Biting Off More Than: A culinary rebel's multi-course life story

Rahul Akerkar's candid memoir serves up a rich mix of chaos, craft and reinvention, tracing the journey of a chef who helped shape India's modern dining culture

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew: A Maverick Chef Remembers

by Rahul Akerkar

Published by HarperCollins India

443 pages ₹1,199

 

Restaurant kitchens are mysterious, messy places, in stark contrast to perfectly composed dining spaces where an unassuming diner enjoys an artfully plated meal. Like any good chef memoir, Rahul Akerkar’s Biting Off More Than I Can Chew: A Maverick Chef Remembers, the drama and chaos behind the scenes becomes the main dish, with a generous helping of humour. The kitchen takes centre-stage. We are not merely diners, but a willing audience to a play, every act more audacious than the last. We are witness to both the method and the madness of one of India’s best-known chefs and a “culinary rebel” who played a significant role in shaping the country’s modern dining culture. 

It’s all superbly compelling material for a memoir. Akerkar went from a student of biochemical engineering on track for a PhD, while juggling cooking gigs in the US, to ditching it all and starting a catering company from his parents’ kitchen in Mumbai — featuring pasta sheets hanging across the drawing room. Memorable months spent in Italy at a former girlfriend’s family villa laid the foundation for an abiding love for Italian cuisine, which influenced his celebrated menus. After a series of food adventures, including Just Desserts with restauranteur AD Singh, he founded, with his wife Malini, the pioneering culinary landmark Indigo that brought in a distinctly western sensibility with an ingredient-first philosophy. That’s just a slice from his life; the long-winding route he takes us on is far more entertaining and juicy. 

Born to a German mother and an Indian father, Akerkar grew up in Mumbai in an unconventional home, with stints in boarding school. His mother, Jinx, in her fond introduction in the book remembers him as a “rambunctious” child, with an immense curiosity about the world. 

His earliest memories of food at his Aji’s home in Nashik left a deep imprint. Almost every great chef’s story begins in his grandfather’s kitchen, Akerkar writes, and his is no different. A career in food may have seemed inevitable, but it wasn’t so clear to Akerkar himself, because of how shy he was, with a severe stutter, and an entirely different career on his mind. But he learnt to be resourceful and industrious. Travelling alone from Mumbai to his maternal grandparents’ home in New York for summer holidays from the age of five, he once asked a fellow passenger on a flight for a few sips of beer, explaining that his parents allowed it at family parties. 

He got his wish, outrageous as it was. It was clear his life was going to be anything but ordinary. 

The book is brimming with such quirky anecdotes. When classical dancer Protima Bedi invited him to run the restaurant at Nrityagram in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), for example, Malini and he moved there with their baby daughter, only to take on much more than they had imagined, becoming “plumber, electrician, constructor, gardener, chef, server, clean-up crew…”. When that chapter ended, he realised Mumbai is where they belonged, and returned to search for the perfect location for their dream restaurant that became Indigo. 

Akerkar’s appetite for adventure is impressive -- and exhausting. As he admits, he tends to bite off more than he can chew. The tone is mostly breezy, conversational and tongue-in-cheek. He wears his many successes and failures lightly, but acknowledges the toll it took on his family. Each chapter begins with a double-page spread of cheerful illustrations that capture the mood of the piece and ends with some of his favourite recipes that have appeared on his menus over the decades. 

What stands out is his unconventional approach to business and being able to reinvent himself. When a fellow restaurateur kept poaching from Indigo, he invited him for lunch, then lined up his staff and asked him to pick anyone he wanted — on the condition it would be the last time. It worked. At the height of Indigo’s popularity, celebrities and VIPs had to line up like everyone else. He once had to turn away Shah Rukh Khan and Naseeruddin Shah simply because the restaurant was too busy that weekend, he writes. 

He is equally candid in talking about the lows, including his exit from Indigo after things turned sour with a particular investor, the brutal fallout and financial strain, facing betrayal and humiliation, the mistakes he made, the impact of the pandemic, moving his business to Goa, and his mental health struggles along the way. Through the good times and bad, the book remains enormously enjoyable. There are many lessons for anyone interested in the food business. But more than that, for any reader, for the price of one dish, you get a richly satisfying multi-course ride.

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The reviewer is a Delhi-based independent journalist and author who reports on development and culture