‘The thing is with this new delivery service….’ Whoosh, rattle, clatter, clatter, clatter. I’m standing in an industrial estate somewhere outside Bromley in Kent talking to Kuldeep Singh, Chef Director (along with his partners Ashraf Rahman and Dinesh Modi) of the Mela Group of restaurants. We’re outside the group’s latest venture, a takeaway service that is just that, no restaurant - just a kitchen and delivery support services, and we are now waiting patiently for what appears to be the longest train in Europe to pass just a few yards from where we’re standing.
Kuldeep looks at me and says something but neither of us can hear past the
racket, so we resort to dumb show. After what seems an eternity the train passes
and he can carry on. ‘Mela Roma means a roaming fair or festival,’ he
explains,’ one of our restaurants, the one in Shaftesbury Avenue is also
called Mela of course.’
The grand plan as Kuldeep, and later his other partner Raminder Malhotra the Ayurvedic executive chef of the group explain, is to have a takeaway service that breaks the mould. Superb Indian food of consistent quality delivered to homes and offices in a big catchment area around the Bromley base. The just fitted out kitchen, ‘it has taken six months,’ Kuldeep explains, is enormous and will house five chefs working shifts 24 hours a day. There is no ‘front of house’, instead there is a room soon to be full of telephone operators using state of the art software to take orders and dispatch them.
‘
We have adapted the software ourself,’ Kuldeep explains proudly, showing
me how the system will locate each client’s address accurately to brief
the delivery drivers and will also store customer orders so that they can order
the ‘usual’ if they wish. The software also calculates the cooking
time of the dishes requested, as well as delivery time. In this way the customer
gets a very accurate estimation of when the food will be at his front door. ‘No
more “fifteen minutes”’ Kuldeep laughs, agreeing that this
is the standard takeaway untruth. ‘Our times will be accurate and we
will text the customer exact details of when to expect the meal to arrive.’ They’ve
even thought about method of payment, so that they can receive and authorise
payment over the phone in seconds.
It’s a big kitchen, I observe for want of something to say, ‘’Huge!’ enthuses
Kuldeep stabbing his finger at the computer screen that will display the
orders to the kitchen. ‘We have three chefs coming in today from the
restaurants for training as well as the sweet maker from Mela. When this
kitchen is fully
operational it will be a very busy place.’
Busy is a keyword for Mela, in additiont to the core restaurants in London, the group has opened a restaurant in Manchester called Dilli, and has plans to expand across Europe. The group has been careful to move slowly but surely and annual turnover is well into the millions.
As we wander the warren of rooms Kuldeep shows me a map of his catchment area, standing in front of it like General Patton planning a campaign. Surely, I ask, some of those areas are a long way away from here? General Singh has already thought of the logistics. ‘We are going to have satellite stations in about seven locations, ‘ he explains.
‘We will deliver cooked food
to these satellite stations at regular intervals and they will have the facility
to reheat the food when we advise them of an order in their area. In fact the
software will send the order directly as soon as it is keyed in here, using
the postcode. And the reheat is not a problem as a good curry benefits from
long slow cooking and a chance to cool so that the meats can absorb the flavours.’ Is
this why takeaway leftovers are always so tempting the following morning? I
ask. ‘Yes,’ he replies in all seriousness. ‘ And in India,
in such a hot climate, it is quite normal to cook the meat in one big batch
for the following days. With no refrigeration it is the way to keep it.’
If anyone can make this long-overdue and very welcome concept work it is
the Mela Group. Kuldeep is a well-respected chef who has worked all over
India
and in London before starting up Mela. His partner Raminder is very much
in direct charge of the chefs at the restaurants and is an award-winning
cook
who has prepared meals for royalty. They are both Sikhs, although Kuldeep
dresses in a Western style, while Raminder has the traditional turban
and full beard
of a Sikh, a look lightened by a crisp white shirt, blue jeans and trainers.
He is an imposing figure and you can imagine he’s a tough person
to impress in the kitchen. Not much of a talker, he makes his points
in a quiet but determined
manner.
We emerge back into the Bromley air and Kuldeep and I head off for 3
Monkeys in Herne Hill, one of the group’s latest acquisitions. I express surprise
that the chef director of a multi million pound turnover company drives such
a frankly knackered old motor. Kuldeep laughs. ‘ Oh this is the car I
drive around in for work. I don’t want my nice car getting scratched
or broken into when I leave it in the streets. This one does the job fine.’
As we trundle across South London Kuldeep tells me, with long drawn out
pauses as he cautiously inches out of junctions, a bit more about his
background. ‘Raminder
and I were both at catering college in India,’ he explains.’ Then
after a few years you are given the chance to specialise - front of
house or kitchen for example.
You choose and then your groups become segregated. Raminder and I always
wanted to be chefs. I started in Delhi and did my post-grad in
Bombay,’ Mumbai? I venture and Kuldeep sighs slightly, 'we still
call it Bombay because Mumbai is a new name for us.’
Kuldeep began in London at the semi-legendary Red Fort, perhaps the first Indian restaurant to actively target a more up-market clientele. ‘I came there to do a food festival,’ he explains. I worked there for a month and the owner came to me and offered me a job, a new concept, which he told me I had to develop myself. That was the creation of Soho Spice in 1997. I worked there for two years but I wasn’t being challenged enough. It was doing very well, but the menu was so short and I thought if this is the menu I have to live my life with I can’t do it.’
Kuldeep even then however also had a businessman’s head on his shoulders.
He understood management’s point of view. ‘ I wasn’t being
allowed to change the kitchen,’ he points out, ‘but to be fair
it did make no sense to change a menu that was doing great business. So I teamed
up with some new partners to start a restaurant in Sydenham.’ It wasn’t
long before he gravitated back to Soho, though. ‘Yes I worked there and
set it up but they didn’t want to move too far from the bar trade – it’s
so much easier to run a bar than a restaurant, less staff and less overheads’ he
laughs. ‘So I went back and did some more things with Red Fort and Soho
Spice but after a year I decided I wanted to do something on my own.’
By now we are parked up outside 3 Monkeys in Herne Hill. This converted
bank started well under its previous owners but went downhill rapidly.
I’m
a local and remember a dish that had tinned tomatoes floating like
dead whales in the sauce. Kuldeep is refreshing the staff and the
restaurant and Raminder
is coming in to boot camp the kitchen. He asks the team who are busy
loading up kebabs to make us an Indian breakfast. A tasty omelette
with chilli.
For the next hour or so Kuldeep and Raminder take meetings in which
the language flips disconcertingly so that I am never quite sure
what I am
hearing. Meetings
over, Kuldeep suggests we head into town where he has to tour the
rest of the Empire. The car is abandoned and he whips out a Travelcard, ‘so much
easier’ and we embark on a game of bus hopping all the way through South
London as Kuldeep optimises the journey by spotting more suitable buses behind
and jumping on and off. Finally we reach Soho and it’s straight into
Chowki for lunch.
Chowki is a classic example of Kuldeep theming a restaurant, this
one is aimed at delivering casual, modern, value for money food.
The funky
interior
has
no individual tables; instead large bench tables are lined by comfy
leather ‘stools.’ The
menu changes monthly and tours the sub continent with each meal
served Thali style in small dishes that connect to each other.
This week Kuldeep is sticking
to vegetarian and over lunch he tells me a little it more about
himself. He does not wear the turban but he is a religious man, ‘ I
pray every day’ and
he is pleased that he and Raminder can outreach to other communities. ‘Raminder
has visited schools and shown them a bit about Indian cooking and
has even demonstrated turban tying,’ he laughs. His own children
he does not encourage to take up the restaurant trade, ‘It’s
a cliché,’ he
says, ‘ but doctor, lawyer or engineer. Much better trades!’
After Chowki, it’s up the road to Soho Spice. This restaurant’s
concept is specialist kebabs and aims at a young, clubbing crowd.
Kuldeep is concerned that that the downstairs bar is not getting the custom
it deserves,
so he is having a sign made up to tell passers by that it’s
open until 3 am. In
fact it is this late opening that explains the Soho Spice menu. ‘Kebabs,
light food for people who are on the move or on their way home
after a late night out.’ Kuldeep tells me. 'Some critics
have not judged me on that simple intention and instead have
looked
for
things that were never intended
and that’s a shame.’
After some debate about sign style and location the indefatigable
Mr Singh is off again, this time to Mela where it all started
back in
2000. This
is the home of Kuldeep’s ‘Country style’ cooking,
simple things done well. My legs are tired and Kuldeep has to
interview chefs, there are
a couple of nervous looking Indians waiting for his time. I leave
after a long day. A charming man with a passion he won't stop
until he gets to the top.
