How James Beard-winning chef Chintan Pandya got his job running Dhamaka, Rowdy Rooster, and Adda
and even more openings on the horizon for the restaurant group, Pandya discusses unloading his fear of failure, juggling small businesses, and challenging perceptions of Indian food in America.I genuinely love to eat. I always wanted to be a chef so I could eat as much as I wanted and not have to pay money.In India, the education system is very different from what it is in America. If you want to become a chef, you have to do culinary school, so I did that for three years.
Then I moved to Atlanta because I wanted to do something on my own. Atlanta looked like a phenomenal market for Indian food, but it wasn’t. The market was not ready for it. It was a very big setback for me. I lost a certain amount of time, money, effort, everything. That’s how I ended up in New York.When you work in fine dining restaurants, there’s a specific mindset you have. There are times when you cook something because that’s what people are looking for.
Any time we open something new, my job is the culinary part of it, the menu and the operations. That is my baby. The fried chicken concept, the Rowdy Rooster, is the newest place right now. I’m stationed there until it settles down and then I move on to the next thing.I work as a delivery person some days, moving stuff from one restaurant to the other. We are a very small company and don’t have many people, so we do a lot of stuff on our own.
Also, Dhamaka was actually supposed to open in May or June 2020. Obviously because of the pandemic it didn’t happen. The construction stopped midway, which caused a lot of financial stress, but we decided to just keep on fighting. We finally opened in February 2021.The most important mentor has been my teacher, Chef Baranidharan Pacha, who has mentored me over the last 22 years. I still go back to him for advice.
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