Balancing Between Authenticity and Idea

Munaf Kapadia, 27 is Chief Eating Officer at The Bohri Kitchen. He started his career at Google in the AdWords team, where he worked on a $10m portfolio of 12 Mumbai based advertisers as an online advertising consultant. Munaf let go of his 4.5 year Online Advertising Career to pursue an F&B project. He started The Bohri Kitchen, with his mother Nafisa Kapadia 20 months back. The original idea was to simply keep mom busy, but quickly, with the power of his mother's sincere cooking skills and Munaf's average Branding & PR skills, TBK turned into a mini bohri food revolution.

What is experience according to you?

Experience is all about ‘entertainment’. People walk in to a restaurant to have food but food is only a part of it. They want a whole entertainment package along with food. The Bohri Kitchen honestly was not an attempt to do this. It was an initiative to keep my mother busy on the weekends. But today it is one of the successful brands in the market because it has managed to connect all the dots to create a memorable experience.

How do you create experience at The Bohri Kitchen?

We run something called home dining. The Bohri Kitchen started with an idea to invite friends over good food at home and now has become a brand. We build an unforgettable social experience as my whole family participates in the event in taking our guest through the entire experience. A mix of Gujarati and Yemenese food, Bohri food is a foodie’s guilt in itself. A typical experience at Bohri Kitchen begins with Mutton Keema Samosa, Chicken Cutlet, Raan Masala, Mutton Khichda, Chicken Dum Biryani. And, for the desserts one may gauge on Malai Khaja and Feerni amongst others. We serve a fix seven course finger licking meal at Bohri Kitchen.

Which would be the next trend hitting F&B sector according to you?

I’m a little shameless in this but Bohri Kitchen is definitely the wave of the new trend. The reason why Bohri Kitchen manages to attract so much of attention because people find it interesting that someone who does not even belong to food industry could create a brand in this industry.

What challenges did you face as a layman before setting up a concept like this?

As I was not from the food industry it was really challenging to get my feet on the ground. I didn’t know how to take this idea up in the market. Nothing was less than a chock- full hurdle right from producing food commercially to hiring manpower.

How do you see the customer response?

Customers have been the reason why Bohri Kitchen remained alive. They continue to support the brand and spread the word by sharing their love for the brand. Today, the reason TBK exists is just because of customer loyalty.

What about the future with Bohri Kitchen?

Bohri Kitchen is all set for expansion. We are planning to increase our numbers of online orders to around 30-40 deliveries in a day before we look at other market as potential. Also, we may look at Delhi and Pune market in next few months but are waiting to get the right direction for setting up ‘the best’ infrastructure which could represent the brand. There are tremendous lucky chances in the market though lots of challenges and error as well. One needs to find a way to balance between their authenticity and the idea.