Business Today Net Special

Gourmet Delight

A cook to the rich and famous embarks on his own entrepreneurial journey. Business Today’s Debojyoti Chatterjee catches up with Munna Maharaj in Kolkata.

By Debojyoti Chatterjee

Munna Maharaj

When 15-year old Munna Singh of Gaya stepped into Mahabir Singh’s halwai business he had one thing in mind---keeping the family reputation intact. Twenty-three years down the line, Munna Maharaj is a household name in the business families of India. Anil Agarwal of Sterlite, Laxmi “Ispat” Mittal, Rama Prasad Goenka, and others swear by him. Even pop stars Michael Jackson had a taste of Munna’s famous catering when he toured India in 1996. But, Munna Maharaj , the jet-setting caterer is moving on. From catering to the rich and famous he is now finally committed to share his expertise with a large number of people and in the process create a whole new hospitality business. The scheme of things is pretty grand—restaurants, both veg as well as non-veg, food theme parks and even stand alone banquet facilities. The chose city, his home town of Kolkata.

“People were often complaining in the city that that they did not have a good vegetarian place to go out and eat. And, most of them were my clients.” So Munna’s, Kolkata’s first veggie bar and restaurant opened its door in 1998. And, Munna the restaurateur began a new career. “One of the key features that we recognised early on was the changing taste of people. Traditional Indian food had to be complemented by new cuisines and that is where I started experimenting with Thai, Chinese, Italian and rest. Rather than following their recipes to the tee, I tried to Indianise them and that did the trick”, says Munna.

In fact the success of the restaurant prompted Munna to start street food theme restaurant in downtown Kolkata called Munna Millennium. It’s junk foodies' delight. Pav Bhaji to Chaat, Kathi Rolls to Puchka, you name it you have it. Again the attempt has been to recreate a party spirit. This was followed by the acquisition of on of Kolkata’s landmarks, the Blue Fox restaurant. Once home to the likes of Louis Banks and Pam Crain, the Blue Fox today belts out soulful Hindi numbers and the stress is on baked vegetables rather than on Bekti Menuire.

“We are now established in the restaurant business, and the next step is to start a pub called JJs. This will be the city of joy’s first pub outside the star hotels and probably the only late night hang outs outside the five star joints,” explains Munna’s brother Sanjay. “We are also planning two banquet centres, complete with swimming pools and accommodation. A lot of our business comes from parties and we feel if we have a place of our own then we an grow faster, ” he adds. But all this takes money. And that’s when Munna shuts. A traditionalist to the core, questions on investments and returns and turn over are met with an enigmatic smile and “Bhagwan ke kripa se sab dheek hain”.

Issue Contents Write to us Subscription Syndication