm just gonna take over operations or, or basically be c o CEO of my, my family's restaurant business. Did you Yeah. Talk to me about that.
[00:25:14] Akshay Bhardwaj: That, that was definitely a thought in my head for sure.
I was, of course, when you're young, what do you know? When you're 17, 18, you don't know what you want to do. And my parents being Indian, had kind of that. course charted for my, I have an older brother, he's 60 years my elder, so that was kind of charted for us that he would be the doctor and I'd be the businessman.
Very stereotypical, but very true. Right. That literally, that was always the discussion. And my brother went to, he was good at Madison you know, did his undergradchief of his ambulance corps in college and all that good stuff. When it came to actually like going to grad school, he had a very tough discussion with my father.
And like I said, my father was very hardworking growing up, so we don't necessarily see him. He's almost like a mythological figure. It's like having this discussion with him. It's like, not gonna end well. Now we're best friends, you know, we're, we're more friends than we are, you know, anything like that.
And he told my father straight up that I don't want to go into medicine. I really want to go into film school. And he was always around a camera growing up, and that's, you know, he was in the film club and whatnot. And my father said, that's fine. I'll pay for your film school at this point. My brother must have been 24, 25 years old.
Said, you, you do that after the day you graduate, then you're on your own. Like, you gotta figure it out on your own, then I'll support you through that. My brother did it and he started his career pretty late relative to, to others, but super passionate, loves it and is is very much happier, you know, than what he would've been seeing.
I'm 17, 18, I go to business school. My first summer internship was to do accounting for paper chase accounting, which they handled the books for like Zuma, PRI, and UNE was their first client office was located right next door to the restaurant. And so they take one look at me, they say, you're gonna handle Jan Jannus books for the, for the summer.
So that entail doing the payroll food cost inventory bar reconciliation, all that. And I was very confident. The only thing I was confident about was that I did not want to do this for the rest of my life. Like this is not, I was, you know, falling asleep. I, I did not enjoy it. So Aiden, the chef at that time, he became c d c.
We had the Michelin, and he was also, I guess fairly young, maybe 29 30, something like that, maybe even younger. And we were, he was a Boston guy. I'm a New Yorker. He's a Red Sox fan. Patriots fan. I'm a Yankees fan, giants fan. So, you know, we had some friendly banter and whatnot. So he kind of gave the idea of, listen, it is your father's company.
You can be CEO one day, take it over. This is like, you know, the number one rest, the hottest restaurant. It's, you know, all the accolades and whatnot. It's no joke. So why don't you learn the ins and outs? Your, your father knows the ins and outs of the industry. He started as a floor manager and you know, in India.
So you do that. I said, all right, not a bad idea. So I would come in the morning to accounting, nine, nine to 12, nine to one, whatever. Get, get the day started with that. Then I would change, my first two weeks was to work at the front desk with the maitre d with the, with the head receptionist. So I was just picking up the phone, you know, good afternoon, thank you for calling noon.
This is actually how may I assist you? I would do that for four hours seat, the guest for lunch. Hated it. Then I go to the bar for two weeks to work as a bar back for dinner service, boring water, washing the glassware you know, absolutely dreaded that as well. It's like I couldn't, couldn't hate it more.
So that's that next two weeks was to work in the kitchen. And this is why I think I love the kitchen, was that it, it was so disciplined. There was no, in those other two jobs, everyone viewed me as the owner's son. So they kind of just let me do whatever the hell I wanted. You know, it's a 17 year old kid.
What is he gonna be able to do? 18 year old, right? What's he gonna do? Just let 'em do whatever, you know? I'd answer the phone calls, I would wash the glasses, but that's it. I thought that was a hard day, you know, of work? Nah, ? No, not at all. You know, I enter the kitchen, don't know how to hold a knife, you know, my uniform is like baggy.
I had long hair, you know, backwards hat. I thought like I'm the hottest guy in the world. Very quickly you get humbled, you realize you don't know anything. Peeling potatoes, I don't know how to do that. Cutting an onion don't know how to do that. But they gave me work to do. Like the, you gotta get this shit done, you gotta get this done, you gotta get that done.
And I wouldn't say I loved it the second I started, but once I started observing dinner services, and I just remember we were doing restaurant week 250, 300 covers. They put me on Fry Station and I was so bad at fryer. They were like fried until it's crispy. I was like, how long did that take? They said, two minutes,
I said, okay. I literally took my phone out and every time I dropped the, the eggplant into the fryer, I would literally put my timer on and they're like, what, what is this guy doing? Who is this guy? He's not a human. . First day like I 86 to hold tray of an appetizer. The paneer pakora literally, I like took the sheet tray out too fast.
It like got knocked over within two minutes of dinner service, 86, the whole dish. Oh my God. So not a good start, not a hot start. , you know, if people think that you're just gonna enter, you know, the, like you said, you read online. I was definitely not the second coming. Like, I, I picked up a knife and it's like, oh my God, this guy can both 300 covers and make fall cartoon.
none of that. But the one thing I loved was, I just remember it being really busy, Aiden's voice. He was like, you know, his voice is crackling, reading tickets nonstop. You know, the cook's yelling, heard. People timing things out. all of that was, there was that adrenaline. I love sports, so I felt like this is such a, this is a team sport right here.
[00:31:02] Akshay Bhardwaj: If I'm going down, I'm actually ruining like the entire service. You know, there's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of stress. There is an open kitchen also, so you can look into the main dining room and that was beautiful. And then to watch them actually plate the dishes and see Indian food presented in that fashion.
I grew up on Indian food and I was, my mind was blown that how is this, this is, you know, drop dead gorgeous. This is like artwork on a plate and it's the cuisine that I grew up eating. So all those things just kind of made me wanna continue to stay. And, you know, it was giving me real structure in my life and that was something that I think I really needed.
And I used to look forward to coming to work every day. And I think that's the best thing you could ever ask for,
[00:31:47] Justin Khanna: for the person listening who has. A family business in their life, they're, they know that conversation's gonna come, whether it's from their parents or from their aunt and uncle or from their grandparents of, Hey, it's time for you to take this thing over.
Do you have any advice for them?
[00:32:03] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah, I would say you need to, I think it's not fair necessarily to, for the parent or whatnot to force that upon their child. Like I wouldn't think, I don't, I think my dad is definitely happy now that of course I've taken such a ownership of, of this place and, and I love it.
But I don't think, I think he would've been prepared with, you know, whatever the thing was, if I went into investment banking and my brother stayed in films or became a doctor, he would've had to figure out someone else to take the place over for him. So I think it's a very tricky conversation to be had.
And it's definitely not the fairest of them, I would say that. If you can learn the business that you're gonna take over and so that you can maybe hire somebody that can oversee it, but you always wanna make sure that you know everything that's, that's going on and learn from the ground up so that when you do have to bring someone else in to, to take care of it, that they don't screw you over either.
Because of course in restaurants that happens all the time where a restaurateur doesn't really know what they're doing. They have money, they're gonna hand it over to a chef or GM or whatever. And if you don't know what it is, your costs are gonna be, you know, you're gonna get kind of the runaround. So I think it's very important to know every facet of the business that you're gonna go into.
[00:33:30] Justin Khanna: You get awarded this Michelin Star. And I don't know if you observe this, but I think that a lot of folks see a place get a star and. . I'm trying to, I'm trying to normalize talking about this. A lot of people will see a place get a star and they'll say, oh, so you're going for the second one? Mm-hmm. not realizing that it's actually a massive achievement in and of itself to not just get a star, but consistently keep it year after year and con and have that consistent output.
So I guess whether this is a rant you want to go on or not, I guess how do you think about awards accolades and combining that with consistency and practicality?
[00:34:08] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. If you asked me four years ago, or five years ago, I would have a massive rant because it was all that I really cared about was, you know, the star and, and whatnot.
Now as I've grown, you know, now five, six years as an executive chef and having cooks I think I have such a better understanding now of what it is to really be the executive chef and to be an owner of a restaurant. Is that, . At the end of the day, like I said earlier, it's a bottom line business where, I'll be very frank with you.
We had, we had all those, we had a star for eight consecutive years for an Indian restaurant that had not happened in, on the East coast, but that space was so massive with the payroll, the budget, payroll, food costs, rent, all that stuff that there was, profit was not really a thing that was feasible to happen.
And I would say almost all of these big, three star, two star restaurants, they all, I mean, most of them I would say have these other small restaurants that are their bankroll and the actual Michelin restaurants, they make no money because that price of perfection that's going on your plate, it's worth way more than whatever it is that they're charging you.
There's so much manpower that goes behind it. There's so much of, you know, the vendors, the walk-in breaks, this breaks that breaks. But you still need to assert perfection on a likely basis. So you're gonna do whatever it takes for that. And that's kind of what my mentality was. And now what I would say is as long it's, it's outta my hands on the accolades.
I don't, you know, I don't know who the inspectors are. I don't know, you know, who's coming in, who's coming out. The only thing I tell my staff every day is maintain the standard and try to be better than yesterday. And that's our main focus for the day. As long as we're leaving here, leaving the restaurant, and we did X amount of covers, we did it well, we are happy with how it came out.
And that definitely doesn't happen every day. There's definitely some days where I'm screaming and yelling and saying, you know what? What is this? What is that? But for the most part, it's all about just let's make sure we do a great job in-house and we'll worry about the rest of the stuff. at some other point, but we can't really dwell on it because it's not in our hands.
You know, why, why am I gonna lose sleep? I definitely used to lose a lot of sleep . You know, I think there's definitely a lot of politics that play a role in, in these awards and these accolades, pr machines, you know, there's, it's, it's a money-making business for them also, you know, that the governments are involved in bringing these, some of these awards to certain areas and to certain countries and states and cities and whatnot.
So, you know, who's to say that a restaurant in Arkansas is not better than a restaurant in New York? You know? So that's pretty much what I would say.
[00:37:04] Justin Khanna: The news came out a couple weeks ago about, about Noma's piece in line with this whole conversation and this line of thought. What was your first impression seeing that?
And I guess now that it's had a little bit of time to settle, not just in the news cycle, but you know people's minds themselves, how are, how are you thinking about the future of fine dining, where cuisine is going and, and, and your role
[00:37:28] Akshay Bhardwaj: in it, maybe? Mm-hmm. ? Well, I definitely think I wasn't too surprised to hear, you know, the news about Noma.
The reason being that we Junoon Dubai Dubai as well, and I've been to India several times, so I know, you know, a lot of cooks in India, Dubai, even over here, that a lot of the resumes will always have like Noma, three months, they'll have GK three months restaurants like that. So you can tell there's, so they were built off of so many interns to go there.
And that's kind of the thing that I was mentioning is, you know, I think it's hypocritical for when, when these publications, New York Times or whatever they're writing these. , these, these pieces on these restaurants, like E em, p, Noma, whatever, about like brutal work ethic in the, in the kitchen environment
And then you read the comments and so many people are outraged, oh, this is messed up. That's messed up. But if you know the industry, you know that when you're going to dine at these restaurants, like all these people are, all of, you know, the, the world's 50 best and Michelin inspectors and all these, writers and whatnot, when they're going to these restaurants, they expect that perfection on the plate that is realistically the price.
Unless we get robots. That is the price of perfection that you wanna see everything exactly three inches on the plate. You want that chive baton to be exactly six centimeters in length. Then you need a person to stand there for eight hours with a ruler cutting a chive baton, six inches in length every single time.
Or you need that perfect quenelle you need a person for four, five hours a night just standing there with two spoons, canal caviar onto your plate so that you can eat the caviar. in Noma's specific case you're talking about, their fermentation program, the lab, and all of that, we do some fermentation here.
you need people that are constantly, checking on it, making sure things are good things are proper and there's so much. So many variables in, in fermentation, correct? Like, you don't know how it's gonna come out necessarily unless, you know, you have a chamber and everything is absolutely tested to a tea.
[00:39:41] Akshay Bhardwaj: But like a restaurant like ours, when you're just kind of shoving it in a corner and, and then you're gonna check on it in in like a week or two, right? You don't know how it's gonna necessarily come out. So that might be wasted, that might not be wasted. you don't know until, you open the jar for the first time or you cut the bag open for the first time.
So all of that is a lot of manpower that, that it takes, and you're definitely seeing, I think less and less cooks necessarily, that are willing to, work those 80 hours, 70 hours for pennies on the dollar. that's definitely kind of the way that the world has been moving.
And with that, our industry definitely will take a hit. I don't think you're gonna get those sorts of restaurants as much anymore. I think they're gonna be fewer and far in between. And then now I think it's our jobs as chefs to provide good food and good service, but also make sure that you're doing it in a way that your staff is taken care of.
On my, my team, they do five days a week. They have two days off always, no matter what. Maybe, I don't even want to say, but like maybe once or twice in a year, they might work a six day. That's pretty much it. That includes like my salary team and 10 hour work days are the maximum.
You're doing 50 to 55 hours so that there is no burnout. Turnover is more expensive to a restaurant than anything else. When you have to hire someone new and you have to train them and bring them up to speed, that's gonna take you time, effort, resources, to do all of that. So instead, take care of the 10 guys that you have or the 20 guys that you have, whatever it is, and make sure they're taken care of so that you can continue to just build off of the momentum that you had from the year before and the year before.
And the year before.
[00:41:26] Justin Khanna: There were people when the news came out that said, oh, the solution is just to, to charge more. And I think with a place that had, has Noma's reputation, you know, you see places that do a Omakase for $1,100 a person. And so for Noma being at 500 a person, could they have realistically said it's 850 a person now for the menu, knowing what you know about, you know, we don't have Noma's p and l in front of us.
Yeah, . But knowing, knowing what you know about how that that increase in revenue impacts a business. Could that have been a viable solution for them?
[00:42:00] Akshay Bhardwaj: I think definitely. It's, it's always tricky because you can definitely increase pricing. You'll get backlash on that as well, that, oh, lot of these guys jacking the price up.
[00:42:11] Justin Khanna: I feel like that's like the Instagram logo moment, though. You know what I mean? Every time Instagram changes their logo Yeah. For the, the 72 hours after everybody's up in arms and pissed
[00:42:20] Akshay Bhardwaj: about it, and then you go back to your normal life and then you go back to normal. Yeah. I, I guess they could have definitely done that.
I think, you know what it is, is it's that I don't think they necessarily have peace of mind. Mm. That, you know, this constant every three months, we gotta now bring on, Another group of like 20 to 30 staff and, and you know, the accommodation and, and pay and all of that. their HR team are the guys that are doing their in, the interviews for all of these.
They probably have a team of a few people just to handle all of that. So
[00:42:54] Justin Khanna: I looked at the website. 16 admin
[00:42:57] Akshay Bhardwaj: positions. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm , you know, like a restaurant, like it's crazy. The thing, so that's your payroll is like sky high. Just on, on that, on the salaried position of people that you have. So, you know, you, you can of course always increase pricing, but then you, you still have so many other headaches that you have to deal with that I think that they probably saw the writing on the wall, that at, at some point.
At what point is, is it, you know, are we just kind of now. Stagnating and, and you know, it's time to maybe turn the page and do something new. You know, it's kind of like when I had my moment of me quitting, I just saw that there's no light at the end of the tunnel. You know, once you're in that washing machine and you know it's going, yeah, I could have taken just two days off, I guess, and come back.
And maybe if I was rested, I'd feel better. But sometimes it's just like there's, you know, you don't see that end in sight.
[00:43:51] Justin Khanna: I want to go back to the age at which you, I'm gonna call it, found success because for you to be a, a sous chef in your early twenties and an executive chef shortly after that, a lot of people don't hit that milestone until their late twenties, their early thirties.
Mm-hmm. , some people work on the line. I think you, you've probably seen these people, they're working the line in their mid thirties and then they'll get their first executive chef or chef to cuisine position in their forties. , there's an aphorism that gets tossed around of people saying that's one of the worst things that can happen to you is finding success early in your career.
Because it leads to a lot of this like, okay, what's next? Is there anything else that I need to do? Did you feel that? And I, I, I suppose, do you have any advice for someone who finds success in their career? Early?
[00:44:38] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah, I got so a little funny. Nah, it's not a funny story, but, so you can laugh about it now. I received, yeah, so we got, I was 26 and got the Forbes 30 under 30.
And that night that we got it let, like, you know, the announcement comes out, you don't really know, you just, the announcement came and Okay, great, you know, I got it. So of course everyone's messaging me, whatnot. Parents were very happy. My mom was in India, my dad was at home, so you know, everyone's calling that night.
My staff took me out for drinks, so we went pretty hard, drank all night and I guess it was maybe a Friday night. So the next day. . We had lunch busy lunch services at the old restaurant, and it was maybe 1, 1 30 in the afternoon. And I, I messaged my sous chefs and whatnot that, Hey, I'm gonna come in late today.
You know, I'm just kind of refreshing my feed every two minutes, and responding to all the congratulations and I was back at home. So my, my dad walks by, and it's the middle afternoon, like 1, 1 30. So he like peeps his head in and he goes are you going, you going to the restaurant today?
You at work today? I go, yeah, I'm, I'm gonna go in a little bit. And he just kind of like, looks at me and he goes, don't rest on your laurels. Like, just says that. And, and walks away. I'm like, what? Is like, well, don't restaurant your laurels. What the, what the hell does he know? And, you know, shortly after the, this is 2019, so like six months later the restaurant is closed pandemic.
We're full blown. and I had, of course, you have a lot of time to think and think and think during that time. So, you know, going back to your question about success at a young age, I, I thought a lot about that in terms of, you know, I cooked at the James Beard house when I was 22, as as a chef, like, wow, the, the, the maitre d two minutes before the start goes, you might be the youngest chef.
And I'm like, I'm already nervous. You don't have to fuck, you don't have to tell me that after you're kidding me. Like, I'm stressed out already. And so there's, there's definitely been those highs. And then of course, you know, there's the lows of, you know, reviews that haven't gone well and things like that.
The, but what my dad told me that day, I think it's very important that you need a balance in your life. But you should, if you're passionate, there should be that kind of edge of like what's next. And you do have to find ways to motivate yourself. I think surrounding yourself with the good team is very important.
I have Gustavo, my pastry cheff, and you know, my GM Haymont you know, of course my family. And, you know, seeing all of them and how hard they work and, and what they do. I think that also gives me that edge of like, all right, I also have to like, step up. You know, like I, I had that inner drive in me you know, this is my dad's restaurant.
At the end of the day, I have my own goals for sure, in terms of a restaurant concept that I have in my mind that I wanna do. But I don't feel that I'm necessarily ready at this moment to execute that plan yet. So, you know, every day I'm trying to work towards getting a little bit better, a little bit better.
And of course, you have days that you don't want to do anything. I sit in bed, I watch Netflix, and just like everyone else, I don't think that that's like an unhealthy thing to do. You know, I definitely tell my cooks and whatnot that, you know, , you should be motivated. You should be driven. You're young.
Like go and star at restaurants and read books and do those kinds of things. But also, do you have five days you work here? One day can be for that, but one day should be for yourself and to rest and relax. So yeah, like I, I definitely did find that success, but you can't let it get to your head. You just gotta kind of like, stay humble because it can be taken away from you also in like a snap of a finger.
[00:48:21] Justin Khanna: What's missing? I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you what you think is missing from your skillset, or are there character traits or beliefs that, that you feel like are, are lacking from allowing you to, to launch something? No,
[00:48:33] Akshay Bhardwaj: I guess character traits I think are solid because my, I mean, I, you know, I had a guest come in recently, actually kind of ridiculous.
She was a chef and so, you know, a chef comes in, you're gonna go and say hi, hello and everything, right. She had asked to meet me, so. , of course I'm gonna go and, and you know, it was a Friday night, very, very busy. Go, went boxer, gave a box of chocolates, a little extra here and there. She was like, yeah, you're very young, this and that.
And we were just having a nice little convo. She goes, is your staff or are they, are they paid enough? That's a, that's a very weird question you have the adrenaline pumping you busy service and you just get this question asked.
[00:49:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: I said, when it comes to my staff, my pastry chef, who you were just complimenting, he's, you know, she was sitting on that table. So, like, behind me, he's been with me for six years now. My two sous chefs, one of them has been with me for five years. The other's been with me for three years. And then three out of my five cooks working today have been with me for at least five years.
So, I think that will tell the story. the one thing is I always try to be good to my guys. I don't think it's a character trait that I would be lacking. I think it's just more of, like you said, skillset somewhat. I, I do want to travel more because I do feel my entire decade of my twenties, I was working five, six days a week and not really taking, the vacation days that were given to me and I definitely have that like on my list of, in the next five years to travel extensively back to India,
I, I haven't seen India past north India, and there's so much more to learn. Mm-hmm. and. I've been to Japan. I, I will, I would like to go back for sure. Travel through Europe, south America. So there's definitely, I wanna gain a little bit more of that cultural knowledge because once I open this concept you know, my father's 63, so I do wanna open this with him as well.
It's, that's one of my goals. So I definitely see it as more of like maybe in the next, like three to five years kind of thing. We do have a new restaurant opening this later this year, in the next huge, in the next few months. That's another bit of a passion project of his then I'm helping on, and I'm definitely very excited for it.
But after that, I definitely want to take some time to myself and to kind of you know, really put all my a hundred percent like time and effort into that concept.
[00:50:59] Justin Khanna: Do, would your concept have to be in New York? Like I, in your mind? I
[00:51:03] Akshay Bhardwaj: would, I would like to do it in New York just because. I was born and brought up here.
I'm the first in my family to be born outside of India. And New York is such a special place to my family. You know, my mother's always said that this, she doesn't want to ever like, move from here. I've definitely had thoughts of moving like south to like Miami or Texas or something like that. For the, for the winters.
I can't really do many more New York Winters . But New York is always gonna be my home. I think at least six months of the year. I, I always see myself here, so I would wanna open up and my father made his name in New York. I'd like to make my concept in my like, dream project here.
[00:51:43] Justin Khanna: What else do you hope is different about your thirties compared to your twenties?
And you, you kind of touched on it. I was, I have it on my list here as a question I wanted to ask you, but mm-hmm. , anything else?
[00:51:55] Akshay Bhardwaj: Well, well, 30 is coming up this year for me. I was gonna say, yeah. So what do I see different for it? I, I definitely think my twenties, I tell my cooks this, I always tell them that your hands are your money makers, but you gotta, you gotta strengthen this, you gotta strengthen the mind because you never know, God forbid something happens, like you have to bring something else to the table in a restaurant, if this is gonna be your career.
I tell anyone, any new cook, you know, in their twenties that so I'll always say like, you know, finish school, whether it's culinary or business something, but, you know, get that knowledge up. So I think it's the same with me of trying to maybe not be a day-to-day executive chef. Be more of an ownership that can empower other chefs and, you know, guide them.
I definitely have some visions of, of things that I wanna do. I can't necessarily be like cooking on the line five days, and expediting and things like that. I have a great team. I want to continue to build a great team.
anyone that's talented, bring them on board and try to like groom them so that I can kind of then continue to, you know, do my traveling and, and try to grow the cuisine even more. I think Indian cuisine is having a moment right now for sure. A hundred percent. You know, winning a James Beard award recently.
[00:53:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: Chint in and like so that's all, that's fantastic. So it's like, it's our job, I think to you know, not rest on our laurels, and to now take it to that next level. So what is that next level? I don't know, but it's, in my thirties, I'm gonna try to find out. .
[00:53:31] Justin Khanna: I want to talk a little bit about experimentation.
Mm-hmm. , because seeing your willingness as kind of like the next generation of this business and, and the level of control that you have in the role that, that you're in, you have the ability to say, I want to change when we do lunch, for example, I want to do some online media. I want to have chefs come here and do pop-up dinners, which, you know, the generation before ours, it's not like it didn't happen, but I think it happened in a different way from the sense of guest chef dinners might have looked a little bit different.
Media back then was getting a show on Food network or having, you know, good Morning America, come to your restaurant and do a profile piece. How, let's, let's take those maybe one by one, creating content online. It's something that a lot of people see happening. There's massive leverage opportunities there.
There are people who are, I, you know, I will argue saying, They kind of lean a little bit too much towards the online content earlier in their career without getting, you know, some cooking experience. Where does your head go? We'll, again, we'll take these one by one. Your take on online content right now in the food space?
[00:54:41] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. I hate them all. I hate Matt, especially. Not kidding. . We love you back. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, like to use Matt as an example a cook named Matt, Matt Broussard, I, I only met him through online, right? And I never knew him personally or anything like that. I think it was like through True Cooks or one of those that like, you know, they featured him and he was still cooking on the line pre pandemic.
And I like messaged him. I said, yo, this is, this is someone that's my age that is clearly very passionate, is is working the line. I'm working the line. I just shot him a message hey, like, awesome, you know what? Hey bro, what's up? You know, kind of like that. So I do like you said,
do people start too early? I think I, I entered the industry for different reasons. Like I never entered it for food network and fame and whatnot. Mm-hmm. , my, my passion and my drive was the, the smoke, like that visual of the smoke in the kitchen on a busy Friday night service. The chef is losing his voice, calling tickets, the team screaming, heard captain coming in and like, you know, like, like, what the hell do you need?
[00:55:49] Akshay Bhardwaj: You know, like all those things running to the phone, tell the hostess stop seating. Just that action, that, that's what got me going. You know, learning how to make like durry breads, like I got the burns on my arm doing kebabs. You know, after that long day of work, that satisfaction that you have when you're just having like a cold beer and kind of reminiscing at the bar with your coworkers telling stories that, that's what got me into it.
Creating new dishes and seeing, you know, a new dish come to life. All those things were, were the things that got me into it. So it is still tough for me sometimes to go ahead and, you know, shoot videos and whatnot. I have my brother who kind of always eggs me on, and I was gonna ask about that. He definitely, him and my father got, we got in a massive fight.
We were in Turkey in 2019, and they were kind of like, you know, you need to do more more media. Ronnie can take you to India and shoot videos and this and that. And I got so mad. I said, I, that's not, I'm not ready. I really said that, that I am not ready to do that because I would be a fraud.
I don't feel comfortable. that's not who I am. I can't just walk through India, I don't wanna BS and be like, oh, like this and this, and this is that. Because I don't know yet, in a few years when I do feel ready, and I do think now is the time where I'm starting to grow more and more confident and more willing to do things for sure.
[00:57:16] Akshay Bhardwaj: But back then I couldn't. And then a quick example would be when I knew that I was ready was that I was just in India in September, we opened a new restaurant. We were basically just helping with the concept and I walked into the kitchen and don't know the menu or anything like that, but my job was to kind of organize the kitchen and they had all the dishes, all the main components of the dishes.
My job was to make it sexy, presentable, like Jan noon, little modern twist and pair each dish. So I just sat on the past that whole day. Trying each dish. And then I would just write a note and be like, okay, we can do a little salad puree. We, this is very spicy. We can do something rich with a little bit of citrus to help balance it out.
This needs a little more color on the dish. Okay, this needs a little texture, a little bit of crispiness. We can add a tweel to it that'll make it beautiful, give you the crispy edge to it that it needs. And within like two or three days, we did all like 30 dishes. Plated is some needed microgreens, pickled onions, pickled, whatever.
And that's when I felt like, and I was able to speak in Hindi to my, to the team. And anytime they needed me to show them how to actually make something or do anything, I was able to do it. So that's when I felt like, okay, you know, this is me as a chef. I feel much more confident now. And this is, this is where I am at my career at that.
I can walk into this kitchen and have that understanding of what is needed, how to do it, how to use any of the machinery that's there, what spice buns need to be used. I'm not perfect. I'm far from it, but I'm, I'm getting better. Whereas a few years ago, I would've been struggling.
So when it comes to the online you know, the content creators, I have a lot of respect for them because they work very hard. I see Matt and all these guys, they're, you know, working pretty much the same amount of hours that we're working in the kitchen. people might think it's easy. It's not.
It's the editing, the lighting, what are we gonna actually do, the camera angles. All these things take a lot of time and effort, which people might not realize and might not understand. So chefs might look down upon them. I for, I definitely don't, because I know for a fact that they're putting in just as much time as us, they're busy in a different way than what a chef in the kitchen would be.
[00:59:36] Justin Khanna: I mean, I'm picking up two things there. One is your awareness to just say, I'm gonna continue to play to my strengths. Mm-hmm. , like, my strength is in the culinary operations side of things. So I'm not gonna try to just like cold Turkey become a food influencer. Influencer. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna play to my strengths and slowly start to pick up these skills in a way that also ties in with that thread that has come up multiple times here of that, the nuance, which I think I pick up on when I see, like you and Matt doing a collaboration together.
It's like, oh, amazing. Like, it's not that you need to become the next big TikTok person, but can you use what your strengths are to kind of bring value to someone like Matt, someone like Byron, someone, you know, all these people that can come in and, and do a collaboration with you. what I think not a lot of chefs pick up on.
They think, oh, I need to come up with something that's gonna go viral. When in reality, again, as a, it's, it's like a theme of this conversation. Like there's a happy medium mm-hmm. where you can, where you can do both.
[01:00:32] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. And I definitely think that happy medium, it's, you do have to be willing to put that time and effort in.
You know, I can't, I can't stretch that enough unfortunately, I do see, you know, sometimes cooks coming in and they think that it's not gonna be that much time and effort needed. it makes me cringe because I'm not saying you have to do like 90 hours and, and faint and break your jaw like me. , but you do need to, be willing to go in on that sixth day, and do a few hours mm-hmm.
and put in that, that time if, if you don't, you can't really make it work on, in my opinion,getting that happy medium on a five day, 40 hour week. You gotta get to that 50, maybe 60. And I always say it's like if you have eight hour, if you're working eight hours or 10 hours a day and you still have 16 to 14 hours, get your eight hours of sleep.
[01:01:26] Akshay Bhardwaj: You're still talking about eight hours, take two hours on commuting or whatever. You're still looking at four to five hours of something that you can do semi productive, two hours can go to yourself, two hours can go to something productive. And, you know, finding that balance doesn't have to be every single day, but you can take one day of eight hours to yourself.
You can take another day, eight hours towards work, something like that. But yeah, definitely. I try to find that balance when I, I love these collaboration dinners like you were mentioning. I think that was something that we sorely lacked at the old restaurant. I wasn't the head chef, but I always felt like when we were at our power, when we had like a Michelin and we were that new restaurant on the block, we should have been inviting like chefs left and right because it was a massive restaurant.
Beautiful. There was no lack of space. There was nothing like that. Unfortunately, you know, I don't know the reasons for it. It just never really happened and I think when you do a collaboration dinner, it's amazing because your team gets also energized. They get to learn, they get to see something new.
Me, myself, I get to learn something new whenever Matt comes and he's doing some one of the dishes or, or multiple dishes. I get to see that and be like, oh, that's, I should, I should maybe make the duck like this for our menu and, you know, we can tweak it and do it like that. So I always think I'm a visual learner, so when you see things that other people are bringing to the table, it's like you have other things that now are in your repertoire.
Right. And you know, like we're doing that a collaboration dinner with Byron Gomez and man at the end of the month and at the end of Feb. And I'm so super excited because Byron, you know, from his background culturally, but then also where he's worked at Cafe Ballou and E M P and Atera, it's like he's, he's got some great techniques up his sleeves.
I'm excited to see that. And of course now I've worked with Matt twice. He's a line cook. Although he is a content creator now, he is a line cook at heart. When he's in the kitchen, he's wiping down with my cooks. He's cleaning, grooming, mopping, you know, he's got a real respect for the kitchen and understanding.
So it's almost seamless when he walks in.
[01:03:32] Justin Khanna: The next point that I'd love to get your take on is, is modern technique. And that's something that I think you and I both kind of came up in, in the industry seeing come to life through, through molecular gastronomy in Spain and modernist cuisine, you know, coming stateside with places like Alinea and other places here in the us.
what's your take on the kind of using modernist techniques, especially in a cuisine like, like Indian food? Because , I know, like for me, when I go to India, my aunties literally like, I have to spend time in the kitchen with them to get to, to learn. Yeah. There, there are no recipes. There is nothing written down.
[01:04:08] Justin Khanna: Mm-hmm. . And so I guess how do, how do you marry the two of those or kind of think about that?
[01:04:11] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. We have like a written joke in my family. where my grandmother rest her soul. If she saw sometimes some of the things that I'm doing in the kitchen, , she would like, throw something at me, she would disown me, take me out of the will.
You know, it's molecular gastronomy to the old school, Indian, you know, born in 1940 as a big no-no. But for us, of course, being fine dining, I always try to call our ourselves modern Indian. I never wanna really call ourselves fusion because, and that's such a, it's such a tight line that you're walking, right?
You really don't know. One person might still think it's fusion, one person might not. So the way I try to define every dish and, and tell my team, Is that there should be some sense of nostalgia on the plate. That if you close your eyes, you can taste that Indian dish, that Indian recipe or technique. You, you brought up a really good point about recipes, which I, I'll go on after, but like, that's the main component.
So each of our dish all of our dishes always has some, some component on it that is either taken from an idea or a recipe, or a technique that is, that is Indian at its absolute core. And then after that we try to make it interesting and. Bring on that New York flare of either utilizing something locally, produce wise, or then using a technique that might not be quote unquote Indian.
And that is, that is more global. So I, I would say I have three examples, like right off the bat in terms of dishes that I've created that, that have, that one would be like, we have a vindaloo ribs. So it's pork ribs. First and foremost, the team managers and everyone said that pork is never gonna sell on our menu because although it's not against our religion, not many Indians eat pork.
So I was battling that first and foremost. Two, it was ribs. It's not really fine dining or picking it up and eating it like that. But when I did the, hi, my research and history, you looked at it and said that vindaloos actual story and background is that it was brought away from the Portuguese. It was actually pork slabs that they used to marinate because they used to they had colonies in India, so they would.
use red wine and garlic as their base marination when they're bringing it on the ship. So the pork wouldn't go bad. The Indian cooks got their hands on it, were asked to cook it, some of them didn't drink and whatnot, so they didn't use wine. They used vinegar instead. Mm. And then they added their chilies to it, the red chilies and, and whatnot.
So that's where you gotten the modern vindaloo recipe, which is usually heavy on vinegar. It's acidic, it's spicy from the chilies, and then there's heavy amounts of garlic. That's that's that. So I said, why don't we do the same thing and it's pork, so let's, let's stick to the traditional. And we smoked it and treated it like it was a Texas barbecue.
Wow. So three hours in the combi with apple smoke, we do like a first marination, and then we take a barbecue glaze, like a vindaloo barbecue glaze, and then glaze the ribs with that. So that was one of the dishes. And then we serve it with charcoal smoke tableside bestseller. Can't take it off. The other two would be truffle khichdi, which is, khichdi is a very traditional Indian rice dish.
Super cheap comfort. You would never see it at a fine dining restaurant because it is literally just rice and lentils boiled together. Something you whip up in 10 minutes and you just have it in the wintertime, or if you're feeling unwell, there's like turmeric and chilies in it. So where do you, how do you serve that?
But I got the idea that I was eating an Italian restaurant and I've had risotto a billion times. They, that's pretty simple in terms of ingredients, but then you're talking about adding truffles to it and now you just get a, a lot of flavor and B, a pretty expensive dish. And you know, it's like a featured menu item.
So I was like, why don't we do that for khichdi? Why don't we take truffles and some mushrooms, add that to the mixture and serve it like that. And we've done that ever since. And it's something that, you know, you can't really take off. We dry age duck breast, which is also pretty different. And when I was in Japan, I used to see a lot of Japanese chefs using these semolina puffs that are actually native to India.
They're called pani puri very famous treat food. And so we went to a few restaurants. I went with Saori-san. So she was taking us like, you know, pretty much everywhere. And these guys were putting like, uni custard in it and, and topping with caviar and whatnot. I'm saying, this is a, this is an Indian chill.
I'm going crazy seeing it. And so when I came back, I, we, we ended up making a dish with raw tuna sprinkling some chopped onions, tomato cilantro, little himalaya, like pink salt to it, and topped with caviar. And then we pour like our traditional Jira cilantro, mint based drink. And you eat it in one bite.
Traditionally in India, raw fish is like kind of a no-no, no one really eats it. We put raw fish on our menu previously, a couple of times never sold. We would always go to waste and caviar once again. Also, nothing too crazy Indian. That dish is realistically supposed to be all vegetables and vegetarian potatoes and chickpeas.
Can't take that dish off the menu . There'd be riots. So I try to do dishes like that where there's an Indian component to it and it's Indian people that order those dishes. All those dishes are usually, you'll see it's an an Indian table that orders it. And when they leave the restaurant, that's what I want them to say.
I always tell my team is I want them to leave and say that I can't really get that dish anywhere else. It reminded me of something I've had, something like that, but not quite. And so that is something that we do. We do spherification, we do some other things that's on our tasting menu. We, you know, we try to do a little more You know, a little more testing and experimental dishes on the tasting venue.
But for the three course I always try to look at dishes like that where, hey, let's, let's take something western marry it with something Indian and then see how that comes out.
[01:10:20] Justin Khanna: Go on the recipes piece. I'm bringing that up again.
[01:10:22] Akshay Bhardwaj: Oh yeah. I mean, that's one of the big issues with our cuisine in general has always been that there's no real standard recipes.
So when you talk about French cooking, if you say, make a hollandaise, you ask like 10 French chef how to make hollandaise, it's all gonna come out the same. Right? You can like close your eyes and pretty much it's gonna, it's gonna be the same you know, if you, or like beurre monté, something like that, you ask Italian chefs to make like a Po.
Pomodoro or, or Alfredo, it's gonna come out like 95% the same. But if you ask Indian chefs to make like a yellow doll lentils, , all 10 of them will be completely different. One will have mustard seeds and curry leaf in it. The other will have cumin seeds and green chilies. The other will have no chilies.
The other will have onion, chopped onions and tomatoes. So, you know, that's been, I think standardizing recipes and getting to a place where a restaurant can be consistent has been some of, I think the issues when it comes to like Indian kitchens in America and why there's not as many Indian restaurants necessarily that have like the Michelin stars or, or the really like high rankings.
Because you know, if you come in on a Tuesday and you order a butter chicken, it might come in a little creamier then, you like it. You might come back on Friday, order it again, and it might come back a little spicier because each Indian cook on the line has a way that they grew up eating each dish.
So they're not gonna really be like, oh, well the recipe says one teaspoon cumin. No, I used have to do it with three teaspoons of cumin. That's how I grew up. And that's, my mom makes the best, my grandma makes the best, but the customer is the one that really suffers. I tell my cooks this all the time.
We used to do modifications, so of course, you know, any restaurant, it's like, okay, I want a butter chicken, extra spicy. So we used to, we used to do it. So we stopped doing that now. So whenever I explain, and I'm very strict to my servers and to my staff, we cannot do it. We cannot make any modifications.
If they want extra spicy, we have hot sauce on the side. The reason being that person X is working the line today, he ordered butter, chicken, extra spicy. Okay? Two teaspoons are chili, powdered goes to the guest. The guest loves it. This is the best butter chicken I've ever had. Comes back on Friday, tells his friend, y'all come, let's go order the butter chicken person Xes off person Y is working.
Person Y says, all right, no problem. Chops up two green chilies, adds the green chilies to oil, heats that, and then adds the sauce in the chicken. The guest gets in like, yo, this is now what I had on Tuesday. What the hell? You know, forget this place. It's so, I think that's one of the big, big, big issues that our cuisine has faced over the years.
There's, there are no recipes realistically, and, you know, that's always been something that we suffer on. And
[01:13:15] Justin Khanna: the same thing will happen with guests too. Like, I go out with Indian family and they're like, you know, this is fine, but you know what I mean? Like, of
[01:13:22] Akshay Bhardwaj: course I've, I had a comment card once , I, I pinned it on my board, the, I wrote literally like, actually is a fraud chef, blah, blah, blah.
That's great. I mean, that's all fine. Nice. Then he goes on and says, yeah, my driver can make better doll than . And I told him, I, my manager's never listened. I always used to ask in our weekly manager meeting, can we call this guy? I wanna learn his driver's doll. I'm very curious to see what the hell this guy does that's so special.
Why is he still a driver and why is he not a chef? ? But you know, that's like, you get that kind of, you get those comments and it's always gonna be from people that are Indian. And unfortunately, this is a
[01:14:03] Justin Khanna: quick side tangent that, that I've started to adopt as a, as a mental framework for just looking at the industry and how different people present their food and do things is I've tried to actively push myself to stop saying that certain techniques or ways of doing things are better than others.
Cuz I think that, you know, especially people in, in our generation, it was constantly, oh, there's a better way to blank. Sovi is a better way to cook steaks, for example, when in reality it's just a different technique. And that really helped me kind of frame things. I posted a video on, on my channel a couple weeks ago talking about toasting nuts, whereas like, and you talked about it with spices today, there's, you can toast in a pan, you can throw it in the oven.
There's multiple ways to accomplish the same goal, but there's different techniques. One is not better than the other because, you know, certain people might want a perfectly, you know, kind of like edge to edge pink on their steak. I've heard people talk about the fact that that is incredibly sterile and they actually enjoy the fact that there's a gradient of a cook throughout their steak when they cook it exclusively on a grill versus sovi.
And so, I don't know if you have thoughts there, but different techniques versus better
[01:15:19] Akshay Bhardwaj: techniques. I would definitely agree that I always tell my team, Learn all the techniques and there is no right way to get to their final product. the more you know, the more ways you'll have to get to that final product.
So I'm always open to hearing suggestions on, you know, we're dry aging and then rendering the fat and then basting. But yeah, we've tried, souve in the past, we've tried different ways and, you know, each way is, has its pros and its has its cons. That's a better way to say it, right? Mm-hmm. There, there is so many different things that can. , so many different variables, and then how you execute also the technique.
You know, you can use the greatest technique or the greatest equipment in the world, but if you don't know how to necessarily execute, then what's the point? I try to have the team come up with specials and I always tell them that, okay, this is a great dish. Now how do you plan on making this for 20 portions a day, six days a week, within a two and a half minute timeframe, using like what equipment we have?
We have the combi on this side, we have the tandoor oven on this side, we, so what is your game plan on that? You know, you can make the greatest sexiest dish, but if the team can't execute it, we're not cooking for ourselves, we're cooking for our guests. And that's something that it took me a little while to like really like hone in on.
Was that, you know, I, I used to sometimes go over the top with like six component, eight component dishes, and then you realize that okay, the guests are not really getting those six to eight components perfectly every single time. If I cut it back to four components, make those four components perfect.
That might be a betterment.
[01:17:07] Justin Khanna: We could keep going for ages. Yes. I wanna ask you one more question, then we'll do some rapid fire ones. Mm-hmm. , what's the most valuable part of your repertoire?
[01:17:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: Hmm. That's a, that's a great, great question. Wow. most valuable. So it has to be, does have to be technique or another way
[01:17:26] Justin Khanna: to potentially think about it is what's your most hard fought skill?
[01:17:31] Akshay Bhardwaj: Oh, definitely. Oh, definitely. Like Naan making for sure. Yeah. Naan making is something I, I try to compare it and we're hoping with this new project that we do to really showcase the, that real nuance, you know, that we're kind of discussing. I, you know, I think the world should see what tandoor cooking really is because I'll tell you, it's so special.
It's so special. And, you know, j being in Japan, I really under start appreciated even more than before. I definitely had an appreciation, but I, in terms of like knife making and then like how a Japanese chef cultivates, you know, an omakase menu and perfecting those 10 to 12 dishes or, you know making sushi from the sushi rice to cutting the fish to the wasabi soil, all of tandoor cooking is, and that those chefs have worked 15 to 20 years perfecting that tandoors is just like that.
Yes, you really, I've been doing it now almost 10 years. People see me, I'm on those videos with Matt doing it and whatnot, and I would still consider myself like average at best. When you're talking about those real, real hardcore Indian tandoor chefs, there's such a beauty and technique that goes into it that it's on a whole nother level.
And unfortunately in New York and in this country as a whole, New York specifically, they've outlawed using the charcoal tandoor. So a lot of that flavor is lacking. They're only gas lines. So you have that disadvantage, number one. And then quality of chefs that can actually do that is not as much as, you know, what you would get in India.
You know, everyone there special. So I am hoping, we are hoping as a team to try and showcase that more with the new concept that we do. But making nun. Was incredibly difficult at first and I've, I've struggled. I've gone down in service plenty of times. You know, total crap shoots at the restaurant. When I first started off, now I have a little more confidence.
I, but I still love it and I still have the utmost respect for anyone that can like, stand there and do that day in and day out. I'll
[01:19:41] Justin Khanna: barely be able to wrap my brain around it, but I would love to come spend a day or two at that new concept and see what you guys are doing with that. Cuz that's another regret of mine is that I've never really dug into tender cooking.
Mm-hmm. as a, because I, I, you, you sit there in India and you watch them doing it and you're like, when you have kitchen experience working on a line or even any open fire experience in your life, it's, you can truly comprehend how technique driven it is when you see it being executed on that type of scale.
Yeah. So, so kudos to you for. Championing
[01:20:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: it. Yeah, definitely. Thank you. And yeah, I mean, come by for sure when, when we open that I'm, I'm very excited for, I think what we're gonna be showcasing there,
[01:20:25] Justin Khanna: it's a Saturday morning or your first day off of your work week, and you kind of get into your kitchen to make eggs for yourself.
How do you make
[01:20:32] Akshay Bhardwaj: those eggs?
Oof. I would say one of two ways. I would say either like an omelet that I would throw in, like some very finely chopped onions, tomato, cilantro, little cumin seeds, a little chopped thigh, green chilies into it. You know, with a little toast, if I'm gonna go the scrambled row route, I would maybe add a little cheddar cheese on that.
Mm-hmm. , and then make like a sandwich. I mean, can't go wrong with a little bacon, a little egg, little cheese action. That's, you know, that's, that's a go-to for sure
[01:21:04] Justin Khanna: with. , the knowledge that you've been cultivating and the self-awareness that you clearly have. I'd be curious if there's been a book that's been particularly impactful and maybe, maybe there isn't.
Maybe you've just been so on the job, but yeah. This doesn't have to be cooking related. This can be business philosophy,
[01:21:22] Akshay Bhardwaj: psychology. Yeah. Definitely I would say setting the table. Mm-hmm. was, I, I tell every single person walks through those doors. Get that book, read that first, and I read it. So I say first and foremost, read that when you enter the industry, but you know what, looking back on it, the second I read it, when I, you know, someone told me, Hey, read it when I had just started really finding my passion for cooking and, you know, with, of course the Anthony Bourdain books Kitchen Confidential, and then you, you read it and of course, nice book.
but I didn't really understand who like Danny Meyer is and Shake Shack and E Em p and Grammarcy Tavern. I didn't, I didn't really get all that. And then I read it during the pandemic again, and this is after being in the industry at that point, like eight years. And then I was like, damn, I took a notebook out.
I must have written like 10 pages worth of like quotes and notes and highlighting. It is really if you're gonna, you know, when you're taking that leap into like a management role, understanding hospitality and you know that he's the most successful American restaurateur, right? And he, in our country when it comes to both from an, from a, from a fine dining service perspective as well as a moneymaking perspective.
So he's done it both. . So I think that's, and the fact that like none of his restaurant, almost none of his restaurants ever realistically have like closed down. That is such a talent on its own, you know? And so I think that that's, that's a phenomenal book. I could not like, recommend enough. And the, the fact
[01:22:59] Justin Khanna: that someone like him is willing to just put that knowledge out there for, how much is that book?
Like 16 bucks something? Yeah. Like that's, that's bonkers.
[01:23:07] Akshay Bhardwaj: Crazy. That's, that's like gold right there. Yeah. That's, that's like a masterclass. That's, that's like four years of college right there in that one book. I'm being very honest. Yeah. You somehow
[01:23:15] Justin Khanna: get a call right after this interview that you've just won an all expenses paid trip to eat at your dream restaurant and then when you get there, there's someone you've always wanted to speak with waiting to have dinner with you.
What does that restaurant and who is that person? ?
[01:23:26] Akshay Bhardwaj: So I guess since Noma's closing, I would take that real quick. Hundred percent. Yeah. That, that's something I won't be able to do. I mean, there's also. I dunno why the restaurant has just exited my mind. They're also closing soon. Or maybe they did close already in California.
Three Michelins Dark. Manresa Yeah. Yes. I mean, that's another one, right? Mm-hmm. . I really love that. I mean, California, everyone always tells me about that. If I go out there, I'm never gonna come back because of the produce. Sure. And that whole Sure. That whole aspect of you can kind of be within your own community and the rest of you can get away from the winters that Yeah, that's, that's another one.
I mean, so, so I would say those two are like, pretty much would be up there. Who I would want to like sit and talk to over dinner. I mean, I think Danny Meyer would be up there for sure. Knowing, knowing
[01:24:13] Justin Khanna: where you're at with restaurants now, what would you ask Danny? .
[01:24:15] Akshay Bhardwaj: I would, I don't know, I think just over the course of a conversation, I wouldn't have maybe one specific question, but just kind of overall, like those emotions that he had.
I've a, I asked my father the same question, and I think Danny would have the same answer, and I think he kind of does in that book, is that, like I asked my dad one day, I was like, what really makes a good restaurant? Like, how does a restaurant succeed? He's had, so, you know, my father also pretty much never really had to close too many restaurants in his life.
You know, after 1997, he opened up Cafe Spice Restaurants. They had upwards of 15 of them, and then he opened noon. And my dad just like, just casually was like, listen, if I knew like, what it, what it entailed, I, you know, I would never have to like stress, right? Like each restaurant. Is there, there's a time and place for it, for a concept.
It won't necessarily work, you know, location wise, time wise, all of that. So there's so many factors that go into it. I would just wanna pick his brain in terms of from going from super fine dining of a Grammarcy Tavern to opening a hot dog stand and Shake Shack, all those, everything in between growing the business.
At what point do you decide that you're hands off? When do you start giving the delegation. because I think that's something that a lot of str chefs struggle with a lot of, including myself, is in terms of delegating those responsibilities day to day. Because you always know that, hey, this, this is my baby, these are my dishes.
I know what's best for them. I can do it better, so let me like, you know, do it. So I think that natural is that struggle and I'm still learning to get better at that communicating, learning to get better at that. Of course, you can always throw like the President Obama out there. I would, you know, who wouldn't wanna sit with him?
Probably have some, have a couple of beers. You know, if Anthony Bourdain was still alive, he would be up there as well.
[01:26:10] Justin Khanna: Those two are the two most popular people that folks say, yeah. Is is Obama and Bourdain, which I get it. I totally get it. Listen, thank you so much for, for not just having me, but for.
Always just being so open and, and, and consciously aware of what's happening just in your career, in your professional life. I have one more question for you, but is there anything else that we didn't get a chance to talk about today or any topics that you wanted to expand on further for the audience?
[01:26:37] Akshay Bhardwaj: No, I think that's, I, I would say the one thing is we were discussing social media before. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, like, I, I think it is great, it's made the world much smaller and you're able to meet, like, I was able to meet Matt through that and, and whatnot. But I think it's very important to put it out there for, especially for younger people, is that not everything you see, and you should remind yourself that not everything you see on social media it's, is, is necessarily like true.
And everybody, no matter if they're putting like, you know, perfection out there every single day on their social media, doesn't mean that they're living the perfect life. And I think sometimes we get so. focused on what others are doing because of that. You know, you wake up and you have 20 text messages and Instagram notifications and Facebook and WhatsApp and whatnot.
Emails that, you know, you just enter kind of that world the second you wake up and then the second you go to sleep. But everyone's going through stuff and that, you gotta focus on yourself also, and like, make sure that you take care of yourself first and foremost, and then you know, your surrounding environment, the people that are around you.
And like that I think is something that sometimes gets lost because life is moving so fast for everyone. And it's something that I also struggle with from time to time and something that we can all get better at. I
[01:27:56] Justin Khanna: mean, maybe that's your answer, but my last question is always for folks, what can chefs be doing better to help the next generation?
Does anything else come to mind? Advice wise, things you wish that someone would've told you or things that you're kind of looking forward to as you, as you enter this new decade of, of your life?
[01:28:12] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah, I think, you know what? I was never really told. Oof. There's so many, there's so many things. Yeah. And I do, you know, it's crazy because that phrase that you said, I do tell my cooks that quite often in terms of like, I was never told this.
I guess one of them would be that, actually this is very important, is that if you're, especially in fine dining, you wanna be a chef, I think there's two kinds of chefs you can really be in your life. And there's a lot more you can do in, in food itself, whether it's content creating and media and, and you know, you can be a recipe developer at Food 52 or, or have a podcast.
[01:28:48] Akshay Bhardwaj: YouTube channel. But if, if you're talking about brick and mortar restaurants, there's the fine dining chef that's, you have to really be passionate and really set your standard high and, and work towards that. Or you could be more of a, you know, casual chef. It's, there's, there's no shame in that.
You know, it's a and, and that's basically what you have to choose. But to be that fine dining chef, I always tell my team is starge at a bunch of different places, different cuisines. Every chef is, I mean, most chefs are gonna be, are gonna let you in, you work for free for them. Pick and choose like what you wanna do.
Be mindful of that. Try to stick it out for a year. Don't necessarily start at three Michelin, because if you have no experience and you go to three Michelin, they're gonna have you doing the picking cilantro leaves and herbs, you know, no offense. And. Start maybe at a onestar place where they'll actually wor let you work the line you know two star in New York Times, or one Michelin kind of place, and one year try to then start staging at other places and, and go to another place and, and do that for a couple of years if that's what you wanna do.
If you wanted, if your initial thoughts are fine dining and that's what you wanna do, I think that's the best way to go about it. Try to work at a bunch of different places. Try to stge on your day off. And what you put into this industry is what you're gonna get out of it work-wise, right? If you put that knowledge into your mind and your brain and you know, you get the hand, the skills, it's all experience based.
The more experience you get, the more and more, the more you're gonna know, like when I went to India four years ago, wouldn't have been able to do what I did four years later. And then you'll get those promotions and whatnot. But those first few years, try to learn different cuisines. Make yourself uncomfortable.
Work in a good environment. I think more restaurants are becoming better environment wise and for chefs to teach the next generation, you know, give them the opportunity and invest. I try to invest my time and effort. I tell my guys if they're gonna invest their time and effort in me, it's more than just a paycheck.
It's, you know, my books I'll take you to Korin. We'll, I'll show you the knives. I'll, you know, Vincent is very kind. He's literally come twice to my restaurant and done knife demos for my staff. So I, I will give you more resources than just a paycheck, but you gotta invest your time into me. I'll invest my time into you and I hope that the next generation's better than you know, what my generation is.
[01:31:18] Justin Khanna: I think to just really highlight something that you said about getting that range of experiences, staging around a little bit early on, and just whether you want to do it unpaid or in an internships profile or not, it allows you to make an informed decision. . I have people who DM me all the time who are like, Justin, I want to go to this specific restaurant.
And if you really dug just one layer down of why do you want to go there? Because someone told me that that's where I should go. Mm-hmm. , or I read that some other chef that was where they got their, cut their teeth. And so then now I feel that I have to go there. And I think what you're trying to kind of highlight for the audience here is like, make sure that the choice is made by you, not by somebody
[01:31:58] Akshay Bhardwaj: else.
Yeah. Your own experience, right? Mm-hmm. , one more. Yeah. . No. Do it, do it. Do it. Do it. You know what I loved was, I forgot to mention I just watched the Bear recently. Yes, yes. And I did watch, I like Googled it after on YouTube and your video came off like your, I only watched the first episode breakdown that you had.
It was, I mean, your breakdown was like very spot on. Thank you. Thank you. Like perfect means perfect. I didn't realize that you actually worked in that kitchen also. Yes. That was very, very cool. It's crazy. That show was really fantastic. I have a lot of friends of mine, not that are not in culinary. That have dined at Jan noon like tens of times.
And they all were like, of course, you know, we respected you of course and whatnot, but is the bear like somewhat realistic? I'm like, yeah. They're like, dude, I respect for you is like shot up dramatically. And that scene of the ticket machine rolling nonstop, of course it's never happened to that degree, but the whole stressful atmosphere of when things go to shit they focused on the ticket machine.
But it can be you're running out of a dish over sad, over booked. Not enough plate wear, not enough China wear not enough staff, all those. Walking is broken in the middle of service. All those things have happened to pretty much like every chef, you know, it's happened to me plenty of times.
There's some pump once broken, our old restaurant during restaurant week, so we couldn't turn our dish machine on because the water was basically flooding our basement. So I was literally standing in literal feces trying to like plunge our like big sum pump or 17,000 square foot restaurant the entire night, like, and had to wait there till four in the morning.
So, It's a super, super stressful job. And if you're gonna, that's for any like young cook, I guess that's thinking of joining the industry, maybe give that to a watch it might not be that you're working at a deli, but fine dining, but you're gonna find the stresses along the way.
[01:33:53] Justin Khanna: That's expectations versus reality. I had lunch yesterday with one of my old, he was a, a peer of mine at, at culinary school, and he's a sous chef at Danielle now, and we were talking about the fact that I'm almost positive CIA removed the need to have ex restaurant experience before you go get a degree there.
Yeah. Which is what I had to have before I went there. And I can only imagine the number of people who think that they want to go into culinary, they work for a restaurant for six months and they're like, this is not for me. Yeah. And if that, you know, that requirement has been taken away. I'm not, listen folks, I'm not saying watching the bears the same as working at a restaurant.
Yeah. Yeah. But if watching that show only gets you more excited mm-hmm. , I think that there's something to follow there. Yeah. There's something to, to pull on. And, and, and there's a gravity that that's starting to develop with you around, around food. We already went over time . Where, where do you want people to go to either get in touch with you book a table, where, where do you wanna send people?
[01:34:47] Akshay Bhardwaj: Yeah. To get in contact with me. You can give me a follow on Instagram at Akshay Cooks a K S H A Y Cooks, and then the restaurant is Junoon nyc. So the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter is all at Junoon. And then nyc and yeah, you can book a table with us online and, you know, I definitely would love to see people, you know, come and dine with us and for any cooks there that are thinking of either entering the industry or interested maybe by Indian food.
and you know, wanna give it a try, you know, I'm more than happy to have you come and work with us for a day. You know, my doors are always open. I have a very diverse team. If you look inside the kitchen, I only have, I think about three Indian people working right now for me. The rest goes, ranges from my past chef being Guatemala.
My pastry Sue is from the Philippines. My sous chef is from Gambia. So it's a super diverse team and the doors are always open for everyone. And you know, I hope to see, see everyone soon. . Thanks again, man. Yeah, thank you.
Well, well, here we are together again at the end of another episode of The Repertoire podcast. If this was your first time listening, this is a show for hospitality creators who want to think better, increase their performance and believe that it's. Possible to take lessons from what others have already learned.
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