Master Chef

In conversation with Manu Chandra, as he launches the Mumbai outpost of his East Village-style restaurant Toast & Tonic

- Sumana Mukherjee

For a restaurateur known to leave his distinct stamp on every space, it’s no surprise that Manu Chandra’s private domain should reflect his own persona. The apartment, in the heart of Bengaluru’s central business district, is minimally luxurious, almost severe in its sparseness. The galley kitchen, on the other hand, is unapologetically top of the line—fixtures by Poggenpohl, appliances by Gaggenau—and an aroma of freshly baked chocolate cookies wafts out of the sleek oven.

It’s not often, though, that Chandra is to be found at home: He moved in here a little over a year ago, but is still to throw a housewarming party. In the same period, however, he set up four of his 11 restaurants: Monkey Bar, the gastropub with a desi twist, in Kolkata; two editions of The Fatty Bao, the Asian gastrobar, in Mumbai (another is scheduled to open in Andheri in early July); and, also in Mumbai, the long-awaited Toast & Tonic, the “East Village-style” eatery incubated in Bengaluru for close to a year and a half.

While all the brands—jointly built by Chandra and his business partner Chetan Rampal under AD Singh’s Olive Group—were designed to scale up, the second T&T marks a certain maturing of the Indian restaurant industry’s favourite enfant terrible.