Chef Gurpreet Singh Gehdu is Head Chef of Lite Bite Food‘s iconic restaurant Punjab Grill. He is also Brand Chef for its new millennial-focused chain Punjab Grill Tappa. He speaks to Sanjay Kumar about maintaining the high culinary standards across all Punjab Grill restaurants in India and abroad and his desire to take Indian cuisine to greater heights by developing newer and modern interpretations of local dishes and through engineering of unique flavors.
What prompted you to take up the culinary profession and who were the people to have inspired you early in your career?
The creativity of the food world and my desire to express myself through food made me pick up this profession. In the early days of my career, I worked with the Qureshi chefs and Jigs Kalra. They helped to strengthen my basics and develop a strong base in Indian cuisine. My next big learning in this profession came with my first stint as an Indian chef in an overseas assignment. During this phase of my career, I had the opportunity to work with chefs from around the globe and at the places where the ingredient basket was huge. The experience transformed me from a cook to a chef.
What are you currently engaged in and which are the career milestones you most cherish?
Currently, I am leading the kitchen for brand Tappa. It is my first venture as an entrepreneur and it is in collaboration with Lite Bite Foods Pvt. Ltd. Tappa, as the name suggests, is a young, perky and unique restaurant, designed specially to appeal to the global bohemian traveler and is the newest addition by Lite Bite Foods. I am also busy working on a cookbook in which I have many exciting things to talk about Punjab Grill, especially its restaurant in Washington DC. At Punjab Grill, I am also involved with the annual festive celebration ‘Rangla Punjab’, which celebrates the farm-to-fork concept and promotes handpicked dishes from different parts of Punjab, which one might not even have heard of and which can be found in only select restaurants. Looking back, I have happy memories of working as the Chef de cuisine for Indian Accent during its initial days.
With all these years of experience in the culinary field, how do you feel about your life and career?
This story is from the November-December 2017 edition of foodService India.
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This story is from the November-December 2017 edition of foodService India.
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