Saransh Goila started Goila Butter Chicken (GBC) in 2016 and now plans to take it global. He started his journey in 2011 with Maha Challenge and then became a household name when he made it big on MasterChef Australia. He is focusing on putting GBC on autopilot by 2026 and has also been dabbling with other things, such as social media shows. On a trip to Calcutta recently, he spoke to t2oS about his journey and where he wants to go from here. Excerpts.
Let’s start at the beginning... we have all had butter chicken all our lives. When and why did you feel that it needed modification and made it into your brand?
When I was in college, IIHM Aurangabad, we first learnt to make butter chicken. My family is completely vegetarian. I started eating non-vegetarian food when I went to college for the first time. So my family complained that in Delhi restaurants, guests are served such robust-looking butter chicken, but paneer is like the shoddy version, either too creamy or too sweet, similar to having dessert for mains. So, when I was learning to make butter chicken in college, I wondered how to make it vegetarian, but keep the butter-chicken-ness of it alive.
So what makes a good butter chicken? The sweet and tanginess balance of the tomato. The tandoori flavour that merged with cream and butter gives that lovely butter chicken texture. But how to get more of everything for a paneer dish? That is where I got the idea of infusing smoky butter into the gravy. It naturally makes the gravy very likeable. Now, when you smell it, you want to eat it. It was a random college experiment. My parents had that Goila Butter Paneer. So, first the Goila Butter Paneer happened, then the Butter Chicken. My parents ate it and went crazy happy.
Later, when I was in Bombay, I did a pop-up, where I invited 15-20 influencers from Twitter and Facebook. I was doing dishes from across the country but I wanted to keep something from my home. So, I kept the Goila Butter Paneer. Out of everything I served them, they really enjoyed the paneer. They asked me if there is a chicken variant. So, the next time I did a pop-up, I did it with the Butter Chicken and that became a hashtag out of those pop-ups and it blew up. For three years, I did these pop-ups, and Goila Butter Chicken became a brand born on Twitter and Facebook.
Is there any other Indian dish that you feel can/should get a makeover?
Biryani. There are a lot of people already doing biryani. I think biryani is at its peak. I love the Kolkata biryani with the aloo. For me, it’s Kolkata, then Lucknowi, then Hyderabadi.
Also, chicken curry is a dish I think that can evolve. It is very underrated. Every community, every household has their own way of making curry. We are hoping to be able to work on this and hoping to make a Goila Chicken Curry. We want to make a Handi Chicken Curry. We want to bring out the earthiness and the flavour of good robust Indian spices... showcase the bounty of our spices.
You participated in the Maha Challenge in 2011 and now we are conversing in 2023. How much of Saransh has changed since then?
I think a lot has happened. It has been 12 years of doing this. I was very young when I got a lot of screen time/TV exposure and I always wanted to be more popular. I would run after popularity when I was younger. Now, I realise that I was running after the wrong thing. Fame is just a byproduct. I started enjoying the process. For five-six years I was running after growing myself as a chef. I have learned that I have to think of it from the other side. I have to do what I like doing and it will grow on its own if it has to. Some things don’t grow the way you want them to and that is also okay.
MasterChef India summed up your journey as you were a judge in the finale. How did you come up with safarnama, chakra and the whole idea?
When we were speaking with the MasterChef India team, they came up with the idea that they wanted a 100-step pressure test. It was their idea. They wanted me to come in and shock the contestants. I keep talking about my 100-day road trip across India. So it instantly clicked that this 100-step pressure test needs to represent my 100-day road trip journey. That is where Sadak Chef was born. They instantly loved that.
Everyone agreed that the dish needs to show the bounty of the length and breadth of India in one dish. So how do we do that? It first started with the idea that we will make a seven-course across India. But then we wanted ‘sab kuch ek hi dish mein hona chahiye’. That is where this thought came through… India, the flag and we went in that direction…. We thought what if we do 24 dishes like the chakra, but realised we can’t pull that off in one challenge.
So we said how about we do one dish from North, East, South, West from my journey and we will put it into this chakra which we will make from bread. Since bread is not Indian, we made the chakra from kulcha dough. After a bit of online research we found sunflower bread that they make in Europe that looks like a sunflower. That was a straight match to that. We could use that as an example that these guys were able to achieve this sunflower bread then we can also do the chakra just like a sunflower bread would be.
Then we started deciding which dishes to fill in. Will the kulcha dough work for this? We did eight-10 trials to get the look right. As it was looking too plain, we added black chana in the centre, kalonji and khus khus to add a kulcha/naan element to it. We added some smoky butter which we use for Goila Butter Chicken as well to get a little bhatti ka khushbu. That’s how it came together. By the end of it we were all amazed at how this one dish was able to represent my journey and it all comes back to, at the heart of it we had pindi chana, which is from my home. It was not predecided.
You have travelled the length and breadth of India. Which areas fascinated you with their food and which areas do you feel are very promising but the food is underrated?
What a great question! One state I have totally fallen in love with is Karnataka. I think they are very promising. Apart from idli, dosa, sambar, there is so much more there. Coorgi khana is incredible.
(Clockwise from top left) Buenos Aires Fresh Salad, Bangkok street food, Chin Chin in Melbourne, The Ottolenghi at Notting Hill, London, Mak’s Noodle outlet in Hong Kong, Mak’s Wanton Dumpling Noodles
The difference in preparation of rice from what we do is unbelievable. I find their food culture very interesting and exciting. They have lots to share with us which we don’t know about.
Nagaland was another state which blew my mind. Their cuisine is truly special. It’s full of flavour. They use a lot of fermentation. I stayed with a tribe there for two days. They fed me a lot of simple dishes tossed in freshly pounded ginger garlic or fresh herbs you get growing in that village. Everything I tasted there had so much flavour without powdered spices being used. They gave me a new perspective that Indian food is also about the freshness of produce. It’s about how well you cook your meat, whether you are cooking it in a bamboo hollow or not.
Then I still have not properly explored Odisha, but I feel that will also be a surprise package.
You have had so many high points in your life, what do you think as a turning point in your career?
The opportunity to work with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor after I won Maha Challenge. He was my idol, guru, also mentored me and now he is like a friend. [He] gave me the idea that a chef’s life can be much more than a restaurant or a kitchen. You can make an impact if you think of food from a larger perspective. We, as chefs, look at food as a luxury. However, that food is still a necessity is something I have picked up from him. I think of food from my consumer’s perspective... some people are eating to live and not just for taste. It’s a very humbling experience. That’s another thing I have learned from him.
And, of course, MasterChef Australia because that show catapulted Goila Butter Chicken to a different level.
You have been a contestant on a national show and also a judge. Do you see any change in the frame of mind of the contestants?
Hundred per cent. I think they are much smarter than I was 10 years ago because of the Internet and so much knowledge sharing online. Even though they are not trained chefs, the home chef journey is incredible. YouTube and Instagram have given them a platform where they get to learn so much and they practise at home. So they are very well-trained cooks even before they come to shows like MasterChef.
You are a champ in the way you interact on your Reels… is that who you are?
When I am at home, I don’t talk. People notice that when they come to meet me. They say ‘tu Reels pe itna baat karta hain...’. [That’s] because all my energy is spent by the time I am home. I feel like I am a performer. After my performance, at home, I need calm music and I need my silence. I am happy to hear other people talk. I think the camera and I have a special relationship. I look at the camera like a person I am talking to, like somebody I know. I once did an acting course. Eleven years back. I wanted to be an actor. In one session, they told us to look at the camera as a person you love, which is very deep.
How did you coin ‘dilashaash’?
I think it’s a lockdown baby. I had made this papad pasta recipe, which went viral during the lockdown. It’s an Italian papad pasta dish. I thought to myself ‘isse Italian ke jagah desi bana dete hain… dil se bana hua hai dilashaash!’ That’s how it played in my head. It’s got a bit of Italian-ness to it, a bit of desi also. I just said it and people commenting on that Reel started making it into a word.
So you feel social media is a boon for the F&B world?
Hundred per cent. So much has changed in the last five-seven years because of social media. So many young talents are trying to make their careers online. Of course, there is always a-boon-and-a-bane kind of situation, but I do feel it’s done more good for people. Social media is incredible.
You hold an entry in the Limca Book of Records for the longest road journey by a chef. Any new record that you are aiming for?
That’s a good question. I am trying to [get into the] Guinness World Records. We are yet to make it official. We are talking to them. I want to make the largest serving of gulab jamun. So there are two options. We can either make the biggest gulab jamun or make the largest serving of gulab jamun. It will be like 1,000 gulab jamuns in one go and we will need 1,000 people to eat it. It has to be presented in one g o.
What are the qualities you primarily look at in chefs, be it commercial or home chefs?
I feel the word ‘chef’ is very abused now. What really makes you a chef is if you are able to convert your passion into your profession, which means if you are able to sell your food, whether it’s a restaurant, or a cloud kitchen, a street-side stall, whatever the format. What separates a home cook from a chef is when you do it professionally.
How would you define your style of cooking?
I used to be a very uptight chef, but I have become very simplistic in my food approach, whether it’s eating or cooking, and now it’s more about home-grown and regional. I like to not complicate dishes. In fact, I aim to make them as close to the classic version as possible. What I am having fun with on Instagram is this whole global personality that Indian food is getting, which means reimagining Indian food. I can make my kulcha into a pizza and present it. I really like the evolution of Indian food. One of my recent favourites in this domain is the Mexican pani puri. The Reel is up on Instagram.
In 2018, you had told us about your plans of coming to Calcutta with your brand. What took you so long?
Of course, the pandemic pushed all of us back. But what we wanted to do was grow with perfection. I started this brand in 2016, it is a homegrown brand where me and my partner Vivek, we are college buddies, who, as chefs, started this venture. We thought that people believe in our journey, they’ve seen us on MasterChef Australia and, hence, the demand is high. When the demand is high, love is high, the expectations are higher. If we grow too fast, too soon, we or the people will not be fulfilled. We did not want to do that. The main thing is when you are feeding people at a chain level, how do you make sure that your quality consistency remains the same?
So in Kolkata, you are opening a set of cloud kitchens...
So we are starting with three stores — Behala, Salt Lake and Chinar Park. Gariahat is in the pipeline.
So is this you testing waters before you open a restaurant? Have you thought about it?
So I have realised after running Goila Butter Chicken for the last six years that we don’t need to open a restaurant. It keeps us focused on one journey. When you are building a restaurant, the skillset and team required is totally different. I am a believer that if you are focused, you can go faster and achieve perfection. So, I don’t plan to open a restaurant anywhere for the next three years because my singular goal for the next three years is to make GBC into a global brand. I’m thinking about Australia, the US and the Middle East. I started this in 2016, so in my mind 2026 is what I want to give it. Then I’ll be ready because the brand will be on autopilot.
RECOS AROUND THE WORLD
Buenos Aires: The fresh produce in Argentina is amazing. Try simple dishes like salads, meals made out of quinoa, barley.
London: My favourite chef there is Yotam Ottolenghi. They have five or six restaurants called Ottolenghi around central London. Middle Eastern food mixed with Greek and Jewish touch... it’s fascinating.
Hong Kong: There’s a restaurant called Mak’s Noodle. Wonton Dumpling Noodles are the tastiest noodles I have had.
Melbourne: Again, with them, produce is key. You can just eat cucumbers, carrots, radishes and tomatoes there. They are so tasty. The restaurant I love there is Chin Chin. Pan Asian food. The kind of Asian food they are serving in Melbourne is incredible.
Bangkok: The street food and the night markets are works of art, whether it’s ostrich eggs, Japanese rice cakes, or Dutch pancakes.