November 14, 2024 • 10 mins
Chetan Sharma is chef and owner of Bibi restaurant in the heart of Mayfair, London. Bibi features an Indian-inspired and produce-led menu that Chef Sharma describes as accessible fine dining. Chef Sharma talks about starting to cook at age 17, working in Michelin-starred restaurants, and how his PhD in physics helps him run a restaurant. Bibi opened in 2021, and is named after Chef Sharma’s two grandmothers called “bibi,” which means “lady of the house.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:13):
[Music] My name is Chetan Sharma and we're here at BiBi restaurant in the heart of Mayfair.
It's a modern Indian restaurant championing progressive cuisine but also ingredients from
the history of Indian food, I always say I've been cooking for about half my life
now professionally, I mean I started when I was 17 going on 18 and now,
(00:34):
well you can do the math, I'm in my my late 30s.
So I've been cooking for a fair while and in some ways I had this kind of naivete about
how beautiful Indian food could be so I always worked in modern European French
you know fine dining restaurants and it's only sort of later in life that I've after spending
time at places like like Margarets, like The Ledbury, L'Enclume you know all great
(00:57):
restaurants doing amazing things that I've actually sort of come back home in
terms of my culinary education, you know, the restaurant's named BiBi after my grandmothers.
BiBi means 'Lady of the house', my grandmothers were the first people to teach me how to cook.
They both grew up on farms in India so produce was always at the heart of the discussion and
the heart of any of the cooking that we had in our household and when I think about warm
(01:19):
inviting hospitable places to eat dinner my BiBi's tables were always the first place.
And we go to you know the idea of how we like to serve guests in the restaurant,
when I think of good hospitality I think of my grandmother's first. So even though
they maybe wouldn't recognize some of the dishes at least visually, hopefully
the flavors are all reminiscent of of things that we've experienced in our time in India.
(01:43):
BiBi opened back in September 2021, a bit of a tricky period
for restaurants just coming out of the pandemic, we actually had the
property for a little while beforehand and interestingly I think it was the best thing
that happened to us. I mean it's hard to find silver linings to a global pandemic,
but it gave gave us a chance to rethink what we wanted and what we missed about restaurants,
(02:04):
my background is very much in sort of ultra fine dining two-three Michelin
Star restaurants both here in the UK but also abroad and I always thought that was
the kind of restaurant we'd be opening but the pandemic hit and it gave us a chance to
think about you know the art of looking after people, because that's in the end
what people come to restaurants for, so we kind of flipped the whole idea on its head.
(02:26):
We still take our food very seriously but we changed our approach let's say a
little bit to the service element of a restaurant.
We really want to champion sort of Indian stories, Indian produce,
but also making the best of what we have in this this great country as well.
But we want people to feel like they could come back multiple times in a month,
put their elbows up on the counter, it's why most of the seating in the restaurant
(02:47):
or at least a third of it on the kitchen counter. You have dialogue with the chefs,
we play old school hip-hop, everything you can think of that you wouldn't think
of a classic fine dining restaurant, especially not in the Indian space.
The menu at BiBi is well it's it's pretty variable, so at lunch we have an à la carte
offering along with a shorter Chef selection menu, in the evening it's all bells and whistles,
(03:11):
a long tasting menu type experience, I think at last count something like 22 different dishes?
But it changes so regularly, maybe every two or 3 weeks we have pretty pretty big changes,
the structure remains but we really want to be led by our suppliers our producers
and we use what whatever they tell us is best and then move the menu around that.
(03:33):
I think there's been a big shift in people's uh dining habits after the pandemic um of course
there's still space for special occasion restaurants and you know there's always
something that people are going to want to celebrate, but I think people have become a
little bit more cost conscious, a little bit more health conscious post-pandemic.
You know it's not a secret that the West in particular,
(03:56):
but the entire world is going through a bit of an economic struggle,
cost of living crisis in London is really well documented as well.
So I think people are changing their spending habits a little bit which you
know we're not a cheap restaurant by any means but
we've tried to keep our price point at a sort of more accessible place.
I guess my my background is a little bit trickier than just working in restaurants,
(04:16):
so prior to well actually in between but sort of interspliced,
while I was working in restaurants I was also completing a PhD in physics.
It's a bit of an unusual one for a chef I think, but it's something that I think think has really
helped me think about one keeping perspective I think it's really important you know this this
world can take over when you work in restaurants it becomes everything, but having experienced a
(04:39):
life before restaurants or alongside restaurants means that you can hopefully keep a little bit
more perspective on things and hopefully gives you a a slightly different viewpoint
on how you might approach certain problems with running a business day today well.
Personally I actually grew up a vegetarian, so until I was in my mid teens
(05:00):
I was vegetarian, my parents are still vegetarian,
my grandmothers were both vegetarian, so we grew up eating predominantly vegetables.
At home because of the nature of the work here tasting you know
somewhat rich sources and proteins quite often it's actually you know
for sure tonight I'm going to have vegetarian food at home.
So Plant-Forward Cuisine I think we're more conscious of what we call it now but it's always
(05:24):
been the way that we approach cuisine at home, when I think about things that excite me in in
restaurants and in cooking for me it's a bit like a chef in the playground at this time of year,
because you're getting all of the great produce that we've missed from months and months.
You know we have this big hunger gap in the UK where you know apart from sort of celeriac and
squash and things like that you don't really get anything outside of root vegetables for
(05:47):
such a long time so we're starting to see the best of the spring come forward now.
So produce definitely excites me, you know when our our farmers tell us that
you know the first Tomatoes, the first Courgettes,
the first British Aubergines or eggplants are now available that definitely excites me.
So so okay... why are tomatoes good at this time of year. It's a good question, I think a lot of
(06:09):
the kind of varieties of tomatoes that we grow here, especially the more sour ones which is
what we're getting in this time of year which is why they're sort of fresh and bright and clean,
they come in season earlier and then you get the sort of jammier sweeter ones I want to say
all the way up until October they last for quite a long time, the season's a lot longer than it
it used to be and also I mean I'm sure 50 years ago growing tomatoes in the UK is a challenge,
(06:34):
but now with the the the changing climate the things are a little bit
I mean you've got to look for silver linings where you can so things are
a little bit earlier and a little bit easier than they used to be.
so I'm really lucky with my relationships with all of my suppliers whether it be
dayboat fishermen or farmers, produce growers, foragers. We we use WhatsApp,
it's first thing in the morning from 5:00 in the morning till 7:00 a.m. it's all I'm
(06:58):
getting is messages from my suppliers who I've worked with for so many years.
Loyalty is a is a big thing you know we we get approached by new producers and and suppliers
constantly, we very rarely take new people on because the people we work with we know well,
we trust, they know the quality we're looking for as well that makes a huge difference.
(07:18):
I'd say we probably get a new supplier once a year, if that, but we probably have a new supply
come through the door two or three times a month so we're very selective with who we work with.
I'm quite lucky having worked in especially in London restaurants like The Ledbury building
those relationships from back then and kind of keeping them going and I think
that's sort of rewarded in the quality of product we get back from those suppliers.
(07:42):
So one one piece of advice I'd have to many chefs,
now I say I was fortunate to work in some of the world's best restaurants but actually the
one I learned to cook in was an Italian restaurant one Michelin star just just
off the road from here Locanda Locatelliand Georgio the the chef patron there.
It's a very simple line he said to me once he said to me what what grows together, goes together.
(08:05):
Now it's not necessarily always true but when you start thinking of things like I mean in
that restaurant (08:09):
tomatoes and basil you know they're best friends and there's a reason why
they grow together from a farming perspective as well, they grow at the same time of year as
well that kind of gives you an indication that these things maybe will work well together.
I think you know there's a lot of gimmickry and gadgetry at the moment that you can use to make
you know amazing texture and you know make food do things that it's never done before levitate
(08:34):
and all that kind of stuff, having worked in the kind of restaurants that use those techniques
no one ever forgets that the quality of the product is the first and foremost you know.
You can't you can you know you can't take a a Dutch Hot House Tomato and
make it into this amazing thing that's going to be comparable with something
that you pick straight from a vine, so I think the the key lesson for anyone to
(08:57):
take away is yes learn the technique and and and and learn all of that,
but go and spend time on farms go and spend time with farmers and and
learn about you know what makes the product great to begin with.
People people often ask you know how does your physics background affect
what you do in the restaurant and I mean I can't say that
understanding you know thermodynamics is going to help me be a better chef,
(09:21):
I think in some ways those two worlds have been kept quite separate for me.
So I learned how to cook, I'm a trained chef, I've been cooking
for many many years and at the same time I still have a deep passion for physics.
What I would say is that it's helped actually more on the business side of running a restaurant
because being a physicist you have to be good with numbers and that kind of helps you run your
(09:44):
your business and maybe gives you a slightly different approach to sort of logical problem
solving and you know keeping sort of a bigger view perspective of the restaurant as well. [Music]
[Music] My name is Chetan Sharma and we're here at BiBi restaurant in the heart of Mayfair.
It's a modern Indian restaurant championing progressive cuisine but also ingredients from
the history of Indian food, I always say I've been cooking for about half my life
now professionally, I mean I started when I was 17 going on 18 and now,
(00:34):
well you can do the math, I'm in my my late 30s.
So I've been cooking for a fair while and in some ways I had this kind of naivete about
how beautiful Indian food could be so I always worked in modern European French
you know fine dining restaurants and it's only sort of later in life that I've after spending
time at places like like Margarets, like The Ledbury, L'Enclume you know all great
(00:57):
restaurants doing amazing things that I've actually sort of come back home in
terms of my culinary education, you know, the restaurant's named BiBi after my grandmothers.
BiBi means 'Lady of the house', my grandmothers were the first people to teach me how to cook.
They both grew up on farms in India so produce was always at the heart of the discussion and
the heart of any of the cooking that we had in our household and when I think about warm
(01:19):
inviting hospitable places to eat dinner my BiBi's tables were always the first place.
And we go to you know the idea of how we like to serve guests in the restaurant,
when I think of good hospitality I think of my grandmother's first. So even though
they maybe wouldn't recognize some of the dishes at least visually, hopefully
the flavors are all reminiscent of of things that we've experienced in our time in India.
(01:43):
BiBi opened back in September 2021, a bit of a tricky period
for restaurants just coming out of the pandemic, we actually had the
property for a little while beforehand and interestingly I think it was the best thing
that happened to us. I mean it's hard to find silver linings to a global pandemic,
but it gave gave us a chance to rethink what we wanted and what we missed about restaurants,
(02:04):
my background is very much in sort of ultra fine dining two-three Michelin
Star restaurants both here in the UK but also abroad and I always thought that was
the kind of restaurant we'd be opening but the pandemic hit and it gave us a chance to
think about you know the art of looking after people, because that's in the end
what people come to restaurants for, so we kind of flipped the whole idea on its head.
(02:26):
We still take our food very seriously but we changed our approach let's say a
little bit to the service element of a restaurant.
We really want to champion sort of Indian stories, Indian produce,
but also making the best of what we have in this this great country as well.
But we want people to feel like they could come back multiple times in a month,
put their elbows up on the counter, it's why most of the seating in the restaurant
(02:47):
or at least a third of it on the kitchen counter. You have dialogue with the chefs,
we play old school hip-hop, everything you can think of that you wouldn't think
of a classic fine dining restaurant, especially not in the Indian space.
The menu at BiBi is well it's it's pretty variable, so at lunch we have an à la carte
offering along with a shorter Chef selection menu, in the evening it's all bells and whistles,
(03:11):
a long tasting menu type experience, I think at last count something like 22 different dishes?
But it changes so regularly, maybe every two or 3 weeks we have pretty pretty big changes,
the structure remains but we really want to be led by our suppliers our producers
and we use what whatever they tell us is best and then move the menu around that.
(03:33):
I think there's been a big shift in people's uh dining habits after the pandemic um of course
there's still space for special occasion restaurants and you know there's always
something that people are going to want to celebrate, but I think people have become a
little bit more cost conscious, a little bit more health conscious post-pandemic.
You know it's not a secret that the West in particular,
(03:56):
but the entire world is going through a bit of an economic struggle,
cost of living crisis in London is really well documented as well.
So I think people are changing their spending habits a little bit which you
know we're not a cheap restaurant by any means but
we've tried to keep our price point at a sort of more accessible place.
I guess my my background is a little bit trickier than just working in restaurants,
(04:16):
so prior to well actually in between but sort of interspliced,
while I was working in restaurants I was also completing a PhD in physics.
It's a bit of an unusual one for a chef I think, but it's something that I think think has really
helped me think about one keeping perspective I think it's really important you know this this
world can take over when you work in restaurants it becomes everything, but having experienced a
(04:39):
life before restaurants or alongside restaurants means that you can hopefully keep a little bit
more perspective on things and hopefully gives you a a slightly different viewpoint
on how you might approach certain problems with running a business day today well.
Personally I actually grew up a vegetarian, so until I was in my mid teens
(05:00):
I was vegetarian, my parents are still vegetarian,
my grandmothers were both vegetarian, so we grew up eating predominantly vegetables.
At home because of the nature of the work here tasting you know
somewhat rich sources and proteins quite often it's actually you know
for sure tonight I'm going to have vegetarian food at home.
So Plant-Forward Cuisine I think we're more conscious of what we call it now but it's always
(05:24):
been the way that we approach cuisine at home, when I think about things that excite me in in
restaurants and in cooking for me it's a bit like a chef in the playground at this time of year,
because you're getting all of the great produce that we've missed from months and months.
You know we have this big hunger gap in the UK where you know apart from sort of celeriac and
squash and things like that you don't really get anything outside of root vegetables for
(05:47):
such a long time so we're starting to see the best of the spring come forward now.
So produce definitely excites me, you know when our our farmers tell us that
you know the first Tomatoes, the first Courgettes,
the first British Aubergines or eggplants are now available that definitely excites me.
So so okay... why are tomatoes good at this time of year. It's a good question, I think a lot of
(06:09):
the kind of varieties of tomatoes that we grow here, especially the more sour ones which is
what we're getting in this time of year which is why they're sort of fresh and bright and clean,
they come in season earlier and then you get the sort of jammier sweeter ones I want to say
all the way up until October they last for quite a long time, the season's a lot longer than it
it used to be and also I mean I'm sure 50 years ago growing tomatoes in the UK is a challenge,
(06:34):
but now with the the the changing climate the things are a little bit
I mean you've got to look for silver linings where you can so things are
a little bit earlier and a little bit easier than they used to be.
so I'm really lucky with my relationships with all of my suppliers whether it be
dayboat fishermen or farmers, produce growers, foragers. We we use WhatsApp,
it's first thing in the morning from 5:00 in the morning till 7:00 a.m. it's all I'm
(06:58):
getting is messages from my suppliers who I've worked with for so many years.
Loyalty is a is a big thing you know we we get approached by new producers and and suppliers
constantly, we very rarely take new people on because the people we work with we know well,
we trust, they know the quality we're looking for as well that makes a huge difference.
(07:18):
I'd say we probably get a new supplier once a year, if that, but we probably have a new supply
come through the door two or three times a month so we're very selective with who we work with.
I'm quite lucky having worked in especially in London restaurants like The Ledbury building
those relationships from back then and kind of keeping them going and I think
that's sort of rewarded in the quality of product we get back from those suppliers.
(07:42):
So one one piece of advice I'd have to many chefs,
now I say I was fortunate to work in some of the world's best restaurants but actually the
one I learned to cook in was an Italian restaurant one Michelin star just just
off the road from here Locanda Locatelliand Georgio the the chef patron there.
It's a very simple line he said to me once he said to me what what grows together, goes together.
(08:05):
Now it's not necessarily always true but when you start thinking of things like I mean in
that restaurant (08:09):
tomatoes and basil you know they're best friends and there's a reason why
they grow together from a farming perspective as well, they grow at the same time of year as
well that kind of gives you an indication that these things maybe will work well together.
I think you know there's a lot of gimmickry and gadgetry at the moment that you can use to make
you know amazing texture and you know make food do things that it's never done before levitate
(08:34):
and all that kind of stuff, having worked in the kind of restaurants that use those techniques
no one ever forgets that the quality of the product is the first and foremost you know.
You can't you can you know you can't take a a Dutch Hot House Tomato and
make it into this amazing thing that's going to be comparable with something
that you pick straight from a vine, so I think the the key lesson for anyone to
(08:57):
take away is yes learn the technique and and and and learn all of that,
but go and spend time on farms go and spend time with farmers and and
learn about you know what makes the product great to begin with.
People people often ask you know how does your physics background affect
what you do in the restaurant and I mean I can't say that
understanding you know thermodynamics is going to help me be a better chef,
(09:21):
I think in some ways those two worlds have been kept quite separate for me.
So I learned how to cook, I'm a trained chef, I've been cooking
for many many years and at the same time I still have a deep passion for physics.
What I would say is that it's helped actually more on the business side of running a restaurant
because being a physicist you have to be good with numbers and that kind of helps you run your
(09:44):
your business and maybe gives you a slightly different approach to sort of logical problem
solving and you know keeping sort of a bigger view perspective of the restaurant as well. [Music]
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