A view of Go India in VivoCity mall

An Indian restaurant in Singapore run by three young Calcutta entrepreneurs has received the island nation’s highest accolade for its service standards.

Go India, located in Lion City’s gigantic VivoCity mall and powered by the team behind Ivory and Shisha, has been awarded the Singapore Service Star by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) for service excellence. It was picked from over 32,000 registered eateries in Singapore.

“This is an overwhelming experience, given the stringent standards and fierce competition in the F&B trade here,” said Pankaj Tandon, managing director, PDK Shenaz Hotels Pvt Ltd, Singapore. Go India is a fully-owned subsidiary of the PDK Shenaz Group, proprietors of Ivory Kitchen and Shisha.

The Singapore Service Star is about setting standards in the tourism industry and showcasing the best of Singapore in service excellence, according to a Singapore Tourism Board spokesperson.

“The tourism board sends out ‘mystery shoppers’ to all the 300 chosen outlets in the three categories for discreet assessment of service standards and there’s absolutely no way you can tell them from the other diners,” said Nitin Kohli, director of the PDK Shenaz Group.

The Go India staff and management were awarded percentage points on their proficiency in various categories like greeting and seating customers, taking orders, presenting the cheque, service standards for orders placed and the GK of the waiters/ waitresses.

Based on secret reports filed by the mystery shoppers, Go India made it through the rungs to become one of the top five F&B outlets in the island in April 2010. The tourism board has set 76-78 per cent as the gold standard, and Go India was awarded an unprecedented 100 per cent by the secret assessor. “This prompted the STB to repeat the mystery shopper exercise twice and we happened to tally 100 per cent again,” said Arvind Bhatnagar, executive director, operations.

“There was no magic formula. In fact, all the restrictions on importing overseas labour made our task doubly difficult. We are a speciality Indian-cuisine restaurant and we need table staff well versed with the nuances of Indian food to give the diner complete satisfaction. Grooming Singaporean staff to do the job was indeed challenging,” added Tandon. He and his team have been maintaining “meticulous dossiers” on regular as well as occasional walk-ins, so that customer preferences can be drilled into the waiters’ memory chips during daily staff briefings, “for a more customised service”.

The Go India outfit has also been the “only Indian standalone F&B unit” catering to the high-profile Singapore Formula One night-racing GP from its Express kiosk.