The brains behind the Amaya chain of restaurants plan to put an outpost of their $10-million Indian-food empire in every neighbourhood in Toronto. And that’s just the beginning.
As office workers hustle through the PATH for their brief lunch, Amaya owner Hemant Bhagwani casually navigates his way through the bowels of the financial district, surveying his growing kingdom of Indian restaurants. First stop is Amaya Express in Simcoe Place, the newest outlet of his mini-chain, which is located in a glassed-in space beside the food court. Bhagwani steps behind the counter and lifts ladles out of pots, inspecting the fragrant curries, biryanis and samosas. Satisfied, he makes his way to his First Canadian Place outpost, where customers are lined 10 deep by 11.30 a.m., rapidly depleting the kitchen’s supply of butter chicken, which makes up some 60 per cent of Amaya Express’ sales. Then he’s back in the maze, cruising past the optical stores, shoe-shine outlets and pharmacies, into the basement of the TD Centre, where he quickly greets his wife, Fatima, who is helping out on cash at Inde by Amaya. After a quick lunch of spicy lamb over basmati rice, it’s back into the PATH, up stairs, down ramps, in and out of elevators, until he arrives at his car, a black Mercedes CLS, with the customized licence plate AMAYA1.
“When I started Amaya in 2007, I just wanted to make a bit of money and survive,” says Bhagwani, who is 38, speaks softly, has lightly tousled black hair, designer denim and a black linen jacket. “Then I opened two more, then one more, then wrote a new business plan. In five years, we’ll need 100 Amaya Expresses in the city. That’s my benchmark,” he says, putting on a pair of black aviators as the Benz pulls into daylight. “I would like to see an Amaya Express in every neighborhood in Toronto. One every four kilometres. I want to have everybody.”
Amaya Bread Bar: 3305 Yonge St.
Right now, Bhagwani may be the most ambitious and entrepreneurial young restaurateur in Toronto. His goal is to transform curry from an “exotic” alternative into an everyday food, not just in this city, but in every city in North America. Currently, he operates two full-service restaurants (Amaya the Indian Room and Amaya Bread Bar), four takeout/delivery Amaya Express locations and three food-court outlets in the financial district. In the coming months, new Amaya Express outlets will open on King Street East, on the Ossington strip and in four shopping-mall food courts (including the Eaton Centre). He will open a tapas-inspired wine bar concept, called Chutney Bar, in a not-yet-built downtown hotel and another in a mall in the suburbs (he’s prohibited from revealing the locations). Amaya signature sauces, spices and naan bread are already selling in some 400 grocery stores across the country, and catering giant Aramark has started serving Amaya-conceived dishes in corporate cafeterias in recent months. That butter chicken you’ve eaten at Jack Astor’s? Yup, it’s Amaya’s.
If, as Bhagwani expects, Amaya can break through to the mainstream palate, the potential for his brand is huge. According to Linda Strachan, a foodservice industry analyst with market research company NPD, Canadian consumption of Indian food at restaurants has been growing steadily in recent years, from 19 million Indian dishes in 2009 to 25 million in 2010. More importantly, an increasing number of Canadian customers, 16 per cent, say they would like to see more Indian food on menus.
By way of explaining this shift, Krishnendu Ray, an Indian-born assistant professor of food studies at New York University, classifies international cuisine into two categories: foreign and ethnic. “If something is classified as foreign, it has higher prestige than ethnic,” says Ray. “Ethnic is working class, poorer migrants. French is never ethnic; it’s always foreign. Japanese was an ethnic downmarket food that became foreign as Japan rose economically.” Indian food, he says, is currently straddling the line between the two. In Toronto, it remains largely ethnic—most South Asian restaurants are owned and operated by immigrant families with little prior experience who enter the business out of economic necessity. For many Canadians, Indian remains an inexpensive, exotic and often intimidating food. People are still afraid of a spicy vindaloo and its gastrointestinal repercussions.
All of this is changing. Today’s India is a hyper-driven economic contender whose culture is weaving itself into our lives daily, whether through yoga, Slumdog Millionaire, the recent Bollywood awards or butter chicken. Bhagwani himself is a product of this globally savvy India. As immigrants from South Asian countries continue to move to the GTA (they are now its second largest visible minority, after the Chinese), we could soon be like Britain, where curry is now on par with fish and chips as a national dish.
