2016-2021
In 2016 I decided to branch out on my own in Chennai and formed Chef Willi’s Restaurants & Consultancy Pvt Ltd. This was after I finished with Tuscana group as they were heading down a lesser and lesser quality path and the prospects did not look good. So, I established “Chef Willi’s Restaurants & Consultancy” whose purpose was to operate restaurants and other establishments principally under the name of “Chef Willi’s” and carry out Consultancy work in established or new operations that would benefit from my experience. It needed to go in this direction as in having a restaurant operating under my own name was not feasible when there was no backing money available. As a visa resident who was not bringing money into the equation, there were few who were willing to gamble with their own money, so Chef Willi’s it was! The company was actually easy to set up, and along with my silent partner, Parveen, we embarked on our new adventure.
As a company we were extremely interested and keen to be able to transfer our knowledge and bring forward the young Chefs of India within our establishments or within dedicated training schools and academies. This is very close to my heart and one of the foundation stones of my philosophy. In this I feel I have succeeded enormously, both with the company and during the years prior I my stay in India. I am proud of the fact that literally thousands of young Chefs are now full-fledged Executive Chefs, Chefs now Managers, restaurant operators and in other hospitality fields, plus living all around the world, that have been through my kitchens in the past and now have thriving careers, looking back with fondness and thanks to their time with me. Not a bad legacy!!!
My first major backer was Sam Paul who offered me work in Jonah’s group where we started and operated Jonah’s Meets Chef Willi, plus Jonah’s Goes Fishing with Chef Willi, both in Chennai. I stayed with Jonah’s group for 3 years or so, along with some other projects as in changing the menu for Kipling Café, doing Pink Potato café and Sarahs café, both in the Paulsons group. I had a great support person all during this time in Chef Hari. He had been with me since The Park days and was an excellent person to have around and help translate my wishes into the various menus we were doing. It was here I also started with fika Café, firstly setting up the kitchen and the menus, and then becoming the operations manager after the covid lock downs. There were also many other places I gave a hand to, or consulted to for a fee during the five years my company was running. They included the list below, but there were also some smaller things I helped with for no fee, like a sandwich bar, a couple of guys who wanted to make European yoghurt, some butchery advice for Trust café and so on. But my main places are here below;
- Kitchen Consultant for H.O.G. with Chaithu in Hyderabad,
- Ongoing support, kitchen and menus with Kayal at Hibiscus Café Vettuvankeni, ECR
- Full support, kitchen and menus for Venki at Mechanic’s Resto-Bar, Nungambakkam
- Ideology Consultant Infinitea Café and Bistro with Gaurav in Bangalore
- Kitchen, menu and ongoing support at Jonah’s Meets Chef Willi, Poes Garden
- Jonah’s Goes Fishing with Chef Willi, Palavakkam on ECR, Chennai
- Setting up a pizza bake and a tapas kitchen for Susan at Green Meadows Resort, ECR
- On going support, kitchen and menu work for Junaid at Butterfly Effects Café, Alwerpet,
- Setting the kitchen and the initial menu for Raju at Basil Bake House Café, Yercault
- Jonah’s with Chef Willi menu and kitchen work for Sanal in Bangalore,
- Blind Ch3mistry menu and kitchen setting for Siddarth at Anna Nagar, Chennai,
- Kitchen, menu and ongoing for Nawaz at The Mughal, Buhari Hotel, Mount Road
- Garrisons Resto-Bar with kitchen & menus for Kiran at Egmore, Chennai
- Kipling Café for a menu change for Gomathy at ECR, Chennai
- Puppy’s Pizzeria and Café setup in Madurai for Vichitra in Madurai
- Fromage Restaurant, Egmore, training and consultancy for Girish
The company was going well and work was giving me a good living as a one-man company who can only be spaced out so far, but then the Corona Covid lock downs happened and my business literally ground to a stop. Luckily, I had three stalwarts that helped me get started again, fika Café, Hibiscus café and The Mughal, and I as said, it was at this time I became the head of the fika restaurant operations. However, at the end of 2021 when my business visa needed to be renewed the rules had changed and it was now a requirement to have an annual income of 1 crore rupees on a self-business visa, or about 8.30 lakhs a month, and that is about 10,000 USD a month! Far too much for one man in a single business to earn, or even charge to my clients, divided by 5 operations a day to visit and it comes to 2,000 USD I would have needed to charge everybody each month! 1.6 lakh each where my average was from 40,000 to 50,000 each! So, the company had to close by order of the Government, my visa would not be renewed and I needed to leave while things were still in lock down and look to my future. Closing the company was another hassle as it took over 18 months to achieve, mainly to make sure every paise of tax has been paid over the final months! Luckily fika Café offered an Employment visa to me, and I went back to Chennai on that. New Zealand and Australia were both closed off to me at the end of 2021 and I also had to go through the exit process from Chennai. Luckily Australia opened up in the new year to Australian passport holders and off to Sydney I went. SEVEN weeks later I finally received my new visa, again with inside pushing and pulling by various colleagues, whereas it used to take me four days previously. Apparently with being a military cook apprentice and then also being so long in India were the main stopping points. Any military or police service can stop a visa or an OCI card in India these days as regulations change. Then the registration process which for the first year was not too bad, but the second year it took three months for my renewal of registration to come through so even on the employment visa things were not looking good. Then came the trip to Malaysia where I caught up with my friend Steve, a look at an apartment at Bukit Gita, the decision made and over the next three months we made a few trips to start setting up and then came here with the two dogs in October. So, the consultancy was finished, my work in India is finished. I made and left some great friends, some sad people, and made some not so small impact on the Indian culinary scene!
Mechanic's
Hibiscus on ECR
The Mughal, Buhari
Mechanics Resto-Bar along with the owner Venki, go back to the startup in 2017, where I teamed up with Sinbad to help him open this unique second floor bar with food concept. The kitchens were placed in from scratch and they came up very well, nicely spacious with good equipment and outfitted in conjunction with Rajesh, my colleague from Cryoteck, who has worked with me on many of the projects I completed in Chennai and beyond, as in Bangalore, Madurai and Yercault. So, Venki, Sinbad (my x-colleague from The Park days) for the Bar, and myself set up Mechanic’s with a very unique interior and some unusual wall features, which I have shown some here. The food menu was a mix of Mediterranean, pan-Asian, Indian and Tandoori items with our own house-made desserts. We were located just off Nungambakkam High Road and business was good with special nights and the usual late weekend nights adding quite a festive atmosphere to the club. It was the lockdowns for Covid that punished us, having to close up shop for so many months, and then the problem of getting the license renewed when Government offices were also not active. Add to that a landlady who no matter what, wanted more and more increases in rent money, even when we were closed and it was a difficult period of time to try and operate in. Finally, it came down to cutting the losses and selling up, with Venki concentrating more on the hometown of Pondi. Some good friends were made here and nice times had, and Venki and Sinbad remain lifelong friends of mine! Now they are onto new adventures!
Hibiscus Café is a place I helped open as kitchen consultant with Ms. Kaya and Mr. Ram, located along the East Coast Road close to my house at Vettuvankeni in 2021, and which had an organic store attached to it. We did a menu of European, Pan-Asian and Chinese dishes from the kitchens along with pizza. During the lock downs Hibiscus survived by building up their delivery side and afterwards I took on the full F&B consultancy position. Chef Muthu had left fika Café by then and so started as the chef there with a couple of other ex-fika staff on board. Located on the first floor a mix of there is cabana seating as well as some regular tables for about 60 covers. A good beverage menu accompanies the food and the desserts are now coming from their own in-house bakery pastry section, that we fitted in and started in 2023. Recently my colleague Jagan has been developing another section of their café with South Indian cuisine in a side restaurant, all cooked in traditional Indian cookware and showcasing these items from the organic store. While we were not an organic venture in the café, a certain amount of these foods we tried to incorporate into the menu. After I came back to fika on a different visa to my Consultancy, then we also carried on helping and supporting Kayal and Hibiscus Cafe, but under fika billing, so it worked for all parties. Hibiscus has good food reviews, nice friendly people on board in a nice atmosphere and a good location, so well worth a try if you are passing!
The Mughal was a fairly recent project for me and one that had a great owner, Mr Nawaz, bringing family tradition and international knowledge to his restaurant concept. The Mughal is located in the Buhari complex on Mount Road, a popular biryani and fast-food operation that had a classic Western-style restaurant in the 70s and 80s operated by the father, the late A. M. Buhari and the first person in Chennai to do so! The Buhari brand itself is 50-60 years old and has a solid reputation, claiming to have invented the legendary ‘Chicken 65’! So, into the old premises we went and a full renovation happened with all new kitchen equipment installed, right beside the area with large open fires that baked the daily biryani. So many years of dirt and grime came off, but it became a fully workable kitchen, even if it was a little hot during work hours and we specialised in Iranian Persian and Kashmiri dishes interspersed with Buhari favourites. Chef John from Tuscana, Jonah’s and fika Café days with me, led the kitchens and with input from Mr. Nawaz we created some exciting dishes. The restaurant itself was lacquered work with inlaid silver and a proper Mughal feeling to it and my sister Debs and her friends came in on their trip to Chennai in 2023 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Needless to say, I had just mentioned going around and seeing my workplaces and they were a little disconcerted to be dining in a place where they felt travel jeans and t-shirts were a little out of place!!! If you are visiting Chennai, do drop into The Mughal restaurant on Mount Road.
