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Atul
Kochhar, Executive Chef of Benares and Hampshire retreat Vatika, has
secretly launched a new venue in Dublin and plans to roll-out a range
of mid-market restaurants in England.
Ananda has now opened in Dundrum,
Dublin with a relaxed, mid-market Irish-Indian theme and is overseen
by business partner Asheesh Dewan. They opted for a soft launch of
the restaurant due to health and safety restrictions, but it is
starting to become so busy that weekend sittings are selling out.
"Its slightly more
traditional than Benares and Vatika because I felt that Dublin needs
that style more," Kochhar enthused. "I had to gauge
the pace of Dublin. By no means are they inferior or anything, it's
just that Dublin wants that style of restaurant and that kind of
style will do better.
"We'll experiment a lot
with Ananda and we'll try to push that bar up. The aim is to bring it
to the level of Benares in two years and I'm sure ill achieve it."
As well as overseeing the smooth
opening of Ananda and Vatika, which opened in Hampshire in August,
Kochhar has revealed that he intends to launch a chain of restaurants
next year potentially under the name of Atul's Kitchen.
"I'm toying with the idea
of opening a casual dining restaurant in London which will have
potential of becoming a chain, but I don't want to jump the gun, I
just want to start the first one which will be next summer.
"It'll be a
representation of modern British-Indian food, though I'm going
through a very fussy place of my life at the moment, deciding what I
should have and what I shouldn't in terms of décor and stuff
like that. I'm looking at Westfield at the moment in Sheperds Bush,
and I'm hoping that's an ideal location to start with."
Kochhar's Michelin-starred
Benares restaurant was named as the 50th best restaurant in the UK at
the recent Restaurant Top 50 awards.
The Restaurant Top 100 1 Maze 2
Le Gavroche 3 Marcus Waring at The Berkeley 41 Zuma 46 River
Café 50 Benares 54 Yauatcha 62 Crazy Bear 69 Hakkasan 80 Theo
Randall 81 Zafferano 94 Locanda Locatelli 97 Rasoi Vineet Bhatia.
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