Amruta Ranawade knew what she wanted from her professional life since her early days. Food is her passion and her love language, and she is a former restaurateur, a chef, an entrepreneur, a mother, and a person of substance. She is passionate about her work, food, and creating tastes that satiate the pallet for something unmatched. She also is an influencer who runs her Instagram page with the name โchef_that_eats.โ
ICY Tales is in conversation with Amruta Ranawade to explore her story and indulgence in the food industry.
Q. Can you tell us something about yourself?
Amruta Ranawade: I was born and brought to Mumbai, and during my 12th Board exams, I decided to pursue Hotel Management. After my graduation, in the initial years, I was not interested in the kitchen, so I was assigned front office work, but after my internship, I got attached to the kitchen.
Gulkandh Chocolatesโ was my creation and my specialty that was very well received. Eventually, I started my event firm and then got married; so initially, I used to take Diwali orders: chocolate hampers. After this, we started our restaurant, but due to the pandemic, we had to shut down our outlet. Following this, I took up remote work with Zomato and was dealing Zomato operations for a few months.
Q. How do you connect with food?
Amruta Ranawade:ย For me, food is an emotion, and I believe there is one food for every mood. Tired one can have refreshing beverages, but during the cold monsoon, hot crisp โPakodasโ do wonder so similarly, a food item can accompany every mood. Food can do magic and work wonders.
Q. How do you deal with critics?
Amruta Ranawade:ย I take critics as part of life; ups and downs, good and bad, both are part of it. I always try to learn and develop myself based on feedback or reviews of my flaws; I believe in working on these flaws to become a better version of myself.
Q. What is your biggest strength and fear?
Amruta Ranawade: I consider my family, my honesty, and my hard work as my biggest strength; coming to my fear, itโs my self-respect; anything hampering my self-respect shall be the reason for spoiling everything.
Q. How do you engage with your followers and audience?
Amruta Ranawade:ย The key to engaging with followers is keeping oneself updated and active on social media. Staying connected with the audience with relatable content is crucial to maintain the followersโ number. I keep my social media content interactive with polls or questions; I also consciously try to follow popular trends and be active.
Q. How do you link travel, food, and places into one picture?
Amruta Ranawade:ย Whenever we travel, every place has its specialty or staple food, and the spice mix is unique to each area. So when we travel, we get the opportunity to explore more new dishes, spice mixes, and the local food cultures of the area.
Q. Your Instagram bio says, โchef that eats more and cooks lessโ So do you think that people who opt to take up the culinary domain as a profession should be foodies, or is it not necessary? Share your views on this.
Amruta Ranawade:ย I think that every chef must be a foodie because if one is not a foodie, then how can the person love food, play around with flavors, and know the tastes and food? To prepare a cuisine one must understand the food and flavours. So if a chef does not explore food, how will they know about the taste?
In my opinion, a good chef is someone who can prepare food like the kind they had, must be creative, and also be able to understand the customerโs demands. In addition to this, innovation and creativity are also very essential to create oneโs signature dishes. To sum it up, knowing the food, its taste, and being able to identify its ingredients is a must for being a good chef.
Q. You are a blogger who is also into fashion. How important is comfortable style, in your opinion?
Amruta Ranawade: Bloggers should be fashionable; if you are not presentable, you wonโt be able to attract followers. Appearance and quality content should be balanced out for good outreach. I have partnered with a few beauty products for promotion. I have also done fashion shows for Tanishq and Priyansh, a boutique, and I give credit to being presentable and fashionable.
Q. Can you tell us about your biggest achievement so far?
Amruta Ranawade:ย My biggest achievement was when I started my fine-dine restaurant; it was like a dream come true moment. But as the entire world has suffered during the pandemic, we also have to shut down our place, and later we planned to open an outlet, which also got crushed by the following series of lockdowns. Then I took up the work with Zomato and started working remotely.
Q. Tell us about a phase in your life that you would like to re-live and why?
Amruta Ranawade:ย I am passionate about having and managing something of my own. I would love to have the opportunity to manage my restaurant back; working there personally was therapeutic that nurtured and developed my understanding of creativity and innovation.
Q. How do you develop your ideas? What is the thought process behind each of your opinion?
Amruta Ranawade: In my Me-time, I usually browse through various blogs and other social media pages to know the trends and pick up on new ideas, so surfing helps me a lot. I prefer reading on the internet rather than reading physical books. This exercise works as food for my thoughts and aids in my creations.
Q. What is your favorite dish to prepare?
Amruta Ranawade:ย My favorite dish to prepare is biryani! Any biryani, veg, meat-based, seafood, any kind of it. The happiness I see on the face of people after tasting the biryani fills my heart with joy; my specialty is Dum Biryani. Before we started our restaurant, I used to prepare biryani for one of my relatives who had a food truck, and they used to sell the same in portion size.
The customer response was overwhelming; we never really had to do any advertisement; it was the customers who had spread word of mouth. I get my happiness from this; the satisfaction I see on peopleโs faces after they have enjoyed a nice meal. Itโs something inexplicable.
Nurturing oneโs passion, living those moments, growing, developing, and creating fills every human with bliss. Amruta Ranawadeโs passion for doing something in the food industry took her on the journey she enjoys daily; surely, it has its ups and downs, but what is life without them? Her clarity about her career and her determination to achieve her goals make her a commendable source of inspiration.
Last Updated on by Himani Rawat
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