Ritabrata Biswas from Kolkata, West Bengal is a chef by profession who has worked for various brands like Taj, ITC, Emami, Chowman, Fairmont Jaipur, etc. As a child, he never wanted to follow the same trend of engineering or medical like others rather He always aimed to do something innovative and creative in his own way. People around him use to make fun when he use to find more interest in Cooking rather than football or cricket.
Since childhood, he use to keenly watch his grandmother cooking at home and was greatly moved by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor by watching his show “Khana Khazana”.
Why did you want to be a chef?
“Food is the ultimate thing that we work for. The famous Bollywood dialogue Roti, Kapda, Makaan is not a myth but a reality. Even a mentally disturbed person knows the importance of food.”
Roughly ten tears back, no one gave importance to Hotel Management. Ritabrata Biswas was in the field of Engineering but he left it halfway because he found his passion in none other than this field. Being a cook is an “unacceptable” term in his family specially for a boy. Keeping all the odds aside, Mr Biswas did not care for the hurdles that came his way and as he was from a lower middle class family the path became tougher. Yes, the road was tough for him but we very well know the phrase “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.”
After dropping out from Engineering, the first place that he worked was Heritage Resort, Koorg. Staying away from home and working for more than 14 hours a day was not easy for him. If we have to achieve something, it is a universal truth that we have to struggle and work hard for everything that comes on our way. He faced the same problems in the new environment too. After one month when he got 1200 rupees as his first stipend, it lighted up a new ray of hope inside him. He decided to take professional training in the field of HOTEL MANAGEMENT.
He has done his professional studies from NIPS school of Hotel Management and industrial studies from ITC Sonar, Kolkata. Now, after education getting a job is also a big task in this field as there are many big hotels and the competition is too high.
He had to send minimum 25 to 30 mails through LinkedIn to many Chefs because he wanted to train under professionals like them to start his career. Chef Anirban Dasgupta replied to his mails and arranged an interview for him.
Chef Biswas joined Chef Anirban Dasgupta as a commis III at Taj Vivanta, Guwahati. It was indeed an amazing opportunity for Chef Biswas and he learnt a lot from it. It was a life changing moment for him. He also got an opportunity to be a management trainee at Fairmont, Jaipur. Then he came under the guidance of Chef Priyam Chaterjee in New Delhi where he learnt many new things.
After coming back to Kolkata from Delhi, he started his journey again from Emami. He joined as a Head Chef at Kolkata centre for Creativity. As the management wanted to promote local things, they focused more on the vegetarian progressive themes. We stated something new named “Grace.” As Mr Biswas said “I was highly guided and motivated by Mr Aditya Agarwal, Mrs Richa Agarwal and Mrs Reena Dewan.”
Grace got Times Food Award as the best modern Indian cuisine after one and a half years of operation. Chef Biswas has also been awarded the Times Food Chef award 2020 in Kolkata which is something mesmerising and memorable for him. Chef Biswas rose from ground zero. Getting this award made him believe that his hard work had finally paid off.
He concludes by saying that having an aim in life is very important as it helps us a lot in deciding what we want to do and how better should our approach be. We should be able to express our thoughts freely on everything. A big change can be done when humankind really understands the meaning of sustainability. Hence, he has decided to be a consultant now to give his advice to various restaurant owners. He is also looking out for investors who want to come to this beautiful place named KOLKATA and invest on hotels and restaurants. He firmly believes that Kolkata has the skill, power, knowledge and people to make it a success. On his nine years of journey, he has seen many hurdles on his way but nothing could stop him ever!
You can follow him on
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