An Attempt to Make Regional Cuisine Mainstream Through Dark Kitchens

In conversation with Restaurant India, Amit Anand, Owner at Masala Gully, Gurgaon talks about his delivery only restaurant, why he has added regional dishes to the menu and how he plans to expand it further.

Please explain your concept? Do you operate on centralized kitchen format or do you have multiple kitchens?

We came up with an idea to popularize our regional cuisine at a time when people are focusing more on other international cuisines. There are lots of cuisines in India, which are not mainstream. We have put a few Bihari and Rajasthani dishes in our menu to begin with it. We have tried the original recipe and method of cooking including the authentic cooking vessels, which are used to make it. For example, Champaran Handi Mutton, which is very famous in Bihar and is cooked in Handi with whole spices. 

Similarly,"Palak Halwa" which was famous in Bihar almost 100 years back and now rarely any body prepares it. We introduced it in our menu as per out concept. In coming days, we will be introducing more such regional dishes.

Currently we have centralized kitchen but in future we are planning to open up multiple kitchens as we are in expanding and will be including more areas of NCR under delivery.

 Do you have your own delivery mechanism or you are registered to aggregators like Swiggy or Zomato?

We have our own software and dedicated delivery team members besides Swiggy and Zomato. These days when people are relying upon technology and social media, it has been a compulsory practice for people like us from the industry to use these technology and social media to reach out to the people. Zomato and Swiggy give a platform to the customer to choose their menu, compare the prices, utilization of the promotion and the knowledge of new launches. They also help us to be seen by customer on their platform if somebody is browsing the list of outlets or cuisine near to them. People also share their review on such platform which helps other customer and outlet as well.

What are the areas you cater to? Are you planning to expand?

Currently, we are delivering around 10 kms in radius of sector 53 in Noida But we also do catering with big corporate names in Gurgaon, Delhi and Noida. We have also extended our services in private parties which we are doing in Delhi/NCR.

Please explain the menu? How many dishes are there? How often you make changes to it?

Our menu represents regional and traditional food items from North Inidia.  Recently we added few items from South India as well. As of now we have more than 70 dishes in menu and we are working on some more regional dishes to add them in our menu. We plan to continue with the menu for three months.

How many staffs you have? How do you train them?

We have 15 staffs including four assistants. It is always on the job training especially for the chefs. We share the recipe and give demo of the preparation, ask them to taste, share the video also with them  and then they have to create it. Normally staffs take one to two days to get the expected result. For delivery team, we do situation based activities, train them with demo and video for packaging, delivering, share script, training on grooming are also given.