Kitchen brings a smile on my face - Chef Mangesh Wazarkar

Driven by his passion for cooking, Mangesh pursued a second degree in Hotel Management and Catering Technology. He honed his skills and gained valuable industry insights by working part-time during his student years. With over 20 years of experience in kitchen operations and F&B supervision, he has served in various capacities across different hotel groups, eventually rising to the position of Executive Chef. Here are excerpts from Chef Mangesh's interview.
What is your first impression when you hear the word 'Kitchen'?
It brings a smile on my face and fills the heart with joy and gratefulness, as whatever I am today because of kitchens where I have worked. All these places have a special place in my heart.  
What is the importance of the kitchen in your day-to-day life?
Seriously!!! I can't think of life without kitchens, be it professionally or at home, this is the place where I have spent most of my time in life. 
What do you have to say on the gradual development of the concept of working kitchen when you started your career and now?
Kitchens have changed immensely, and the mindset of chefs also has changed now it's all about being experimental and creating and developing new recipes. As everyone wants to try new things out, buffets have become very popular and experimental. Growth nowadays is really fast as compared to the past. 
What is the most challenging job in the kitchen in your opinion? 
There is nothing like a specific challenge, working in the kitchen itself is a challenging job as you have to be ready for any challenge at any given point of time. 
How do you maintain hygiene and cleanliness in the Kitchen? 
Hygiene and cleanliness is not a one time job, it's a good practice and you have to keep it doing all the time along with your tasks. That is how one will be able to maintain it all given time otherwise it becomes difficult to maintain it. 
Tell us about the safety features of your kitchen. 
There are basic safety features which every kitchen practices like, first aid box, fire extinguishers, fire blankets, water sprinklers, fire alarms along with fire exit direction boards.
As each has different methods and criteria to use, we have quarterly training sessions to ensure staff have basic knowledge about using specific tools. 
Which method of cooking do you pursue in your kitchen, traditional or modern? 
When I started my journey it was all about traditional cooking and no experimenting with food but as I told you earlier, times are changing so methods are and we have adapted the methods and are open to new experiments in order to surprise our guests.
Do you have a penchant for using new technology gadgets in your kitchen? Have you added any lately? 
Yes, lately I have developed interest in new cooking methods and techniques, so now just now we have procured a smoking gun which helps us in giving good smoky flavour to our food in various operations, also we are getting some molecular chemicals like, agar agar, xhantum gum and maltadextrin to create some new flair. 
Describe the role of the trained staff in your kitchen? Do you face any specific challenges in hiring the desired staff?
Trained staff is one the most important requirements of any kitchen as it saves your training time and together you all can focus on new tasks and improvement aspects. Although we love to train the new guys as this is also a very required task which will help the industry in the long run where everybody will get benefitted, yes sometimes you have to take a lot of interviews and go through the many resumes and have to keep patience to get desired staff on board. 
Frozen foods are becoming popular now-a-days. What are your views on Frozen Foods?
Personally I don't like frozen food as they lose a lot of nutrition, but in current times due to high demand and supply they are in a very big trend as people don't have time to wait due to busy lifestyles. Still if you ask me for my personal preference I will prefer to wait for fresh food. 
What are the different sources of inspiration that you look up to while designing the menu of the restaurant and buffet? How frequently do you change the same? 
Most important factor in designing the menu is the season, as I would like to eat fresh. I always prefer seasonal ingredients which are meant to be for a specific season. And in India you have a lot to offer every season and we have festivities going on throughout the year so you really don't have to fight for ideas and inspiration. Fresh seafood is there around the year.
We keep on changing the menu to challenge ourselves as well to surprise our guests.  
What are the essential health and lifestyle trends prevailing now-a-days that you like to incorporate in the kitchen? 
Farm to table is in the trend line these days, as I said it's all about seasonal food and we have these things in our practices. Also we focus on food with minimum cooking so that every time we can deliver fresh food to our guests. 
More and more people are becoming calorie conscious. Keeping the statement in mind, what are the dessert trends followed in the restaurants?
Desserts usually consist of sweet and cream and, consequently, high in sugar and fat. The aim of this work was to take advantage of the natural sweetness of fruit and to enhance it with different techniques in order to break with the idea that finishing a pleasant meal involves sugary foods. The techniques used to enhance product sensory attributes were vacuum cooking, hot infusion, filtration, vacuum impregnation, and smoking, gelling, aerating and freezing. As a result, a novel culinary concept for creating desserts without the addition of fat and sugar has been developed. Pear, grapefruit and figs are some examples of products from the vegetable kingdom that with the right combination of aromas and textures could be the key ingredients for the elaboration of natural and healthy desserts. 
Ingredients play an important role in food preparation. Do you prefer using local ingredients in your preparations? How do you select the vendors? 
Definitely ingredients play an important role in food prep, it depends on the menu but for sure we prefer to go local more as products are readily available in the local market and there are a lot of brands that you can trust on for the quality purpose. We have our trusted vendors with whom we have been associated for a long time but we keep looking out in the market for quality products and their vendors in case we require in future. 
What is your criterion of selecting the utensils? Is there any specific brand that you use more than others?
There are several factors important while selecting equipments few of them like: Type of product, diversity of product, level of automation of the equipment, economic criteria, operating cost, maintenance cost, cost of repair, availability of spare parts. 
Throw some light on the selection of crockery and cutlery? 
The focal point of your table can be your crockery & cutlery. Before you start wondering about patterns and colors, focusing your attention on what material you really like would be a helpful start. Bone china, earthenware, porcelain, melamine and stoneware, silverware are the most common materials. 
Which are the upcoming cuisines in focus?
Now people are more interested in trying out new things as per their palate, so from local, regional to international all the cuisines are getting explored at different levels. 
Do you conduct food festivals? How do you decide on a particular theme? Do you think that regional cuisines are a good theme? 
Yes we do, we do it according to season so best possible ingredients can get the exposure they have. Yes people love to explore regional Cuisines a lot these days specially Punjabi, Rajasthani, Guajarati and South Indian food if you talk about Pune market. 
Do you agree that there is a need to change the curriculum of culinary courses in India? 
Yes, that is a very important factor to be changed in curriculum here in India, as the global market is changing these students need to be well aware about trends and also regional cuisines in India as most of colleges focus only on Punjabi or Mughlai food only as per my observation. 
What are your views on framing the curriculum designed especially for Indian food?
It revolves around only Punjabi and Mughlai food so other regional cuisines are getting ignored which isn't a good thing as our country is very diverse and has a lot of potential in its regional cuisines if explored. 
India is extremely diversified whereas its food culture is concerned. What according to you is the scope of popularizing Indian regional cuisines across the globe? 
It certainly has more scope around the globe when I say it. We have a lot of chefs who took this legendary cuisine on the world map and now it has made its benchmark in Michelin starred restaurants also. 
How do you define your 'Dream Kitchen'?
For me there is no dream kitchen its dream team, which make that kitchen perfect without team a chef is nothing so all credit goes to team who support and perform their best at each day, each passing hour to give best dining experience to their guests.

(This story has been published under arrangement from Better Kitchen magazine)