Abhishek Agarwal - His journey of curating Flavors of Lucknow as the best food blog for Lucknowites and experiences so far

Flavors of Lucknow blog by Abhishek Agarwal is all about exploring new & old places across the city. It consists of anything & everything related to restaurants, street food, food courts, star hotels, clubs, lounges, etc.

Inspired by one of his experiences of an encounter with a local street food vendor being ill-treated by a boy, Abhishek started this blog to raise the standard of living of the local street food vendors and provide them with a platform where they can showcase their food and talent. Also, bringing Lucknow on the World Food Map, by spreading knowledge and creating quality content, has been a significant driver for him.

Being a food enthusiast, he started writing about food and places and came across this opportunity to start a food blog so as to form a community or a channel for people to engage upon.

Abhishek says his first collaboration happened in 2017 with one of the local brands of Lucknow (which was new venture in the city). With time, Flavors of Lucknow has grown by leaps and bounds. Initially a lot of national brands started collaborating with him and as the page grew many international brands also started approaching him.

Started as an initiative to help the local street vendors of the city, on one hand, FOL has successfully managed to create an impact on the best of brands with its amazing feed and reviews thereby maintaining a flavorsome balance between the elite choice and lip-smacking street food. Having dared to be different than the rest, Flavors of Lucknow has got its audience fall head over heels in love with his work emerging out as one of the best influencer marketing platforms of the town. FOL takes pride in reviewing more than 300+ food places in town and outside, that includes the hidden gems of the city.

Abhishek believes that the key mantra to success is to be genuine, have quality content and be consistent. When you have extraordinarily ideas and out of the box content, people will be eager to see and appreciate it. Also, one should never compare himself with other people and should always involve in healthy competition that brings success and growth to everyone working towards a similar objective. Competing with your own self is something that makes one stand out from the rest.

We’ve always seen Abhishek highly enthusiastic and passionate for his work. His passion for work is rightly reflected in his thoughts. He believes that we need to work hard for what we want because it won't come to us without a fight. The greatest strength you can ever have is your faith, belief, trust and a positive attitude.

The key idea behind founding Flavors of Lucknow was to accelerate the growth of the city with a pinch of both local street food and elite tastes and cuisines added to it. Abhishek wants Flavors of Lucknow to be one-stop option for anyone visiting the city. Having audience from abroad as well engaged on his page he feels proud to create an international awareness about the Lucknawai food and cuisine. Apart from this, he wants the page to grow more as an influencer marketing platform whereby the best of international brands chooses FOL for their marketing and promotions, taking a leverage of my marketing strategies and innovative ideas.

Some advice to the coming age of bloggers based on FOL's experiences so far

The budding bloggers should not involve in negative competition. Be genuine and true with your content. People follow you for your own style and credibility so don’t indulge in fake reviews or copying others content. Do whatever you’re good at, do what gives you happiness , do what helps you earn money but not at the cost of misleading others.

Your evaluation of “where you were yesterday and where do you land yourself today”, will surely pave your way towards infinite success and happiness.

Learn to value your work, time and energy. It is only then that the brands would value you.