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ShareMumbai: On the surface they differ vastly. After all, Vikrant Chougule's Indage stamp across plush establishments like Athena, Spring, Zaha, and Mimosa is miles away from Riyaz Amlaani's niche coffee house Mocha or his freewheeling beachfront restaurant, Saltwater Grill.
Similarly, Ryan Tham and Karan Purohit may have shared knee scrapes and crushes at school, but the elite dining experience of Henry Tham is quite different from Purohit's understated and affordable Monza.
But dig deeper and these guys are cut from very similar cloth. Almost all of them have degree in management and hospitality. Most of them are in this industry because their families have been in the hospitality business. And, when asked about the most mouth-watering date ever, three of them choose Angelina Jolie!
So, are they merely baton-wielders or do these guys believe in rolling up their sleeves and getting down to the messy business of food as well? Vikrant in his impeccable suit is utterly believable when he says that he prefers to conceptualise, market and set standards, and then leave other implementation to his trained staff.
On the other end of the spectrum is Prashant Chaudhry who rushes in an hour late and looks more a naughty schoolboy than the man behind Mangi Ferra and now Taxi. Waiting tables is what he loves most, could do forever and is really good at!
And like most young people, with more derring-do than water in the ocean, these guys are not resting easy on their sizeable success stories for a bit.
That's why though Prashant's Taxi is a barely a week old, he's already buzzing with ideas of bringing Mangi Ferra to South Mumbai, opening a branch in Kolkata and then starting a bakery and a teppanyaki restaurant.
And far from basking in the glory of family heritage like the erstwhile Mandarin, Kamling or dad's venture Henry Tham, Ryan is all set to open a lounge bar within the latter by early November to add another elegant yet casual option to the city's hangout options.
But at this moment if there is one thing that makes Ryan happier than his own plans its Vikrant's newest baby, the Nando's project. Vikrant is getting Ryan's favourite restaurant to India with an aim to have 200 outlets across the country and make peri peri chicken a national favourite.
A perfect combination of acumen and naiveté, competitiveness and camaraderie, here's a thumbs-up to youth power and another great instance where it's slowly and surely changing this city's landscape.
