Chef Ranveer and Haute Chef’s Artisinal Indian line
Haute Chef is a unique “meal kit” concept, built around incredible cooking experiences. Our philosophy is based on the French phrase “mise en place” – an approach commonly used in professional kitchens which involves organizing and preparing the ingredients that will be required for a dish.
We send a box of pre-measured, labeled ingredients along with easy to follow step-by-step instructions on putting together a truly gourmet dish in your home kitchen. We take away the hassles of planning, shopping, measuring and delivering so that you can make cooking fast, fun and easy. Haute Chef not only saves you money, but in comparison to greasy takeout options – you can see exactly the amount of salt, sugar, or fat going into what you’re cooking, which is not so obvious with restaurant meals.
Our recipes are curated by chefs trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and while they provide an experience of foods from around the world, the recipes are simple enough keeping novice cooks in mind. We feel that people today are disconnected with the joy of sitting around a table and sharing an amazing experience with those they love the most. And by taking the guesswork out of the process, we make gourmet cooking surprisingly simple!
Founder Details:
Vishal Shah, Founder & CEO of Haute Chef is an avid foodie.
Prior to founding Haute Chef, Vishal was an investment banker based in New York and London working with a multinational bank for over a decade.
The Vision:
Haute Chef’s single most focus is to offer a truly gourmet experience to its discerning customers – right from our packaging, website user interface, delivery experience and the ultimate product. We envision being the preferred choice for our customers to experience gourmet home cooking and making cooking fast, fun & easy
USP:
The team at Haute Chef has put in significant efforts at every single aspect of our customer interaction to offer the gourmet experience mentioned earlier. A few things worth a mention are: our custom-made, food-grade boxes which come with reusable ice gel packs to keep ingredients fresh, our easy-to-follow recipe cards along with illustrations at every step, and most importantly our globally-inspired recipes which have been curated by chefs trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).
How the meals are selected, where recipes are from, how often they are changed etc.
Meals are selected based on foods and ingredients that are seasonal and in trend, recipes that are healthy to eat; easy to cook and often include ingredients that may not be easily available in your local market, or local cuisines that I have enjoyed during my travels. Haute Chef’s recipes are written by a panel of hand-picked chefs who have several years of experience both internationally and in India. Our menu gets updated every month where we introduce new recipes while continuing with best sellers that new customers may have heard about and would like to try.
How Haute Chef Started:
Haute Chef is a result of the convergence of several experiences Vishal has had over the last decade or so during his life as an investment banker working in New York and London. New York is unarguably one of the best cities to experience the diversity of world cuisines being served at hole-in-the wall joints all the way to coveted Michelin-star restaurants. Combinedwith the opportunity to taste authentic, local cuisines during his travels and the foodie in him, Vishal had developed a strong fancy to create a platform for people to experience foods of the world. Living the fast-paced Manhattan lifestyle, he and his wife would often crave for a home-cooked meal which would be fresh, healthy & easy while recreating the look, taste & feel of a restaurant dish.
Says Vishal, “we regularly experienced frustration to cook for just the two of us and be left behind with either extra food ingredients or cooked food – both of which would go waste. Often times, we would get a box of mascarpone cheese or a bottle of sherry vinegar and didn’t know what to do with the excess after using the 2 tbsp that the recipe recommended. And that’s how the thought of providing exactly-measured ingredients was conceived where one could make cooking a fun experience without having to worry about the boring legwork of recipe planning, grocery shopping and measuring ingredients.”
Along with neatly-labelled & pre-portioned ingredients, Haute Chef also provides step-by-step recipe cards with easy-to-follow illustrations and instructions to cook gourmet dishes from around the world in the convenience of your home kitchen without having to worry about food wastage or greasy take out options.
Why Mumbai?
Mumbai, in the last few years has witnessed a paradigm shift in terms of the food scene. With the plethora of diverse dining options, travel to offbeat destinations and the awareness created from increasingly popular food shows, the average Mumbaikar has become highly experimental with respect to their food choices. The other parallel I see with the Big Apple is how increasingly health-conscious the people of Mumbai have become. With this backdrop, the team at Haute Chef strongly believes our offering is well-suited to people who want to experience gourmet cooking in a healthy and hassle-free manner without spending too much time in the kitchen. Our recipes are curated by chefs trained at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and while they provide an experience of foods from around the world, the recipes are simple enough keeping novice cooks in mind.
