Colors of Courage: Chef Ranveer Brar on cooking, poetry and how his childhood in Lucknow was a foodie’s dream

You may know him as a prominent celebrity chef, Masterchef India judge and restaurateur; but there’s more to Ranveer Singh Brar than meets the eye. Speaking of growing up in the city of nawabs, the Lucknow-born culinary whizz says, “We had a huge farm house and we lived as a joint family, as most of us in my generation did. The root to shoot or Farm to table that are the mots de jour nowadays were actually our way of life!

He fondly reminisces, “It was fun because you found happiness and more importantly, contentment in small things. Growing up in Lucknow was perhaps the best thing that happened to me, both from the POV of culture and cuisine.

Speaking of family and discovering his first gurus in the kitchen, Brar elucidates, “My mother came from a large family in Faridkot, she had never tried her hand at cooking before marriage. She tells me, she picked up cooking and other nuances from my Biji, her mother-in-law. So, it goes without saying that she and my grandmother are my first gurus in the kitchen,” Ranveer admits tipping his hat to the matriarchs of his family.

“I picked up creativity from Mom and business acumen from my father. He was and is a logical, straight-thinking man and a quintessential father of the 50s. Thanks to both of them, I have a good balance of artistic and logical instincts,” he grins.

Life in Lucknow in the 1980’s seems to have been a whirlwind of school memories and childhood mischiefs for Ranveer who attended HAL school in the city. As nostalgia hits, he recalls, “I was quite the outstanding student at school, as I’d be standing out of class most of the times!” he jests, adding that he was more interested in his classmates’ lunch boxes and would end up finishing most of them before lunch time. “My friends and I would often go out to binge on street food after school. I was especially fascinated by the kebab vendors. In a way, these jaunts were also a major contributor to my already growing interest in food.”

Looking back to recall what spurred him along to take the first steps in his gastronomic career, he quips, “I was quite the rebel, once I fixated on an idea I have to complete it. I was so besotted with the idea of learning how to cook, that I ran away to learn cooking from a Kebab vendor, Munir Ustad. Back then, I would haul sacks of coal to dry them.”

“Ustad would not easily share his recipes with me. I had to patiently prove myself and learn,” he discloses adding that when he later joined IHM, it was magical, like a dream come true. “Though initially I felt lost, one day while fileting fish it struck me that food is food and then there was no looking back.

“I was busy working on opening new restaurants and curating the menu when the opportunity to move to the US came up. It felt exciting to say the least. That I had to wind up the award-winning restaurant I started there is a known story by now. What matters is the powers above and the people around me helped me pick up from where I left off and get back to life again.”

It is said that tough times never last, but tough individuals do. Echoing this sentiment, Ranveer shares the greatest piece of advice he got from a peer in the industry. “‘This too shall pass.’ It came from Chef Peppino in Boston who is more a brother to me than a friend. When economic situations forced me to shut down my award-winning restaurant, Banq, he helped put me back together with this saying. And it’s seen me through every tough situation ever since,” he ruminates.

The chef who has come a long way with an illustrious career has been giving back to society in an intriguing way. Together with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, he’s aided prisoners in upgrading their cooking skills. Elaborating on his work with the model jails in Uttar Pradesh, he says, “It’s a very soul-satisfying experience to be part of the Entrepreneurship Development program with NIESBUD, for prison inmates in the culinary discipline. It will help refine the latter’s professional skills to strengthen their means to a livelihood and help rehabilitate them with hope and positivity.

“As I interacted with the budding chefs among the inmates, what instantly got my attention was their enthusiasm to participate in the program. They say, helping transform lives is a powerfully gratifying and karmically blissful process. And that’s my chief motivating factor,” he beams.

Probe him about what’s usually cooking in the Brar household, the culinary marvel who excels in creating fascinating palate pleasers confesses he is mostly a Dal-Chawal kind of person. “Khichdi’s been my go-to dish for ages now, it’s a perfect one-pot meal that ticks all the nutritional boxes for me. I also believe in ‘less is more’, something that was instilled in me by Biji (my grandmother),” he smiles explaining that the food they eat at home is almost always minimalistic, yet nourishing.

Well, this celebrity chef is a jack of many trades, for though he debuted in mainstream television and directed several food documentaries, he has now forayed into acting. “Honestly, I never thought I would act, though I always had a lot of respect for the craft. But my love for the medium and the ease of working with Pratik, Talaat Aziz and Hansal sir ticked all the boxes for me,” he explains, adding that Modern Love Mumbai came as the perfect opportunity at the right time.

Ask him what gives him happiness apart from work, and he reveals, “Poetry for me is yet another medium of expression. It’s hard to say whether my love for food inspires my poetry or vice versa. But I write about my take aways from life, what I see around me, it ranges from mellow to too deep at times, satire too!” he smiles signing off.

Also Read: Unique travel experiences to have in Thailand if you are an animal lover