Introducing our Food & Beverage brand founders: Pankaj Gupta, Gurmeet Arora & Chrome Hospitality
Serial hospitality experts Chrome Hospitality are at it once again – London Taxi, Blah, Butterfly High, Kyma, Donna Deli in Bombay to Goa, Jaipur, and beyond.
Born in 2011, Chrome Hospitality is an Indian boutique hospitality company that manages & consults restaurants across the country. With a dedicated team comprising of creative designers and ingenious storytellers- to build innovative brands and experiences and unleash the imagination. They currently operate ten outlets in Mumbai with signature brands like London Taxi, Butterfly High, Blah!, Donna Deli, Kyma, and more!
Chrome is also actively into the cloud kitchen space-enhancing brand expansion and scaling up as they craft brands for new-outgoing-young Indians and a benchmark in the premium-casual-dining sector, with award-winning restaurants & cloud kitchens across the Indian Cuisine landscape possessing the tools, knowledge and the expertise to make impactful brands that create a real, tangible difference.
- PAWAN SHAHRI
The CEO & Founder of Chrome Asia, an integrated grade A hospitality consulting and management service. Co-founder of BroEat! India’s first WhatsApp-based menu exploration & online ordering platform. He has also served as a core team member for the NRAI Youth Committee. Pawan has numerous accolades and credits for creating specialized experiences in the nightlife segment bringing direct revenues to the pubs and venues.
From 2018 to the present a managing partner at 9 F&B outposts in Mumbai as – Blah!, Butterfly High, London Taxi, Mahesh Lunch Home & 2 Cloud Kitchen Brands Shuk & South Street. The 10-year pursuit in leadership includes managing & executing some of the biggest F&B and Entertainment IPs in India like The Picnic Project, Dessert Garden, Grazia Fashion Trunk, Femina Shop Hive & more. Pawan was featured in Mans World List of ‘Men Of The Year 2021’.
Over the last 10 years, Pawan has worked with over 250+ hospitality brands across the country to help them increase their brand value & sales while ensuring bottom-line profitability.
- DHAVAL UDESHI
Born and raised in Mumbai, the Co-founder of Chrome Hospitality can be defined as “The Modern Nomad” with his love for Food, Travel, and Story Telling. From the humble beginnings of starting a modest eathouse in his locality to becoming a partner of Mumbai’s most loved and acclaimed bars and restaurants, his journey has been nothing less than a fairy-tale. Dhaval’s endeavour has been constant to create brands and experiences for people and bring them together in Mumbai and USA.
From building brands like Falafels: middle eastern cuisine in a QSR & vegetarian avatar. Hopping Chef: a concept in India where celebrity chefs come over & cook a meal.
Culinary Social: a thematic travel joint taking people on a food journey across the world. Simply Potatoes: a restaurant of all things baked & in potatoes and currently focusing on Project “Fetch” brings great food made with premium, fresh, locally sourced Indian ingredients and enables ‘petworking’ of dogs & dog lovers to make the happiest place in Mumbai. Dhaval’s efforts toward creating value propositions in Mumbai’s F&B ecosystem have been well-recognized too. London Taxi won 5 awards in its first year, and Butterfly High is currently one of the top-rated bars in Mumbai.
Aside from his contribution to Chrome Hospitality, Dhaval is also keen on giving back and helping businesses grow by creating Food Mechanic, a restaurant consulting and advisory firm.
- NIKITA HARISINGHANI :
Nikita Harisinghani, the creative genius behind the vision of Chrome Asia Hospitality. Co-founder and creative director with an experience of over 10 years in marketing and branding for some of the most sought-after restaurants, pan-India. Nikita took the entrepreneurial plunge in 2014, when she founded Chrome Entertainment, an offshoot of Chrome Asia, to produce some of the biggest Live Festivals in India. Currently, she takes care of all their restaurants’ concepts, interiors, branding, and marketing decisions
The dynamic trio amidst covid has been unstoppable with the Chrome Hospitality team they have managed to start more 6/7 outlets to keep F&B workers employed while serving the city with great food and wholesome memories. Chrome hospitality has a couple of more exciting projects under its sleeve at hot and busy locations like Powai, and Chembur and has set its sights on Goa, and more plans for the global market, hence they make one of the exciting brands to watch out for!
HOSPITALITY TYCOON GURMEET ARORA ON BUILDING A CONSCIOUS HEALTH FOOD BRAND WITH MANY MORE VENTURES ON THE HORIZON
Gurmeet Arora, Founder, and CEO of Flax healthy living and DJ turned entrepreneur has been in the hospitality industry for about a decade with his on-demand health food restaurant, Flax. The brand has a presence in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Pune. Gurmeet also partners with several stand-alone establishments such as Tryst: A nightclub in Mumbai, Yazu: Pan Asian Supper Club, Brickhouse, and Doppio.
The business figure created FLAX based on his challenges working as a Dj with late-night binge eating. Gurmeet saw effective changes in his lifestyle when he made small changes in his diet and started to practice a routine eating schedule. Flax healthy living was born in 2017, realizing how the modern generation has hectic work life with not enough sleep and poor nutrition. After five successful years and expansion in three cities, Gurmeet aspires to bring healthy food to the country and even plans to expand the business internationally.
Presently, Flax healthy living boasts numbers like 2.5 million orders served with immense love from customers and patrons in 2021 with an exponential growth rate. Gurmeet believes that modern consumers have grown more conscious and Flax only aims to help achieve a balanced, wholesome, and nutritious diet for all in 2022 and stronger ahead. Gurmeet has proactively been working to create fresh additions to the menu by introducing seasonal specials like strawberry and mango menus available across their on-demand kitchen and established outlets.
Venturing a step ahead in targeted wholesome meal plans Gurmeet has launched a subscription model called ‘FLAX IT UP’ making it India’s only customized meal plan which specifically focuses on ailments like PCOS, Diabetes, Weight loss, Weight gain, and many more. The model is carefully created in collaboration with renowned G.I. Dr. Muffazal Lakdawala (Dr. Muffi) the subscription has been received well and has already seen a collaboration with fitness studios like Nitrro Gym.
Owner, restaurateur, and marketer amongst several others, Pankaj Gupta, Owner of OyeKake and Taftoon Bar & Kitchen, has donned several hats in the past decade. With two successful restaurant brands, he has surely proven that Mumbai is indeed the city of dreams if you dare to dream big.
A foodie at heart, Pankaj’s biggest inspiration for flavours came from watching his own mother in the kitchen and the flavours she brought to the table. Following several failed attempts at breaking an egg to make himself breakfast as a young boy, Pankaj realized that cooking involved more than just tossing ingredients together in a pan. After graduating with a degree in Retail and Marketing, he was offered a role at a leading bank in 2011, which he politely declined. Instead, he took time off to travel back to the city of Amritsar which had given him several fond memories of the past. A trip that was meant to be just for a few days, lasted three months and gave Pankaj the ammunition for his next steps after realizing the lack of vegetarian Punjabi food in Mumbai. Hence, despite having no background or connections in the F&B industry in Mumbai, he started working on his plans to bring Amritsar’s renowned yet humble CholeKulcha to the city of Mumbai. In 2011, Pankaj launched the city’s first OyeKake, the regional vegetarian Punjabi restaurant brand under the parent company – Flavour Pot Foods L.L.P. Fuelled by his passion, he also contributed to creating marketing USPs which included bringing in water from Amritsar to knead the kulcha dough. Since its inception, OyeKake has expanded across the city with several outlets and delivery kitchens, with a few more in the pipeline.
Driven by the vision to bring new experiences to the table, Pankaj launched Taftoon Bar & Kitchen in November 2017, which gave Mumbaikars the chance to sample unexplored dishes from the regions of Kabul through to Chittagong, also known as the Grand Trunk Road. The establishment received immense appreciation and has celebrated its 4th anniversary this year. Taftoon’s next outlet is currently in the works and will launch in Mumbai by 2022.
What was born out of passion is now a business that is celebrating a decade in this industry. Even though there were several curveballs along the way, Pankaj never took his eyes off his goal. Instead, he channelled this into an opportunity to strengthen his infrastructure, and the core team, and define short- and long-term goals. His vision now involves growing his team and taking both the brands – OyeKake and Taftoon Bar & Kitchen pan-India, along with the intent to put these on the global map, as well. The team is currently working on two concepts that are bound to take the F&B world by storm.
When he is not at work, Pankaj spends his time keeping himself updated on the culinary trends around the world. Additionally, he keeps up with his fitness regime through regular CrossFit training and playing sports.