I was the first one and the only one till now in my complete family who is a chef

HospiBuz:- What inspired you to enter the culinary world?

And since then it’s the passion for cooking that keeps me going on every single day… and I don’t like when things go very monotonous… you can get the best food cooked at home but I want my guest to have an experience they have never thought of when they dine at my restaurant… that expression of amusement and wow feeling that I see on my guests faces is what that drives me to keep coming up with new concepts and dishes…

HospiBuz:- You have worked with brand Hotels. Please tell us how the menu is designed for the morning breakfast and how do you avoid the food wastage? 

Chef  Anas Qureshi:- 5-star luxury Hotels have a very complex guest list, people from various countries, cultures and religions stay within the premises and so everyone has different dietary requirements and to cater all of their needs every morning is a big task.

So for that it's very important for the chefs to take care of everyone’s need every morning as breakfast is the first meal of the day and every guest wants it the way they like it and hardly people experiment with food during breakfast so for that hotels end up with a huge menu for breakfast The breakfast menu is very vast as you have a big spread of buffet with a variety of food items to take care of everybody’s needs chefs make sure that there is something for everyone as they like.

Now, this practice started ending up with a lot of food wastage and buffets became the major source of food wastage as The Hotel of the Past keeps food fully stocked until the last minute of service. Imagine the amount of bacon, sausage, and eggs that get thrown away at the end of breakfast! This hotel does nothing to adjust for leftovers and assumes that business, as usual, is best practice.

But now The Hotel of the Future shifts certain items to à la carte cooking near the end of meal times to reduce waste without negatively impacting customer experience. It safely repurposes leftovers into other items like “doggie bags” for guests who arrive after service hours or incorporates them into other dishes. It makes customers aware of its efforts to reduce food waste and why encouraging them by example not to waste.

HospiBuz:- You were a consultant chef for a food truck Eggjactly. Please tell us how different it is to manage a hotel kitchen and a food truck?

Chef  Anas Qureshi:-After I left hotels I wanted to do something new and exciting and luckily I got a chance to consult a food truck, and trust me that’s what I was looking for… working under no restrains Managing a food truck was equally difficult as hotels, food truck looks small but that small truck also has to cater so many people, so running a small place with limited space and equipment’s with my signature dishes was a difficult task but at the end we did it. And I started enjoying it, after 6 months a friend of mine asked me to join him in his new food truck project the concept was new and this time we got the food truck made according to how we wanted it to be, pretty professional.

It was called “THE GOURMET STREET KITCHEN”, we did the best European restaurant quality food from a truck, people loved it I still remember we used to have a long queue at our truck every weekend, but after a year we started facing issues from the local government authorities as there was no legal law for food trucks and so we had to close it down, but it was an amazing journey we travelled to so many places and have cooked for some really amazing people at beautiful locations…

HospiBuz:- Chef, please tell us about your work cycle at Molecule, Gurgaon?

Chef  Anas Qureshi:- I start my work everyday sharp at 1:00 in the afternoon, there is big checklist for the day that I discuss with my sous chef, after that every dish is tasted to check if they are been done according to the recipe and set standards and then I finish the rest of the paperwork like ordering making requisition for the next day and looking at daily reports… after that, I take care of the pass from where every dish a guest orders passes through… it's my responsibility to keep a check on quality and standards and maintain them. And during the day I take a one hour break after the lunch service in which I work on the new concepts and dishes, as I change the menu of my restaurant every 6 months so I have to keep thinking of something new all the time.. for us the day ends at 1:00 AM because after the busy dinner service we have to get the kitchen clean and ready for the next day and next days workflow is discussed with the team.. every day I spend 12 hours In my kitchen and the reality of those 12 hours is not glamorous it’s a war that we fight every day….have you ever imagined a “warrior with the soul of Picasso” that’s a chef Kitchens are like war zone, always on high alert. we have a new war to fight every day… new challenges and no room for mistakes… we have to be vigilant and attentive all the time. but trust me it’s a beautiful war… there is a lot more that goes on behind the kitchen doors than you would have ever imagined, and trust me surviving in kitchens is not easy… behind every dish, you eat at the restaurant someone has fought a war for it…

life in the kitchen is not at all easy.. its physically and mentally very tough as we always have to be on our toes to deliver the best.

HospiBuz:- Chef, please tell us about the training which is given in the hotels?

Chef  Anas Qureshi:- Training is a process of learning a sequence of programmed behaviour. Its application of knowledge. It gives people an awareness of the rules and procedures to guide their behaviour. It attempts to improve its performance. Hotels make sure that every employee of theirs stays aware of every single update regarding their sections.

It’s a multi-level training process that depends on various factors like the area of expertise, experience, age, skill set etc. training in hotels is done through various procedures like conferences, guest lectures, activities, one on one training, role play etc.

And training is not at all easy in hotels we have to go through thought processes, we have to be mentally and physically fit at all times and should always have that passion to never give up in any situation. The training session, especially in the early stages of a chef’s career, is always very though as we are been trained to become chefs who will lead a team one day and so we are been trained very hard since day one. Not only working on the hot range is important but also the team management skills are equally important so chefs are also trained in a way that they can manage the whole kitchen team and keep the place running as per set standards.

HospiBuz:- What is the first thing that you do when you enter a kitchen?

Chef  Anas Qureshi:- I go to every chef of my team in their sections crack a few jokes lighten the whole aura of the kitchen… that’s the first thing I do for sure every day

Read also:-        

India’s first certified Tea sommelier.

My mother taught me all the basics of cooking: Chef Bikram Das

The man elevating the Hospitality industry.