Colaba restaurant serving San Francisco style globally-inspired cuisine gets a book by its owners who had no intention to turn into hospitality entrepreneurs
Devidayal with Vishwas Kulkarni
Credit, some part of it at least, for the success of Colaba eatery The Table can go to the universe. Towards the end of 2007, Gauri Devidayal and Jay Yousuf, then 29 and 47 respectively, landed in Mumbai with broken hearts. Three years later, the tax consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and a man with his hands deep in the telecommunication business in California, ended up getting married three months before they’d open a restaurant despite no background in hospitality. Twelve years later, they are a team that is on top of this city’s F&B game.
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Offering us a peek into their 15-year-long journey is their self-published title, Diamonds for Breakfast. “The idea was to write it to mark 10 years of the restaurant,” Devidayal, 42, tells us, adding, “But I was so naive that I thought it could be done in six months.” When former journalist Vishwas Kulkarni came on board in 2019, they knew the project was on its way to fruition.
Devidayal didn’t want a biography or a 101 business guide. She wasn’t keen on a cookbook either. “The idea was to have an anecdotal book that talked about the restaurant, the journey of putting it together and running it day after day while addressing our failures and adventures, including the fire,” she says, alluding to the September 2015 incident when the kitchen caught fire, and the restaurant reopened after three weeks.
Offering us a peek into the journey of Gauri Devidayal and Jay Yousuf as restaurateurs is the former’s self-published title, Diamonds for Breakfast. Staying away from being a biography or a 101 business guide, it is an anecdotal book that talks about the restaurant, the journey of putting it together and running it every day, all the while addressing their failures and adventures. Pics/Pradeep Dhivar
The book is seasoned with anecdotes—from a Bollywood producer who chose to drown her sorrow at The Table after hearing that the lead actress of his film was pregnant, to hosting cricketers during the Indian Premier League seasons and dealing with a guest who wished to dine on the pavement outside to maintain social distancing during COVID.
Our favourite story is about the couple “smuggling” in materials for the restaurant, including 25 kg Swiss cheese, truffle oil, coffee cups and tea sets from their trips abroad. Devidayal wasn’t on board initially. In fact, when it happened accidentally for the first time, her clear directive to Yousuf was that he should carry the bags with the cheese and if he was caught, he was on his own. The shared goal to bring only the best to the customer’s table made her an accomplice and co-planner in hatching an all-expense-paid trip to Bali for their friends where they bought crockery enough to last them a year. “A lot of the things that we did were crazy; a rational person wouldn’t do it,” laughs Devidayal, adding that since she was a trained auditor, doing anything off the books was like questioning her world view.
It took the partners three years to actualise the dream and take care of the not-so-glamorous, but essential backstage work of leasing a property, dealing with brokers, egos and administration. And bring collaborators on board, including a chef. The book speaks of the time when The Table’s star chef Alex Sanchez decided to move on. “A couple of years before he left, he took a break. That was a challenging time, but it also prepared the staff to handle the kitchen in his absence. So, when he eventually quit in 2017, the task before us was to deal with the perception [of The Table minus Sanchez]. A restaurant is far from being a one-man show.”
This story also has a silver lining. Sanchez’s departure led to a man who prides himself in being a Class IX drop out, helming the kitchen. Louis Gomes had spent a major part of his life washing the dishes before chef Viraf Patra took him under his tutelage and he saw himself climb the rungs of the ladder. Gomes currently helms The Table, and has a hand in taking it to the rank of 85 in the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list (2022).
While The Table is at the centre of the book, it also addresses their failed ventures like fine dining restaurant Miss T, which was launched with a plan to offer sexy cocktails and South-East Asian fare, but saw them bleed over 15 months. The couple admit that they were in a hurry to open the restaurant and went ahead although barely 80 per cent of the menu was ready.
Because blessings come alongside tragedies, Devidayal agrees that the Coronavirus pandemic gave their journey a humane face. The book shares how the pandemic saw them restart their bakery, turning their restaurants into a dormitory for staff and compelling them to refigure sources from where they could procure raw materials. It is how their now successful venture Magazine Street Kitchen was born.
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