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From Economic Times At 44, Chatterjee owns what is arguably India's leading private chain of specialty restaurants, with its two most popular brands: Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta. When foreign guests used to come visiting at the Chatterjee household in Delhi's Pandara Road, they were invariably served up a lavish Bengali spread. "My father always believed in his cuisine,"says Chatterjee. This kindled an interest in cooking, leading to a three-year course at the Institute of Hotel Management, Kolkata, for this physiology graduate. Chatterjee's first job was at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, which lasted for just a year. A two-year stint in Ananda Bazar Patrika followed, and Chatterjee juggled a MBA in marketing at the Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management studies while working. Finally it was time to go solo and with wife Minoo, he started Situations Advertising, working on home-grown brands like Ujala, Cello, Everest and Super Vasmol. But food was uppermost on his mind, and finally the couple opened their first restaurant, Only Fish, in Mumbai's Prabhadevi. In a few months, word got around and Only Fish began to attract people from all over including celebrities like Anupam Kher and Jaya Bachchan. "That's when the entrepreneur in me said, 'Why not look at food seriously?" says Chatterjee. He got a few former Taj colleagues to join him, and Specialty Restaurants was born in 1993. Chatterjee recalls how difficult it was to sell the idea of niche eateries those days when people weren't as adventurous and global in their food preferences as they are today. "But I knew the days of speciality restaurants were coming." Chatterjee then turned his attention to 'Chinese' food, where there were a handful of restaurants serving authentic fare. Mainland China was the result of three months of traversing the interiors of China to understand the nuances and diversity in Chinese cuisine. The first outlet in the unlikely Saki Naka locality in Andheri opened to a shaky start but picked up soon. "Our proposition was — five-star values but not at five-star prices," he says. Meanwhile, Only Fish was rechristened as Oh! Calcutta and the menu was expanded and improved. The Speciality Restaurants chain now includes other concepts like Sweet Bengal, Mostly Kebabs, Sigree and Just Biryani and is present across most major cities. Chatterjee says he's on the verge of getting private equity funds to invest: "Today there is lots of money for a good idea. When I started there was nobody to support me with money." He's also expanding to London and the US through a tie-up with the Glorious Group of London. But the real icing on the cake is the upcoming Mainland China restaurants in Dalian and Shanghai. A Chinese restaurant in China? It wasn’t easy, though. Chatterjee says he had to make a presentation to the mayor of Shanghai and get him to come down and sample his fare at the Mainland China restaurant in Kolkata before he was convinced about the idea. How's that for passion? | Daily Extras! Eclat Me | Success Tip of the Day| 1DailyDiversion| Eclat Web - Must Visit Websites! A Beautiful Pic Every Day! Word of the Day| Quotation of the Day| Make Money! Immigration News! Desire- WOW Stuff! Stock Mkt Updates |
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