Nitin Kothari with son Siddharth.
THE MAKING OF MOCAMBO
Mocambo was started by my father Shivji V. Kothari in the summer of 1956. He was quite a perfectionist and insisted on running the restaurant in an absolutely proper way. The Europeans have always been the best restaurateurs and confectioners, so my father got this guy, Antonio Prandhe, who became the first chef-cum-manager of Mocambo. He was Italian so that is why, if you notice, there are many European and Italian dishes on the menu, like the Chicken Sicilian or the Cannelloni. Again, the European influence could be seen in the Au Gratin and the Russian dishes like Chicken A La Kiev and Chicken Stroganoff. Prandhe was instrumental in shaping and creating, initially, what Mocambo is today. He arrived much before the restaurant opened, when the work was going on and a German architect whose name was Messerschmidt was doing the decor. I haven’t changed the decor at all since 1956. Everything down to the colour scheme is the same. The only change I made was to scrap the music. When Mocambo opened, it had live music, a six-piece band fronted by Anton Menezes, and with a male and female crooner. This is where Pam Crain became famous and then moved on.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS OF THE DJ!
One could say Mocambo was the first nightclub; it not only had live music but a dance floor too. Don’t forget, 1956 was way before discotheques started, even in Europe. Nowadays, in nightclubs you have those strobe lights and laser beams connected to the music. Well, this was way before technology came around but what my father wanted, and what he got Messerschmidt to create, was a glass dance floor. Not the standard wooden floor but a floor made of tempered glass, under which there was a two-foot pit where they put a whole lot of lights. Red, blue and green and all those psychedelic colours, in those days it was unheard of. Entry was exclusive, you could not enter without a DJ, and by DJ I mean not the gentleman at the console but a dinner jacket! And often, a white one at that.
In the afternoons at lunchtime, Mocambo was very popular with the ladies. We had a very nice confectioner under chef Prandhe and for lunch we would have Anton Menezes tinker with the piano, and there was a very famous violinist, Stanley Gomes, who was par excellence. My father had seen this in Europe, where you go for a meal and musicians come around playing for you at the table. So Stanley would go around with the violin and stop at the table and maybe someone would request a number.
Then, as it happens, you have to move with the times. Dinner jackets gave way to suits. Then even that went and for some time, it was mandatory to have a tie. Now, of course, there is no dress code at all.
STAFF OF LIFE
We have around 140 people working in Mocambo and another 140 in Peter Cat and I have a direct connect with most of them. Poaching is inevitable but see, you can’t stop somebody from going away. The reason he goes away is not because he doesn’t like you but most likely because someone has offered him a higher salary. And how can you blame him; everyone can do with a little extra money. What I’m a firm believer of is how you treat them and how you pay them will reflect on you. When the customer comes, he sees their face and he connects their face with Mocambo. I’m not in the picture at all. So how that fellow carries himself is going to make or break it. So if you look after your guys, there’s a better chance that he will look after you in turn and he will have a happier look around him. The food may be good but if you have a grouchy-looking fellow taking your order, it will ruin your appetite. Ditto for the kitchen staff. Today because Mocambo is known for its Continental cuisine, obviously people eye our cooks and try to reproduce something like that. But again I believe the same thumb rule applies from my own experience of dealing with people, that primarily if you give the man respect and you look after him financially, it will pay off.
MOCAMBO PART II
The space next door was a spirits store for many years, even before Mocambo began. I always had my eye on the space but I was hesitant to ask the man who ran it. Then one day, I mustered the courage and stepped into his store. When I proposed the idea, he said cheekily, ‘Mr Kothari, I’ve been seeing the queue outside your restaurant every day and I’ve been waiting for you to make that proposal for the last 10 years!’ So, after acquiring that space, we increased our capacity by 70 seats in January 2016. When customers found out, their first reaction was, ‘Oh thank god, now I can go because I won’t have to wait’. But god is so kind I tell you, that even after those 70 seats, we are full. When I meet the same people they say, ‘You misled us, you told us there’d be no waiting’. And I say, ‘I never said no waiting, I said 70 seats more!’
THE COOK WHO WASN’T LET OFF THE HOOK
I believe investment in your own people goes a long way. When my head cook turned 58, he wanted to retire. I said, ‘Fine, you can retire but come back’. So I brought him back on a higher salary and he worked seven-eight years more.
Then he said, ‘I’m tired, let me go, I can’t stand’. I said, ‘No problem, don’t stand, I’ll get you a chair’. Then he said, ‘But I feel very bad, you know, others are working and I’m just sitting there like a big shot’. I said, ‘Forget about them.’
‘Then what good am I?’ he asked. I said, ‘You are worth a million to me. Just your presence would inspire the others’. And it worked! He stayed for another six-seven years. Of course he wouldn’t sit, he would get up, take a round, get tired and sit down again. Then finally, when he was around 70, he told me, ‘Now, I beg of you, let me go’. And that’s how he left.
PETER, WHO?
I started Peter Cat in 1975. I had studied hotel management in Salzburg, Austria, and thought of putting some of it into practice. In the ’70s, a restaurant meant Park Street, so I started looking around and the place that I finally took used to belong to the Calcutta Customs. All the goods that were confiscated at the airport would be auctioned there. Maybe, that’s the time they built the Customs House on Strand Road and so they gave this property back to the landlord and that’s the time I took it from them.
Initially, I wanted to open a pure Indian food restaurant. I personally like roomali rotis and chaanp, so the speciality of the initial menu was mutton chaanp, chicken chaanp and roomali roti. There was an open kitchen at the far end of the ground floor with a display window. I got a guy with a little bit of flair, so he would throw the roti into the air and spin it; it was a wonderful sight! And the chaanp would be there simmering in the gravy and you could watch the naans and kebabs being made. I started slow, with only the ground floor and as it picked up, I started the upstairs.
Unfortunately, my planning was not very good and the kitchen was too small and it became unmanageable, so I had to remove the live display section and make the kitchen bigger.
CHELO KEBAB
What happened is that the kebab sales picked up much more and this particular dish, Chelo Kebab, started dominating. I had to get a second tandoor, then a third and a fourth to take the load. Traditionally, kebabs are north Indian dishes and eaten with naan. No one eats kebab with rice; it’s just not done! But I like rice and people in Calcutta like rice too, so I said, why not have a dish that can combine rice with kebabs? I enjoy my poached egg or fried egg and we threw that in too. A combination of chicken and mutton kebabs, rice, eggs… and who doesn’t like butter? So that went in too. And that’s how the Chelo Kebab came about. Ever since it became popular, I must say many other restaurants have tried to copy it but thankfully people still come back to us.
What I must mention is that I initially made an effort to keep only Indian food. But what happened is that, a group of six people would come in, five people would want Indian food but the sixth would want a soup. And just to please that guy so they don’t go somewhere else, and we don’t lose business, we introduced various soups. Well, even then people would say, why can’t we have a Roast Chicken or Fish Fry? That led to the sizzler being introduced in the late ’80s, which has become a speciality at Peter Cat.
THE CHANGING FACE OF PARK STREET
Yes, the restaurant boom has had a great effect but I must add that it’s been a wonderful effect. It’s been wonderful because as more and more eateries open, more and more people are eating out. Calcutta being Calcutta — it’s not Mumbai or Bangalore — people were not so easily going out, people were more conservative. Many decades ago, I remember that the clientele of the restaurant used to be non-Bengalis, like the Punjabis. The most satisfying thing I tell you today is that there are more Bengalis coming out. Especially in my two restaurants, I can tell you without any doubt that over 90 per cent are Bengalis. And they make the best customers, believe me. They may come out once in two months but when they come, they have a ball. They have prawn cocktail, soup, biryani, this, that and end it with big large tutti-frutti! And that is what I tell everyone who asks me about the impact of the new-age restaurants, that more restaurants opening up encourage people to come out more.
But of course, I tell my staff that don’t forget competition is increasing, you’ve got to work harder and make sure your food is par excellence, your service is okay, your behaviour with customers is okay because now you’ve got more seats available than customers. So there is no reason for the customer to land up here unless you give him a reason to.
I don’t go out very often. Siddharth makes up for me. He comes and tells me about the other places and it’s so nice to hear that. The yardstick of any successful metropolitan city is the number of eating spaces that you have — be it London, NY, Paris or Tokyo — an abundance of choice. We were starved for many years. I believe there are traditionalists who would welcome these old restaurants. Mocambo is a heritage restaurant and Peter Cat is also getting there. It’s like anything else, people may like new buildings but old buildings have their own charm. So also with restaurants; I’ve seen restaurants in Europe that are over a 100 years old and they’ve kept the look and cuisine exactly like it used to be earlier and people welcome it.
THE WAY FORWARD
A lot of people ask me why don’t I open in other cities or other places in Calcutta, like Ballygunge, which has got a lot of potential, or Sector V? But I always maintain that opening a restaurant is the least difficult part… anyone with a bagful of money can open a restaurant but the real work starts after. My son Siddharth has a strong base and strong brands, that’s now for him to take it forward. And I’m sure he will.
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
— Karo Christine Kumar
Mocambo or Peter Cat? Tell t2onsunday@abp.in
