Flavours of India, delivered in Doha

SWEET SPOT: More than financial returns, Nitin Shroff was focused on the quality of the food on Zaffran’s menu.    Photo by Anand HollaBy Anand HollaFor Nitin Shroff, it was a childhood peeve that held out the answer to his future – become a restaurateur. The Qatar-born Indian expat had been party to his parents’ squabbles over excess luggage, one too many times. “During holidays, we would travel to Mumbai,” he recalls, sitting in a corner of Zaffran Café, “Each time, on our way back, my parents would fight at the airport over it. Despite flying Business Class, we would end up exceeding the baggage limit.”It wasn’t fancy clothes or knickknacks that those bags were bingeing on; food was the repeat offender. “When we would open our bags, we would have food,” Shroff says, shaking his head, “Just food.” The roster would be endless – snacks, pickles, breads, sweets, fried foods, cottage cheese, betel leaves, the works.“Through my growing up years, this tradition remained because we couldn’t get those foods here and we valued authenticity. I saw it was not just us who were stashing food back from India; many of my friends’ parents did, too. No eatery was making such stuff here. One day, after my graduation, I asked my mother why we can’t make these foods here and set a new benchmark.”That set Shroff off in starting Zaffran Café at Al Muntazah, a joint that would serve delicious Indian street food and sweets. In less than half a year after it opened in October 2013, it picked up two Qatar Choice awards – Favourite Newcomer and Favourite Café – effortlessly surpassing its high-profile competitors. “The awards were based on people’s votes, and we took the prize by a lead of 7,000 votes, which for Qatar, is a huge number,” Shroff says.What transpired at the café during last Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, has now become the stuff of urban legend, especially among the Indian expats. That day when Zaffran sold 5,000 kg of sweets, the serpentine queue had snarled upto KFC on the main street as hundreds had descended, even prompting the cops to pay a visit and figure what the fuss was about.Madness ensues on weekends as well. “On Thursdays and Fridays, we hardly have any seats empty, but our patrons wait for 30-40 minutes, or just stand and eat. We can’t do anything because this is all the space we have got here,” explains Shroff, “One thing I keep asking our customers is: Are we consistent? The answer I mostly get is: Yes, you are, and that’s why we are back.”The idea behind Zaffran, Shroff says, has been “to educate people about food.” He reasons, “People need to be aware about authentic food; be it Spanish, Italian, or Indian. People know what pasta is but they don’t know authentic pasta. They know the pasta they have been eating in places that don’t serve real Italian food.”In Dubai, where he stayed for three-and-a-half years and did his Bachelor of Business Administration, Shroff would dine out every night with his friends. “We explored the cheapest joints to the most expensive restaurants, trying everything from crocodile meat to snake ribs. I started developing a taste for various cuisines, you know, some authentic, some fusion,” he says.On returning to Doha, Shroff decided to start a restaurant that didn’t entail heavy investment. “So I started with Zaffran Café because if I were to fail, it would hurt me less,” he says. Being only 26 and having gotten married two years ago, Shroff also didn’t want to hurl himself into a complex project.“I know I won’t be buying a Ferrari with Zaffran’s business,” he lays it down straight, “The whole concept was not to make money. But again, you don’t start a business to lose money either. My vision is to present good food to people, and through that, tell them what we can offer. Once you gain people’s trust, then you can take the next step forward.” That next move is the upcoming Zaffran Dining Experience, a premium restaurant, and also a slew of branches that will be planned across the city.A lot of behind-the-scenes work has gone into realising Shroff’s dream. Their family ties with the famous All Seasons Banquets, an established player in the field back in Mumbai, saw them being roped in as partners for recruiting staff because, as Shroff puts it, “if you won’t find the right people, you won’t be able to provide the right food.”A few months before Zaffran was unveiled, Shroff had flown down 15 people from India to do a culinary test drive. “I told them I will give you a big place and all the ingredients you want. Show me what you can do,” Shroff recalls, of asking them to cook for 100 people. Several parcels of that food landed at the doorsteps of Shroff’s many friends so as to fetch honest feedbacks. “Everyone was blown away. That really boosted my confidence.” Soon, Shroff ‘auditioned’ a lot more people from India and eventually settled on a team of 40 – chefs, sweet-makers, admin guys, cleaners, drivers. The secret to Zaffran’s success, Shroff insists, is his pursuit of authenticity. “Our biggest plus is that we make everything here. Be it the milk procured from a local farm or the savouries needed for chaat items – everything is made in Qatar. The only thing we get from India is the silver foil we put on top of sweets. We have a centralised unit behind the Nissan Showroom where we prepare everything and bring it to the Café or send it to catering,” Shroff explains, referring to the many top hotels and organisations they serve.That brings us to the equally popular arm of Zaffran – their outdoor catering service. Known as Taste, it serves a party of a minimum 30 to a maximum of 200, providing everything from food to chairs, tables and even the DJ. “Of course, our menu for that is vast. It includes a massive range of tandoor dishes, kebabs, biryanis, and so on,” Shroff says, “We essentially bring our mobile kitchen to the venue of your choice.”In a short time, Zaffran seems to have earned a large fan following which can be gauged by the impressive word of mouth they have enjoyed as attested by their social media fame. Glowing reviews on Zomato apart, Zaffran’s Facebook page has an upwards of 16,000 likes and counting.“Food cannot be advertised,” Shroff says, “I can get the best photographers and designers to create the best publicity material and perhaps get the crowd in. But if you eat once and it’s not good enough, you won’t come back.”Marked by an agreeable ambience and eye-pleasing décor, Zaffran Café serves lip-smacking Indian street food such as various chaats, vada pav, pav bhaji, kheema pav, frankies, wraps, and an array of sweets, farsans (savoury snacks), beverages and desserts. “Doha lacks good authentic food, and there’s nothing here that’s similar to what we offer,” Shroff points out, “The other Indian restaurants in Doha have a different clientele.” “Our biggest patrons are Indians and Arabs, including a lot of Qataris,” he continues, “During the wedding season, there are a lot of bulk takeaways. Sometimes, we have a hard time meeting the demand.”Somnath Rakshit, Executive Chef at Zaffran and Taste, who used to helm the kitchen at the prestigious Oberoi Hotels back in India, who joins in the conversation, adds, “We never compromise on quality. If something is not there, we make the dish not available.”Rakshit says he has learnt a lot by interacting with patrons. “We track people’s tastes,” he says, “Our baida kheema roti is a mix and match by building on what one would get at the famous Bade Miya’s in Mumbai. For this winter, we made jaggery-based sandesh (a Bengali sweet), and people loved it, too.”Guaranteeing authenticity while whipping out fusions can get tricky. “I can’t change certain foods, like pani puri is pani puri,” Rakshit says, “But we have managed to make rasgulla chaat, by marrying rasgulla (another Bengali sweet) with the spicy, tangy chaat elements to delicious results.”Along with authenticity, quality is a cornerstone of Shroff’s concept of food business. “The saffron we use in our food, for instance, costs QR10,000 a kilo,” says Shroff. As exorbitant as that is, the choice of saffron – no coincidence that his joint’s name is Zaffran which means saffron in Hindi – speaks of his attention to detail and taste.The fact that Shroff had nothing to do with the restaurant industry – his father Moti Shroff is a top businessman involved with construction and oil industry, and mother Bhavna is a celebrity chef – did fuel his apprehensions. “I didn’t know how it works,” he says, “But you must take a chance because this is a personal test, too. You must ask yourself: Are you capable of what you think you can do, or do you just dream?”Sweet dreams are sometimes made of sweets. Perhaps Zaffran’s most loved offerings are its many-flavoured sugary delights, which get routinely taken away by expats across the world; from USA to Denmark. “For weddings, people have taken sweets from here to India; a stark contrast to the usual trend of people bringing sweets from India,” says Shroff.What then is the best compliment they have got thus far? “To receive orders from the royal family,” he says, without batting an eyelid.