Small business month: Toronto food entrepreneurs go from Instagram to ‘in real life’

As small business month wraps up, we’re checking in with two Toronto entrepreneurs we’ve featured over the last two years, back when they were just starting out.

Both are South Asian chefs who had to pivot their careers in innovative ways to stay afloat during the pandemic.

Chef Miheer Shete – Curryish Tavern

Chef Miheer Shete was working in a high-profile Toronto restaurant when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Like many in the restaurant industry, he was laid off as food businesses were forced to close their doors during provincial lockdowns.

“I stayed at home for about a month and a half, and it drove me crazy,” he tells CityNews. “As a chef, one of the biggest things you have is your creativity, and when that stops, it’s not good for your mental health.”

To keep himself busy and flex some creative muscles, he launched an Instagram account called “Curryish,” offering delivery of do-it-yourself meal kits.

Shete had long dreamed of opening his own restaurant, but shortly before the pandemic, he says he had almost given up on his ambitions — disheartened by the real estate prices in the city and the other expenses and challenges involved with launching an independent venture.

He says the circumstances surrounding the pandemic and the subsequent launch of his online business were a big part of what spurred him on to take the plunge and open Curryish Tavern on Queen Street West.

“Five years ago when I wanted to open a restaurant, I knew I wanted to do an Indian restaurant. But I didn’t have a refined vision. [With the online business] all the dishes that were in my head, I got a chance to put them on a plate and serve it to people and get their feedback,” he explains. “If there wasn’t a pandemic, if I had not gotten a chance to try out those dishes and the vision, I don’t think I would be standing here in this brick-and-mortar restaurant,” he says.

Chef Miheer Shete stands behind the bar of his restaurant Curryish Tavern on Queen Street West in Toronto. CITYNEWS/Dilshad Burman

Shete explains that his vision involved serving Indian food based on his background while incorporating his experience and influences from the various kitchens he had worked in over the years. He says that’s what puts the ‘ish’ in Curryish.

“It’s curry. It’s Indian, but it’s ‘ish’ — there’s this factor [of] creativity, surprising elements,” he says. “There are many Indian dishes, which are so old and traditional and ‘ish’ stands for creating new traditions.”

He says he blends Indian flavours with fresh Ontario produce and develops recipes that are an homage to both India and Canada. He hopes it will be his contribution to the country’s own unique food culture.

“I don’t call this a fusion, but instead of that, I say this is a natural evolution of Canadian Indian food,” he says. “One of the dishes which I have on the menu is duck confit with foie gras curry. And if somebody cannot say that is Canadian, I don’t know what they can say — what else can Canadian-Indian be? So hopefully 25 years from now, people can say this dish belongs to Canada.”

Chef Shete says the ghee confit duck leg with foie grass curry is his signature dish that he feels is not just a fusion, but an evolution of Canadian Indian food. INSTAGRAM/@curryishtavern

Shete says when he first moved to the country 13 years ago, he kept his expectations low, wanting to simply “get into the system,” get a job and establish himself. He credits the city and the country for allowing him to dream bigger.

“Canada and Toronto gave me this confidence saying ‘you can be you,'” he says.

After a number of pandemic-related challenges, Curryish Tavern opened in July and Shete says it’s been a packed house ever since.

“It feels it’s meant to be — every single moment. Three and a half months down the line now, it has been amazing,” he says.

Chef Shreyas Nawkar – Poppadum

Chef Shreyas Nawkar was also among the many working in the restaurant industry who found themselves out of work when the pandemic began.

Until then, he was well settled in a corporate restaurant job with no real plans of rocking the boat.

“Things get comfortable when you have a good job and you have steady pay coming in, you have your vacation days … so nobody actually thinks about [making a change] unless you’re really pushed towards it,” he says.

He says the pandemic provided that “push,” forcing him and his wife Slesha to improvise. By the time the second provincial lockdown was announced, he says they were both jobless and “dying of boredom,” so they decided to launch Poppadum — an Indian food delivery and pop-up company.

“It started off by posting on our personal social media accounts. Within a couple of months we realized that this is heading somewhere, and we really started putting some real thought into it,” he explains.

Officially launching a separate account for the business in December 2020, the husband-and-wife team began offering regular set menus of authentic, regional Indian cuisine. For the next two years, their popularity grew enough for them to require the use of commercial kitchens on a regular basis.

Nawkar says it became obvious they needed a permanent base for their operations.

“We never would’ve anticipated we could end up in a brick-and-mortar place, to be honest. The plan was always to just get back to work, go back to our corporate jobs and be happy with it,” he says. “I never saw myself at this age doing this. I could have probably thought about this a few years down the road when I felt like I had reached my max growth in a corporate restaurant setting.”

Making some big changes to their five-year plans, they’re now launching a grab-and-go takeout shop on Yonge Street along with long time friend Sourabh Rajwade.

L-R” Slesha Nambiar, Shreyas Nawkar and Sourabh Rajwade at the newly opened brick-and-mortar location of Poppadum. Credit: Shreyas Nawkar.

“The model over here is going to be primarily takeout. We take inspiration from regional foods, from authentic recipes and we kind of incorporate that with French techniques and Western techniques in order to get a unique product,” says Nawkar.

All the items will be geared toward the takeout format and there will be some staples that will be a constant feature. However, unlike most restaurants, Nawkar says their menu will be constantly changing and ever evolving, in keeping with their original online business model.

“For the most part, it’s going to be very heavily seasonal. It needs a lot of work in the background which is what we’re ready to put in,” he says. “The idea was to never just kind of set it up and then forget about it — just getting somebody else to come in and run it for us. The idea was to kind of make it our own and bring our own little twist to everything that we do … keeping that personal touch.”

Vada pav will be a menu staple at Poppadum while most items on the menu will change seasonally. INSTAGRAM/@Poppadum

He adds that while he’s been a part of numerous restaurant openings in his career, launching a venture of their own has been “a completely different beast to tackle.”

“If I count all my past openings with restaurants, this is opening number eight for me — so I’ve been there, done that. But it’s such a completely different story when it comes to opening with a corporation and then opening with a small business,” he says. “As much as it’s been exciting, it’s also been a little scary and very humbling to be honest. It kind of puts things into perspective as to how much work goes into getting a space ready.”

Pandemic-related shortages including supplies and labour have added to the challenges, but Nawkar says it’s been worth it to grow their small business from online to in real life.

“We’re so happy to have a home … it’s definitely a special feeling,” he says.

Poppadum’s takeout location had a soft opening over Halloween weekend and officially opens it’s doors this week.