Hot Seat

A chef with khazana

A well-known face on television, he has his own show and gets paid to endorse a range of packaged foods. He lends his name to a host of hotels around the world and is probably among the first in India to be labelled a celebrity chef. Praveen K Singh looks at the triumphs that Chef Sanjeev Kapoor has achieved in the culinary world.

Having been in the hospitality industry for over 23 years, Chef Sanjeev Kapoor has spent most of them in the public eye. Whether it is with his own cookery show or books written by him, and more recently television commercials, his has become a name to reckon with.

Born in the April of 1964, Kapoor wanted to become an engineer as a child. He was a national merit scholar and an architect, but changed course when a family friend advised him to take up catering. This prompted him to join a hotel management course at IHM Pusa. He topped his class when he graduated in 1984, and joined the India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) under its Kitchen Management Scheme.

Part of the catering team for the Asian Games in New Delhi, he went on to become a chef at Hotel Varanasi Ashoka and Hotel Samrat in the city. He even did a brief stint abroad as the chief chef at Zanzibar - New Zealand's first African restaurant, and later at Shamiana in Wellington in the same country. But he came back to India after that and joined Frontier Restaurant in Hotel Ashoka, later shifting to Mumbai's Juhu Centaur Hotel.

Under the spotlight

His affair with television began with Khana Khazana, a culinary show that was aired on Zee Television that earned him viewership of over 200 million in 60 countries. It is also one of the longest-running Indian cookery shows, which has been on air since 1993 and has completed over 650 episodes. Well-known for his easy-to-make recipes, he has a knack for innovative cooking concepts - Could anyone have thought of making pakodas with grapes?

Such a captive audience is due to the absence of a formal structure. "Since there is no script but just broad outlines for the shows, it becomes an on-the-spot creation. In fact, out of two recipes that we cooked during the first episode, one didn't even have a name," he recalls. When he requested his audience to mail in ideas for its name, the channel was swamped with responses.

Kapoor has also indulged a bit in literary creations with a range of cookbooks in several languages. Apart from this, he has also ventured into multimedia, working on an interactive CD-ROM on Indian cooking, which gives an insight into our culinary culture, tradition and history. Apart from a store of 125 recipes, the CD also teaches some basic techniques involved in microwave cooking.

In his inimitable style, Kapoor has always stuck to natural, spontaneous and innovative techniques. "Every cook should pick up from the basics of tradition but add their uniqueness and style through experimentations. Cooking that strictly adheres to tradition is a waste. If after 100 years we are still cooking a dish the same way, then we have contributed nothing to the culinary map. We must invent, not simply duplicate," he explains, adding that sometimes tradition can also obstruct the progress of ambition.

Awards, glory

Kapoor has always endeavoured to make Indian cuisines more popular. This is apparent in the content on his website, his cookery books, in his television shows and even in his consultancies to restaurants. A brand in himself, Kapoor is a restaurant consultant and grants his franchise to Sanjeev Kapoor's Khazana at Al Nasr Leisureland in Dubai (the 150-seat restaurant is entirely his concept and planning), Grain of Salt in Kolkata, and The Yellow Chilli chain of restaurants across India. In his efforts to make Indian food more popular, he says he wants to be one of the top three choices when people think of Indian food - "curry, chicken tikka and Sanjeev Kapoor".

Well-known for sugar-free and oil-free delicacies, he explains that food must be customised to suit the local population. "For example, McDonalds has been claiming that it is so popular all over the world because the food tastes the same everywhere. But one of its biggest successes in India is the aloo tikki burger," he says.

Kapoor has received widespread recognition and several awards for his mastery over culinary arts. Nominated for the 'Best Executive Chef' in India by Food Service in 1993 and 1994 and winner of the award in 1995, he was also chosen for the Mercury Gold Award at IFCA Geneva (1993) for 'Best Meal Concept and Creation'. Going by his recent and much-publicised participation in one of the many celebrity dance competitions, it is clear that he is a man of many moves. However, his best remains in the sphere of culinary arts.