Anjan Chatterjee may be a successful entrepreneur but he is first a dedicated foodie. The sum of the two has meant that at just 44 he has created a couple of speciality restaurant chains in the country that have high brand recall. They are Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta.
His venture started with Only Fish at Mumbai’s Prabhadevi that soon became the talking point with regard to some fine cuisines. Later Only Fish changed to Oh! Calcutta even as the menu expanded to include more varieties.
Meanwhile Mainland China quietly debuted at Saki Naka, Andheri, and this too flourished quickly. It must be said that Chatterjee has acted quite fast to take his restaurants national once the first signs of breakthrough looked transparent.
Today, the eatery has outlets in 6 cities, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad other than Mumbai and Kolkata. As of last year July, Anjan Chatterjee’s business was raking in Rs.75 crore annually, comprising of 24 restaurants across the country catering to 2 lakh footfalls every month, and a catering college in Kolkata.
And now Mainland China is all set to open shops in – where else but – China. Before he could get permission to have the footprints at Dalian and Shanghai, Chatterjee had to convince the mayor of Shanghai about the quality of food by having him come to Kolkata to partake the fares at the city’s Mainland China restaurant.
It is likely that Chatterjee’s outfit will consider tapping the capital market to ride the present boom. Pending that, if at all it happens anytime soon, Chatterjee has lined up private equity funds for his promising venture.
We wish him all the best.
[Collated from ‘For the love of food‘, ET, Sep 17]
Leave a Reply