The cook who runs our kitchen

One chef — Santosh Shah, from Uttarakhand, India. He runs the tandoor and the curry range himself, cooking the North Indian dishes fresh to order the way he was taught back home.

Santosh Shah · Head Chef

Where he is from

Our chef is from Uttarakhand — the Himalayan state in northern India, bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the south and Nepal to the east. The cuisine he grew up on is the food of the foothills: hearty dals, slow-cooked meats, plenty of dairy from local cows, generous use of mustard oil, and the same spice palette that defines greater North Indian cooking.

He trained in professional kitchens in India before moving to Thailand. By the time he joined us, he had years of experience cooking the full North Indian repertoire — Punjabi gravies, Mughlai kormas, dum biryanis, tandoor breads, kebabs. The combination of his home cuisine plus his professional training is why our menu reads the way it does: rooted in Punjabi-style food but with the warmth and generosity of Pahari (mountain) cooking. Read more on how BHARAT came together.

How he works

Three things define his approach:

• Masalas ground, not poured. Every North Indian gravy starts from masala he grinds in our kitchen each morning — no pre-made curry pastes, even when a paste would be easier and faster. This shows up most clearly in dishes like our butter chicken and dal makhani. Our Indo-Chinese dishes are the honest exception: those sauces are bought, then cooked to order on a high-flame wok station.
• Fresh paneer, cut on the day it is cooked. He cubes it in the morning and finishes each piece in its own gravy to order rather than reheating a pre-made batch — the difference is obvious across our paneer dishes and the rest of the vegetarian menu.
• Tandoor handled personally. The charcoal tandoor station is the most temperamental part of any Indian kitchen. He runs it himself during peak hours rather than handing it off — the difference is visible in every kebab and naan that comes out. Why charcoal vs gas matters →

The kitchen

Our kitchen is on the second floor, above the dining room. This is by design: it gives the chef proper space to work, separates the heat and noise of cooking from the calm of the dining experience downstairs, and allows the tandoor's exhaust to vent cleanly without smoke drifting into the seating area.

Food travels from the second-floor kitchen to the ground-floor dining room via a dedicated service route, so dishes reach your table fresh, fast, and at the right temperature.

If you would like to see the kitchen — the tandoor in particular is something most diners have never seen up close — ask your server during a quiet moment and we will be happy to show you. The full kitchen approach is also covered in our authentic Punjabi food guide.

The supporting team

Beyond the chef, we have a small team of kitchen assistants who handle prep (washing, chopping, marinating), bread station (naan, roti, paratha — see the breads menu), and dishwashing. The brigade is intentionally small — fewer hands means tighter quality control and a kitchen that runs the way the chef wants it to run.

Out front, Manjeet Singh manages the dining room and the service team. The restaurant itself is operated by Mr. Veg Company Limited, owned by Kanoktip Lergdee, with Litesh Dhir as director — the same names you will find on our page about the people behind BHARAT.