When Chef Arjun Mehta left the Cordon Bleu in 2010, he carried with him something few culinary graduates do: genuine doubt. Not about his craft, but about whether that craft belonged in a glass tower or in a narrow Bandra lane where the sea breeze arrives with the evening service.
He chose the lane. A 42-cover room with stone floors, two pendant lights, and a kitchen where the team of eight could barely pass each other without a quick excuse me. It was, by any measure, too small to succeed. That was precisely the point.
To cook well for forty-two people is to cook for each of them individually. That discipline — the discipline of smallness — became our defining principle.