How I Built the UK's First Indian Street Food Chain (it was easier than you think) - Nisha Katona, Mowgli

8:53Dan:So on your Instagram feed, what comes up on your Instagram feed? What is your feed like? Is it food? Food.

8:58Nisha Katona:Is it just all food? Pretty much all food. Yeah, because it's basically chefs and food.

9:04Dan:And what's the other weird thing that might come up?

9:08Nisha Katona:Girls sometimes.

9:09Dan:Really? You're hilarious. You said it out loud, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not honest. How do you search? Girls? You just put girls into a search engine and then go.

9:21Nisha Katona:I'm just being brutally honest with you.

9:23Dan:It's so interesting because you're human and I need to know this. I'm not going to say fluffy cats because that's just not true. That's so funny because I'm like an old woman. So for me, it's interior design, fluffy cats. And food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not boys, for God's sake. You'd want to just wipe the chin, wouldn't you?

9:39Nisha Katona:But no, but then I do think some feeds can play onto that cortisol, which is you're basically looking at your hand, i.e. the phone, and you're just slamming your cortisol the whole time. And that's one of the reasons I love doing this, because there's no phone, you're just in the moment. But yeah, sorry, so other books that you really like, mainly because I will go and read these. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know at the moment,

10:04Dan:so I'm going to do a review on the next three that I've read. I've just read something called The Names. I don't know if you've heard of it. Have you heard of it? What's the called? It's called The Names by Florence Knapp.

10:13Nisha Katona:Yeah.

10:13Dan:And it is a child that is born. And it's what happens to this child if you give it one of three names. So it's got an abusive father and one of the names is naming it after the father.

10:22Nisha Katona:Right.

10:22Dan:Then there's this kind of bohemian name that is given. It's how his life would pan out had he been given three names. It's an interesting one. Just read a brilliant one. This sounds mad. It's called One Impossible Thing and it's by Belinda Bauer. And it's about, this is where it just takes you back in time and down a little weird rabbit hole that you wouldn't go down love books like that. And it's about, you know, the Victorian egg collectors. It sounds mad. but these people would go and collect these weird eggs that Guillemonts would lay and some of them would be bright red. It's a bird, yeah.

10:50Dan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's actually out, yeah. And I've just read that, I couldn't put it down. Absolutely amazing. The thing I'm reading at the moment is about Thomas More, you know, the whatever Tudor martyr.

11:01Nisha Katona:No, I don't.

11:02Dan:Anyway, it takes you back. What did he do? Well, he fell out with Henry VIII and Henry VIII had him killed because he stood in the way of the divorce with Catherine Aragon, whatever it is. but it's he was the son of a butcher and um i think he was the son of a butcher and um but that i just think is dead interesting is how do you go from those humble beginnings to you know being up in the courts or whatever so that's what i'm reading at the moment um and then my god what else have i read recently but there's i've got a million historical thing i've just finished

11:32Nisha Katona:something on the anglo-saxons find that dead interesting do you not like history no i do i I do. It's kind of...

11:38Dan:You maybe got to get over your girl stage and then you can do history. You've got too much going on now.

11:44Nisha Katona:So I read more into... I'll read biographies.

11:48Dan:Yeah.

11:49Nisha Katona:Well, this year I read one about Napoleon. Yes, did you? Which was really... Who's the British historian who did... He did all the Churchill stuff. Very most British guy you could imagine, like so posh, but speaks amazingly.

12:04Dan:Oh, God, not David... Not Lacey, is it?

12:06Nisha Katona:No, the name's escaped me, but he's got this massive book on Napoleon and the French Revolution.

12:12Dan:How did you read that?

12:13Nisha Katona:That's a good question.

12:15Dan:I've read a book on Napoleon. I couldn't understand it. I got like a...

12:17Nisha Katona:Yeah, no, because he actually writes in quite clear... He writes really simple. He's not trying to be clever. Because I think sometimes when you're that academic, you can... I think the intellectual tries to be clever, whereas the artist tries to simplify as the actual message goes in. And he's really good at that. But he talks all about, it's more about the character of him versus kind of this event happened. And I think that's really interesting because you get into the depth of the person. There's an amazing book by Churchill's, in chronological order, all of Churchill's speeches.

12:54Dan:Yeah.

12:55Nisha Katona:Which is just good because he just writes amazingly well. And then more, actually studying history is more like, or absorbing it is more through podcasts. do you listen to short history i listened to the rest of history yeah with whoever they are and then there's a there's this new comedy sketch by this comedian called finn taylor yeah hilarious yeah um and they will i don't know how it's almost imagine if i mock the week kind of merged with a history program so it's hilarious but they go into like they have that kind of only way a comedian could look at it from instead of looking at like this is what happened in fact or this was the character it's like just how absurd is that in this society today yeah yeah yeah um so it's kind of banter is it historical banter historical banter but also like i've believed like history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes and you sort of but you've got so many ace phrases i should write these down i do think that and i think when you read history you just see the patterns yeah Yeah.

13:58Nisha Katona:What sort of, so you've read Anglo-Saxon stuff.

14:00Dan:Oh, God, and yeah, in terms of his, do you know who I'm a bit obsessed with that I find very interesting is, and I think it comes from my background, is the Brontes at the moment. I'm going through a massive Bronte stage because they had a pretty messed up dad. He was a pretty brutal dad. And you think, what is it that led to you raising these three girls to write these novels at the age of whatever, 17, 18, that they might have been? Then they died before they saw the success, you know, Emily did. Yeah, yeah. and stuff like that's really interesting um so that i think anything where you're looking into the background of someone to understand what it is that made them the way that they are you know what is it about parenting i find that really interesting what is it you know what kind of austere childhood have you had that made you so diligent so i've got children in their 20s yeah and they are the most laid-back easygoing no hunger no anxiety flaccid children and it's because I grew up as an immigrant so here's the thing I my parents came over with two pounds in their pocket you know the usual story anyway it's not usual for you but it's usual for Indians yeah you know total paucity and you were raised to think if you did not work hard and achieve more than your neighbors then you'll be thrown off the face of Britain I was born here you know so I was born with real hunger and anxiety real anxiety but my girls have had none of that and as a result they don't have the drive that i have it's dead interesting but you know what that's not about i don't think that's a bad thing but it's really interesting to see what how parenting molds someone it's not always good to give someone the best well no sorry that's a lie it is always

15:33Nisha Katona:good to give them talk to me about the what most most british people like don't understand about that immigrant mindset there's something that sat was talking about like growing up like that because he worked in his dad's newsagents. His dad was brutal on him and he got this. And he's kind of echoing what you're saying, Nisha, is this kind of just pent up, not pent up, this kind of always on mild anxiety, which actually forced you to get better. Like, describe your childhood.

16:02Dan:I'll tell you my childhood is that I don't know where Sat was raised, if he was raised in an Asian community, but what happened in the 1960s is Enoch Powell went out to India and said, we need doctors in the UK. So my parents came over as doctors in 1968. And the only towns that would have Asian doctors were the towns that no white doctor would go to. So they were really working class, really quite impoverished, challenging community. So my parents came over to that. They were the only Indians in the village. And so my earliest - So where was this? This was in a little town called Scalmersdale.

16:34Dan:It was a new town. It was the Oversville from Liverpool.

16:36Nisha Katona:Okay.

16:38Dan:And so my earliest memories were of, my earliest memories of brick coming through the window, you know, while I was playing in the nursery, whatever, and firebombs and racist graffiti. And you would just be spat at every single day at school. You would just be, nobody would want to touch you because they think the brown, it's really interesting, they think the brown would transfer onto their skin. And my children who came to, you know, to go to school at the age of three, whatever, in, you know, 20, 2003, 2004, exactly the same thing. It's really interesting. Little children didn't want to touch them because they thought they would turn brown.

17:13Dan:It's very interesting, isn't it? That those, whatever you might call them, those racist or those fear of the other, that concept of fear of the other is across generations. You know, nobody's taught them to say that or to think that that has just come.

17:27Nisha Katona:Do you think that's a hereditary thing based on what you're saying about that book?

17:30Dan:You know, it's really interesting because is there something in all of us that fears someone that looks different? You know, and I'm wondering about how brown people feel about white people. As a brown child, are you scared of somebody white? I don't know. Or as a black child, are you scared of somebody white? But it's definitely the case, just from what I've told you, that white children are scared of turning brown, of this transference of brown onto you. It's very interesting, isn't it? And I don't quite know why that is. you know it's not all of the children that were like that with them but there was some maybe they came from a background where that was seen as other or whatever i don't know and that's why the do you know why having this cosmopolitan society and having you know these you know and i think you see it in london more than anywhere else these completely mixes of race is so important so we're raised to to see them you know to see different colors of humans different levels of melatonin is completely normal it's really important so yeah so very often you speak to anyone really my age my generation indian they'll have the same story which was your crucible of your emotional forging was that kind of abuse and just wanting to be liked and so you know it doesn't make you hard you know that didn't make me or my brother or my parents hard it made you desperate for people to like you and not hate you and the way that you can do that very often is through food as indians the best thing in our armory was the ability to feed people because that's what we do.

19:00Dan:We are very much feeders and copious amounts of curry or whatever it is that you can cook really easily. So it makes you slightly obsequious, if anything. It makes you just desperate.

19:09Nisha Katona:What does that mean, obsequious? Obsequious, just, you know, desperate for someone to like you, you know, bending over

19:14Dan:backwards, you know, flattering and all of that, desperate for people to like you. So that, you know, you kind of go around with your head slightly down, you know. You feel unworthy. And I don't think there's anything wrong in that because we're all unworthy in some way. And that goes back to your point, you know, that there's total parity amongst humans. And some of us are a bit worse at things. Some of us are a bit better. But you do feel as though every time somebody smiles at you and does eye contact, you think, oh my God, they're like, especially after things like 9-11. I remember, you know, so we were kind of, it was great.

19:45Dan:And then 9-11 happened. And then anyone that was brown. I remember going to a sandwich shop the next morning. And this woman just said, are you all right, love? Yeah, do you want a sandwich? and I thought, oh my God, I love you. You're doing eye contact with me. Oh my God, after what's just happened. Isn't that crazy? And it was like starting again back into, you know, 9-11, 2001, it was like starting again. I wasn't good enough. And every time somebody smiled at me, I thought, oh my God, that's amazing. You don't hate me. Yeah, it's so weird, isn't it? And then what effect does that have on you?

20:13Dan:Keeps you pretty humble. Do you know what I mean? Just like with the restaurants and things like that, the fact that people would want to come and eat Indian food and these are my family recipes. and every time I see somebody putting a spoonful of that dial in their mouth, you think, my God, I'm so lucky. So when people complain, when we get it wrong, there is not a bone in my body that thinks they're in the wrong. Every sinew of me thinks, what did we get wrong? You know, the fact that you've even bothered to complain means a lot, actually, to me, that you're that bothered. Interesting. Yeah, so you don't get cocky about things, really.

20:46Dan:You constantly feel you're only as good as your last whatever.

20:49Nisha Katona:Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. So in terms of the kind of one hand that are besqueasious or that desire to be pleased and validated, on the other side of that is this kind of innate, as you say, sort of anxiety, immigrant mindset, hunger. How has that been a strength and maybe a challenge as you've built this Mowgli empire?

21:14Dan:You're very good at this, aren't you? Like Freud, you. How has it been a strength? I think humility is a strength. yeah and i think grace is a strength there's things like grace humility compassion kindness those things are the ultimate strength that's that's what we live for so here's my belief in life i believe that we exist to make the people around us feel better you know to make them feel better to make them walk taller to feel better yeah that's what i honestly so i'm i've got a really strong faith i'm a christian that's what i believe yeah that that's what we're here for is to love your neighbor whoever that neighbor is doesn't matter who it is it's about love really and um being kind of brought down being brought down or being made to do the hard yards socially you know i would never go into a social setting and not make an effort and every time you speak to someone you know you think you wherever whoever it is you speak to you speak to with your full attention and your full heart do you know what i mean this is about looking at what makes that That's the most exciting thing about life is what makes other people tick.

22:17Dan:I love that. And that could be how they eat or what they read or just like you're doing now. Do you know what I mean? The fact that you're even interested in this is lovely.

22:25Nisha Katona:You know what I mean?

22:25Dan:So that is one of the things I think that being slightly downtrodden teaches you. It also teaches you never to do that to someone else. It's really important. So the fact that my girls went through that I think is really good because they will never do that to someone else. They will never seek to make someone feel ignored or small. or belittled or anything other than good about themselves. I see it in my brother as well. His brilliant gift is to go into a room and just make everyone feel better. Every conversation he has, they come away feeling like... How does he do that? Because he's honestly interested in whatever he tells them they are doing.

22:59Dan:He will think that's the most amazing thing. It's the most amazing thing. You could be a tea lady, you know, and you just, my God, what tea do you mean? Oh, my God, that's amazing. And sincerely, that's not an artifice.

23:09Nisha Katona:I think that sincerely is the operative word. because a lot of people, you can just see through the gooey clatchets and people are like, oh yeah, but it was actual genuine interest. That's interesting.

23:19Dan:It is, but that's, I think, that just having not had that, you crave that, you know what I mean? When you were surrounded by people that would laugh at everything you did and belittle everything. I remember a teacher saying I wanted to be a vet when I was about seven and I remember the teacher saying to me, you know what, Nisha, the animals would look after people like you rather than you looking after them. This was a teacher in my school. and so so can you see that if somebody looked at me because i remember my first job was in a job center i was a little administrative assistant in a job center and somebody would think that was even slightly interesting you think oh my god that's amazing and i'm still there emotionally i'm still earning two pounds fifty an hour and that was my first job and the fact you know the crazy thing is you know the fact that people would think that that was good that that would do me you

24:06Nisha Katona:know it's just an amazing thing yeah and then it's just it's so interesting understanding your yeah just the lens through what you like that you were brought up in in terms of like the food and you said that's a way to that to getting just that sharing that love and that passion connection going back kind of and this will just jump all over but back to kind of the storytelling that we start with how do you how do Indians tell stories through food and how have you brought that into Mowgli?

24:34Dan:Every single dish. I mean, honestly, Indians, as you're finishing one meal, you're thinking about the next one. So what happens, and this is not just Indians, if I'm honest with you, this is about any of those countries, any of those nations where there is paucity. Because where there's a lack of, you know, where there's no wealth, where you're deprived, where there's deprived communities, food is dead important. So, you know, you grow a cauliflower, that cauliflower has got to feed 10 people. And that is the, you know, it's pride of place on it so there's no ingredient that is humble everything is you know it's it's really valued and therefore um you know when you when you've got to kind of titrate food through your life in that way where there's really not enough and you've got to feed your kids on a cup full of lentils those lentils have got to really mean something and they do so the other thing that happens out in the east is that you have religion feeding into food a lot so you see in islam where they can only have halal or whatever my father was a hindu priest yeah and in hinduism it's so

25:26Nisha Katona:interesting so in hinduism in mexico there's giz doesn't have a um has literally no money he will buy you a beer and there's this kind of um i don't know exact words it's kind of like just can do attitudes like your car's broken fuck it will find like a log or something you know yeah it was so interesting because you've just come back from is it i'm so bad at pronouncing no no no india yeah varanasi india that's where you were yeah that's my ancestral ancestral home so when you go there yeah the teleporter's there right now yeah yeah paint the picture what does

25:55Dan:it smell like my god my god have you seen like i'm trying to think it's kind of like something out of game of thrones it's i'm trying to think about where it would be have you ever watched game of thrones yeah i have yeah um i'm trying to think it is it is a diff it's like a different planet there is life at every level so you you're down the streets all you can hear are the other bells the beeping of the horns the shouts of the hawkers cows walking next to you goats walking next to you this you know people with their dark skin and their big wide smiles just get just incredible ancient ancient buildings at every level so every and it's a bit like Venice in this way every grill every door handle every window is exquisite it's exquisite and it's that idyll where you know there are not so you get off into the little sort of alleys and there are obviously there are no cars there's the odd scooter but you're walking alongside cows the lowing of the cows and then there are these and this is what i built mogli round so it's that twinkle of the fairy lights and the festoon lights there's that twinkle of these little lights in the doorways where somebody is just plying their trade they're plying their sweets or their barges or their samosas or whatever it might be you know their raw coconut the paneer whatever it might be these little this twinkling doors so in many ways it's like stepping back 300 years but you

27:10Nisha Katona:know the architecture you're talking about what year was that so some of i mean god some of that

27:14Dan:is, you know, whatever, 1300s, 1400s, 1500s. It's the oldest city in India. So that's really old. It's known to be the oldest city in India. So ancient, ancient, you know, you've got the temple where Buddha was born there or whatever the building where he was and got enlightenment is there. So we are talking ancient, you know, Britain is also ancient. You had the Romans and things like that. But the buildings that you can actually go and live in are that old, you know, 1300s, 1400s. So the doors are therefore tiny. So that's why I love these Mowgli doors. So if you were to stand, that's not, I'm pointing at a door here.

27:46Nisha Katona:I'm a half pint, so it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

27:48Dan:But it's good. It's handy and dinky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It used to be big. Yeah. You get back in with long bones. You don't want to. So, yeah.

27:55Nisha Katona:If I'm right in saying you, each restaurant has its own unique door.

27:58Dan:Yeah, it does. God, yeah.

28:00Nisha Katona:Talk to me about the doors. The doors. Yeah, yeah. When does one fucking get one? I know, I know.

28:05Dan:That's the thing is that we really do. I'm really anal about sourcing the right doors because, so if you look at the architecture on that door you'll see in the top of the of the of the architrave there are elephants those that's the Ganesh god so this is very much a Hindu door this is my background yeah so I'm very particular about the kind of architecture and the kind of design that's on it that it does go back to Hinduism that's my background this is the food of Mowgli you know it's yeah yeah yeah those are the roots of it so and there's only sort of me that would know that you know so it's got to have that you know particular eye to it and then usually on the doors you have a little plaque that tells you the person that lived there etc so every door is really personal and you think okay these are you know ornamental um trophies in a way but they're not you go to India and every every door is like this it's really stunning and it's that of course because it doesn't rain very much it rains through monsoon and then it's dry so they they preserve really well the wood doesn't rot you know it's just it's incredible so it's very it's a very important part that I can bring these artifacts that speak to where the the the provenance of the where did you where do you go and get them from that sounds like loads of different places so um we've got a load of dealers that go because I can't afford to go out to India and pick them or hand pick them so somebody sends us you know images of the doors and then I interrogate them and then we've got a couple of dealers I've got them in the UK and I go and I go and hand pick every single one of them yeah which is great which is great it's a nice part of the job really yeah yeah yeah yeah that's

29:31Nisha Katona:fascinating i want to go back again i'm really bad at pronouncing yeah yeah yeah india varanasia um what is that like how does that change from you know we talked about the fray lights from

29:43Dan:day to night like how does the city change yeah you see it's such an interesting thing so in the day it at night it's really interesting at night it becomes a lot more haunting and beckoning it's a bit quieter um the when the street lights come on and that's it's like mogli at night in a way you know it's a very different feel it's that come hither it's like you know fireflies in the night um and there's something magical isn't there about night i think in any city well that's like

30:13Nisha Katona:this was perfect about setting up today as we got here it's tomorrow we're recording this since like almost december yeah two o 'clock it was obviously a gray you know gray malaise out there But as it's got, the energy of the room is, as it's got dark, as you say, like the fireflies.

30:31Dan:Yeah, it's like that. And it's like, that's what it's like.

30:33Nisha Katona:Yeah.

30:34Dan:Because what happens is, in the daylight, you can see everything. And it's all interesting. You know, everything. So you can see the three layers of the buildings. You can see that there's a woman hanging a washing up there. There's a guy smoking his whatever up there. There's a cow on the roof. How the hell did it get there? In the daytime, your eye is drawn to everything. There are cows on the roof. There are cows. There are buffaloes on the roof. I can't.

30:59Nisha Katona:You can't. How did they get up there? It's unbelievable. I went to the burning ghats.

31:04Dan:And honestly, you can just see. So the interesting thing about Varanasi is it's a city to die in. So it's a Hindu. What they say is that you have seven reincarnations and then you reach Nirvana. Yeah? So heaven, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way to bypass all of those heavens, according to one theory, is you go and die in Varanasi.

31:21Nisha Katona:Yeah, yeah.

31:21Dan:Okay, so people queue to die. There are hotels, they're called death hotels. Oh God, we should do a programme on this. But there's death hotels where you go to die. It's like a nursing home, but so that you die in Varanasi. You pull in, so you get out of the airport, you get in a car and you're driving into Varanasi and alongside you will be dead bodies on the back of pickups, dead bodies being carried through the streets. You just see them everywhere. And then you go down to the carts and those dead bodies are burning and you can watch them and there are towers everywhere there.

31:46Nisha Katona:Is this like euthanasia? No, no, no, no, no. They just go to die.

31:50Dan:you know you die pretty yeah yeah yeah my parents died pretty young my mom didn't actually but my dad did smoked himself to death you know i mean they die pretty young we've got the crappest genes going heart disease diabetes whatever do you know so um but so they they kind of know when their time is coming and then they go to baranasi to die and and that's the holiest place to die so it is really so can you imagine you go to the burning gut and there's kind of a tower there and there are there are buffalo at the top of this little round sort of observation tower it's crazy and a shaggy goat up there you know and chickens and it's that wildlife so in the daytime your eye is drawn to everything at night because the fairy lights come on your eye is drawn to only certain areas it sort of pinpoints certain things doesn't it brings the most interesting bits alive and

32:33Nisha Katona:that's the difference between day and night so i think like when i do these conversations i just unearth things i hadn't even thought about but like it'd be in some cities get better as they get darker and better in the daytime i was in um i spent a bit of time in mecca so in colombia this place called Santa Marta in the daytime near the National Park daytime is kind of grotesque even though the weather's like so bright you see a lot of just people in kind of squalor conditions these dogs kind of strown on the streets and it's kind of a bit discommodeling, it's not like a nice place to be but at night it changes, like this energy the noise goes up, there's the kind of the music which I kind of was drilled into my head by the end of it.

33:20Nisha Katona:But it is super fascinating.

33:22Dan:Do you know what it is that's so interesting? I think what you're saying. So in India and in countries like that, and I think they're very similar to India actually. Interesting. Yeah. What happens is you don't eat until night because it's so hot that you've got to wait for the sun to completely go down and the kitchen to cool before you even start cooking. So in our Indian home, you don't start cooking till 10 or 11 o 'clock at night. We then eat at midnight or one. Can you imagine that? And even when my parents moved to Scam, as a child I used to eat at midnight it's messed up isn't it yeah yeah yeah that's why I've got dark bags under my eyes but there's the truth do you know what I mean anyway um so what happens is it's when those hot countries get into night and it gets cool that's when they come alive that's when the food come the street food comes out then do you know what I mean and that's when people go out and eat and the kids and everyone are out on the street because it is cool enough to eat and that's why you feel more alive in places like that it's hot countries it's almost like Spain you know the andalusian way or whatever the south of italy as well which is as it gets cooler you know in the night that's when all the families go out to eat yeah that's the only time you'd want to put hot food in your body is when it's cooler yeah and that's why cities are better at night those

34:30Nisha Katona:cities are better at night yeah because london's are closes early really i think so completely yeah apart from china and even chinatown closes early yeah yeah yeah it's 11 o 'clock most of the booze is shut yeah it's yeah but then it equally i mean i do drink probably too much but i will get to the boozer for like bang on 12 like and and have like a sess all day I mean yeah yeah it's yeah it's fascinating yeah way to look at things um I think I read on your Instagram about when you've been um to the city or recently you're talking about like sacred and preserved um traditions and knowledge and stuff like that I think especially what we're saying in this sort of dopamine you you know sort of tornadoes of um distractions with Instagram emails and just kind of you you sort of um yeah just like a tornado of just distractions what are some of those lessons you took from there or from that for your recent trip that you think are like it's almost ancient

35:26Dan:wisdom for modern wisdom if that makes sense yeah um do you know so what we're doing out there is that we are developing four girls schools yeah so um what is amazing and this isn't just about the breadth of wisdom or whatever. It is how revered education is out there. You know, these little girls, they didn't have electricity or running water at home. So in these schools, it's the only place that they get clean water and they take water home to their entire, they, you know, water a village from the school or whatever. But their uniforms were pristine. They live in complete hovels where you can barely wash and yet their uniforms are pristine.

36:05Dan:There's a tradition in India that when you're getting married, The first person you take your wedding sari to, to bless it before you get married, is your teacher. Can you imagine your first teacher? That is how much they revere education and their teachers and how reviled I think education is in this country. I think we are raised in this country to go on and go, oh, got me bloody homework. Oh, and then we develop it into work. Can't wait till it's Friday. Can't, you know, we are raised to hate the shackles of having to go to school, having to do homework, having to work, having to work till Friday.

36:36Dan:Heaven forbid we should have to do overtime. and it is totally on its head that entire philosophy out in the east you are glad to work you feel and i still feel that you know what i mean and i know my brother does we have been raised that you are lucky it sounds awful but god we've been lucky to be employed why would anyone employ us you're lucky to be employed you're lucky to have gone to school you're lucky that you know you're on a trajectory through education that's going to get you somewhere but you can read and And all of that. And that is the thing that sticks to you. These people who have got so little out there and they revere the right things in life.

37:11Dan:And I think here we can be total arses about what really matters. That business about, yeah, I get a bit frustrated about that, you know. about about kids going on about how much they hate school or whatever I mean I'm not talking about you know if you're having a particularly horrendous time at school but I think we are inured and we are raised with that kind of language that it's a chore that all of it is a chore that you know to to have to do your homework or to have to sit through the school day but but then it bleeds into work you know that you're having the fact that you know you can't wait till 5 30 to get off or whatever I don't know I just um god it's what makes the world go around It's what gives us a sense of purpose.

37:48Nisha Katona:When I get to 80 and I've got no job, I'll be bloody desperate to look back on those days where I was employed. So would you say you're a workaholic?

37:57Dan:I'm not a workaholic, but I don't. Here's the thing. I'll tell you what. I think it's really important if you can to find a job that you love. And if you do, then you've not worked a day in your life. As a result, there's not a day that I wouldn't work. And I'm not just talking. So as a barrister, you're self-employed. So if you don't work, you don't earn. So I have three weeks maternity leave. yeah that's so you can say that's a workaholic but otherwise i wouldn't have been able to pay the mortgage you know my husband's a guitarist so there you go so my ass off so then you know and then you know mogli you're completely self-employed you're completely it's just you and so you don't have and if my philosophy is if my people are working i'm working and we were open seven days a week and i was just talking to emily before and every single night we get the report every single night we get reports in from every single restaurant probably get in about midnight night one and I don't go to sleep until I've read every single one what's on those reports oh my god it's amazing that tells you all the lows and the highs and we're most interested in the lows what did we run out of what were the complaints what happened what broke and the highs are who brought the cutest dog in you know did somebody come in on their own to celebrate their 23rd birthday you know that kind of thing that kind of thing that makes you I think a lot of people

39:06Nisha Katona:listen to this podcast for like kind of super practical wisdom like that because um one of the persons one of the people I've interviewed is a lady called Libby Gibson who's done she did she helped with the flat iron exit and stuff like that and she's got this really nice principle called 7-17-70 she basically goes you get stuck at 7 sites 7 0 to 7 is really hard 7 to 17 sites is a massive it's kind of like a framework 70 sites 17 sites is really really hard and then going from that 17 upwards is like that next leap but on that journey for yourself and i think scale can sometimes kill magic it's really a hard thing to keep alive how does the report keep the magic alive as your because how many sites you guys at now so my research 27 yeah 27 so you're right past that 17 bit

40:02Dan:how does the report keep it alive yeah like what's actually do you look for in your reports so can you imagine so each one of those restaurants it's to me it's like one of your children honestly it's like a child i built those things with my own hands you know in the beginning i built each one with my literally physically with my own hands i built you know built the first three restaurants um and so therefore and and whichever whichever way you cut it so i was coming back through the airport in bangkok i was stopped three times for people to tell me about mowgli you know one of them was about something about celiacs something was about how much they loved it something was about you know where'd you get you this from you are forever until i die i will be the kicking boy for the physical manifestation of mogli and the kicking boy for it or whatever or the one that they come to talk to so my gosh therefore i have to live and breathe what's going on in my restaurants and absolutely have to live and breathe that and and i built these restaurants the reason i started mogli's honestly and it goes back to my whole philosophy about life is to you know to build something that is kind of in a crazy way just to to bless that city that has looked after me is Liverpool.

41:10Dan:That's where I started her, to look after, but looked after me so well. I love that city. And it's to, you know, to give something to the people of that city. And I didn't think Mowgli, honestly, when I built my first Mowgli, I thought we would fail within six months, a year. So therefore I took a two-year break clause on the lease and I decorate every Mowgli as though it's going to fail and I need to turn her into a coffee shop within 24 hours. So there's nothing ostensibly Indian flop wallpaper about it. You know what I mean? so I could if you look at this room yeah take curry out of it yeah I you totally could have coffee and pastries in this room and it would be fine there's nothing that is that kind of

41:47Nisha Katona:pulling that back is that kind of that is that would I'm correct me if I'm wrong that immigrant

41:51Dan:fear yeah total insecurity you just think nobody's going to want to eat this food yeah you know what I mean no one's going to want to eat the way an Indian eats it authentically 11 o 'clock but the best thing about Britain is it is the most open-minded nation in the world when it comes to the world's cuisine. Mowgli would not have worked in France or in Italy or actually up to this point and I think it would work in America now but you know North America would not. Why do you think that is? I can tell you exactly honestly and here's the truth.

42:18Nisha Katona:Because there's a lot of other cultures and cities in Europe that have that are diverse not as diverse as here. Not as diverse. I think that's one part of it but like what I'm trying to maybe dig at is the openness.

42:29Dan:I tell you what so if you look at Amsterdam they're very good with Indonesian food you know Different nations have had an allegiance with, and it comes from, where did they have their empire? You know what I mean? Which nations had they ruled? And so, because the Dutch had a link to Indonesia or whatever it might, you know, that's why that's taken off. Interesting. Britain had most of the globe, didn't it? And I think it comes from empire. I think it comes from the fact that Britain owned most of the globe. It took the chip off its shoulder. They also got addicted to spice. They loved spice. They spent a lot of time out in India.

43:01Dan:So when they came back, they wanted the same spice, you know. And so that's where this open-mindedness came from. It's also not having a chip on their shoulder. I think there is a genuine inquisitiveness because many of the people that are still around today, their grandparents were out in India or wherever it might be. And so there is a genuine, the people are genuinely inquisitive. And I'm telling you, it's like having an Italian restaurant. My mother would never eat Italian food. Do you know what I mean? And you'll hear that from many people from other cultures. You know, an Italian would never necessarily want Indian food, an Italian grandmother would not.

43:38Dan:Whereas what I find utterly heartwarming is coming into a Murgle and you see people in their 70s and 80s eating butter, chicken and rice. How humbling is that? It's crazy. But can you see the anthropology behind that? That goes back to the fact that you come from a nation that actually is not chippy, that is open-minded, be it from whatever dark source that might be. It might have been from Empire, and do you think it is? But whatever it is, you embrace it. And Mowgli took off in a way that she couldn't have taken off. And in a city that was in Liverpool, which is where I started her, in a city that was just getting the dirty burger movement, and still that city allowed me to open an Indian street food restaurant, nothing like it, Indian street food restaurant predicated on a cold start

44:21Nisha Katona:of the chat bomb, and there were queues around the block.

44:25Dan:And as a result, I could grow the way I've grown. Do you know what I mean? and it's the first national Indian chain in that way. It's incredible, you know. Yeah, yeah. Starting that in 2014, that's ridiculous, isn't it? But that's brilliant.

44:36Nisha Katona:Well, yeah, because this is one of the things, yeah, the first, so there's a big marketing guy, I don't know if you've heard of him, Rory Sutherland, who's been on the podcast like five times, worked at Ogilvy, and we talk a lot about, obviously, food, but kind of more through the marketing lens. And he was saying to me, you know, that he was kind of, I'd love you to kind of rift on this was he said that in Ireland, that there are, there are kind of Indian restaurants, but it's way, way, way, way, way, way less. You know, it's just over the Irish Sea. I even, I worked for a brand for a bit called White Mouse who were based in Dublin.

45:12Nisha Katona:He was like, mate, you don't, when they would come over to London, they were like, we need to go and eat an Indian restaurant. We have Chinese restaurants, but it's mad, as you say, like the absorption of it here specifically in this country, whether it's London or Liverpool, versus, and it doesn't really work in Ireland, even though they're just over the sea.

45:31Dan:It's kind of, what do you say that is? It's really interesting, you know, you say it doesn't work in Ireland, so it depends what it is that it is that. So there's two types of Indian, aren't there? There's the curry house, and that's great, and we stand on the shoulders of the curry houses.

45:42Nisha Katona:Curry houses are those fairly heavy dishes that are full of onion, ginger, and garlic,

45:48Dan:and I say that because they're quite tainting flavours, they're big flavours. You would only have it at 10 o 'clock in the night. Tainting flavours. That's such a great way of putting it. But it is. Do you know what? This is what's really important about Mowgli and the way that Indians actually eat. And what I was telling you about the way that Hindus eat, we don't eat garlic and onion in the daytime. Nor do we eat meat in the daytime. So I did a video for Instagram recently. I went through to spend my time with the girls in the schools and I went through their lunch boxes to see what they had.

46:12Dan:Oh, my God. It's so they have. So it's entirely vegan, entirely vegetarian. It's Niramish, which means it's not got onion and garlic. So what's that word? Niramish. But I'll tell you what's good about that is at lunchtime, and this is what I needed to build Murghli around, the business people in the Liverpool CBD, central business district, do not want to come in and have a lunch that makes them then go and smell of garlic and onion. So a lot of the Murghli menu does not have garlic and onion, which is in accordance with the Hindu way of cooking. So when you say Indian food hasn't taken off in Ireland, it might be that curry house food hasn't taken off.

46:48Dan:Because for something to take off for me, you need lunch trade and evening trade. I'm not interested in a restaurant that only trades in the evenings for five days a week. I want seven days. I want daytime and I want evening parts, you know, whatever that division might be. And to do that, you have to look at your demographic. And this demographic wants light, cleansing food at lunchtime. You know, so you come to Modi, you can have lunch. You can have something completely without onions and garlic. You can have something that is light. I'm very passionate. We don't cook with ghee. We don't cook with cream.

47:18Dan:I have a ban on it. No Indian cooks with ghee every meal. You know, we don't have tandoor ovens. that is not how this is how an indian eats in their own home and it's that lightness you look at those girls lunch boxes that's what you will get when you come to mogli so you you basically eat mogli food and you're ready for it again in the evening it's got to be light you know i pretty much ate in mogli every single day of my life every single day and yeah i'd be ready to and and same with my family they would eat there twice because it's our food that's this is what i eat No, no, no. It's what I eat.

47:47Nisha Katona:But I think your genius, Nisha, is one, you've got this, the food that you actually eat at home, but then it's the business savvy to be like, okay, well, we're going to launch this in this business district in Liverpool. Well, how do we make this work? As you say, you need the lunchtime trade. Because you almost got the beautiful romance and heritage of the actual story of like, this is what we eat. And then actually to scale this to 27 sites is fucking wild. so what what other and i mean that in a good way yeah yeah um what are some of the other sort of business principles you've used you think to sort of get to this because i think i think it's really smart about i think you said specifically give people what they want yeah and also i think sometimes you don't people a bit like the whole uh henry ford if i want it they wanted a faster horse if i didn't want a car they would want a faster horse sort of thing yeah i think people didn't necessarily know they wanted it exactly right and then you showed them actually if it's lighter there's no garlic and onion you're not it's not tainted spice no you know what i mean

48:49Dan:yeah do you know do you know here's my principle when it comes to so every pizza mogli is based on four pillars you know it's based on people it's based on product the food and it's based on on place and the way it looks financials is the other thing it's got to add up it's got we've got to have great margins the food in terms of labor it's got to make complete sense there's no point me having a kitchen stock full of you know indians that i have to hire from a certain area of britain that that's no good at all. So I based this brand on me teaching, when I opened in Liverpool, teaching locals how to cook.

49:18Dan:So I taught, while I was a barrister, to teach Indian cooking, and I wrote my, I've got seven cookbooks out. That's what I did while I was a barrister. So my forte, whatever it is, is to teach. That's what I'm passionate about. I will be dead in 20 years, 30 years. And the most important thing is that these recipes do not die with me. It's really important. So I dedicate my life to teaching Indian cooking, be it on Instagram, be it on an app, be it whatever, yeah?

49:42Nisha Katona:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

49:42Dan:So I started this by teaching local Scousers who don't know how to cook curry how to cook. So you're kind of neurologically plaiting them like my nan. If I was to stock my kitchen with only Indian chefs, I can tell you I'm an Indian chef. If an Indian hired me, I would go into their kitchen. I would change their food to make it taste like my grandmother's. So what you need is complete consistency. and just having that as a precept for when you're building an Indian restaurant to only hire curry virgins, teach them how you cook so you get total consistency.

50:15Nisha Katona:And you're not reliant on one. You're not reliant.

50:17Dan:I could never rely on it. I am the exec chef. Do you know what I'm saying? I could never rely on it.

50:21Nisha Katona:But as in what I'm saying, you're not reliant on one, like as in if only a few people know how to cook it. Oh, yeah. It's almost like you deem up. Yeah, you're stuffed.

50:28Dan:Somebody goes off sit. You're stuffed. So you need to completely, yeah, democratise is what you're thinking of. isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way of cooking. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Yeah, so that's one thing.

50:38Nisha Katona:And that allows you to, because you could be in Edinburgh, you could be in Belfast, you could be in Ampsam.

50:42Dan:If mobile needed me to be in the kitchen, we'd be one restaurant and I'd be dead by now.

50:46Nisha Katona:Yeah. Do you know what I mean? But also I think what you said about teaching scouts to cook, teach any nationality to cook your food.

50:53Dan:Yeah.

50:53Nisha Katona:It's not just exclusive just to Indians who can cook it. Wow. Yeah, exactly. That almost builds the scale.

50:59Dan:And so immediately you've got a click and play thing where you can go into, you can go to Preston or you can go to Sheffield or you can go to Charlotte Street, which is where we are now, where there isn't a massive Indian community because I'm passionate about teaching locals how to cook because I'll be gone and at least they can cook decent Indian food. Do you know what I mean? That's how it started. And then you've got to have, so, you know, that's in terms of my product, the food has got to be addictive. So your point about, yeah, you can go on about how healthy it is, you can go on about how clean it is, but the truth is, it's that business about your food has got to be addictive.

51:31Dan:You've got to come and eat in Mowgli and you've got to chase that dragon every day. You've got to want that flavor back. And it's not just because it's delicious, but it makes you feel good. You know, it makes you feel clean. It makes you not feel stuffed. You've not got, you know, reflux, all of those things. That's the addictive. You've got to have your food addictive. And then you've got to have diagnostic tools to tell me whether those things are still true, whether I am consistent and whether I am addictive. So every one of the things that you aspire to, so my people, I want them to feel purposeful, nourished and fulfilled.

52:03Dan:And even if you break that down, I can tell you how. My place has to feel like home from home. So people, product and place and product has got to be addictive. But each one of those three limbs, I have a diagnostic tool that constantly tells me.

52:16Nisha Katona:Sorry, what did you say? People.

52:18Dan:People got to feel nourished, fulfilled and purposeful. The diagnostic tool is we have things called contentment assessments, where every quarter or every half a year, we take every member of staff and we talk to them. And it's as simple as, are you happy? If you're not happy, why are you not happy? And where do you want to be and how can we help you get there? So that is your diagnostic tool to see are they content or not. In terms of place, the way that it looks, I have an army of mappers, Mowgli Aesthetics Police, that go in. And, you know, so we have a member of staff that we pay extra, that goes in and checks the grout every day, that checks scuff marks every day.

52:51Dan:You know, is the paint chipping every day? They've got a paint kit. So, and constantly to feed, which bulbs are missing? You know, if a bulb's out, it kills me. So I've got my aesthetics police. That's my diagnostic tool for place. For product, for food, my food has got to be addictive and completely consistent. Every aspect of it, you know, was there enough of it? Was it hot enough? Were the seeds? So they have this training where I even show them the colour. I want the seeds to be in the dial. They've got to be fried to a certain colour. were the seeds dark enough that kind of thing so you see so we get these reports in so we've got objective um you know voices as to are we the things that i hoped for for the brand are we

53:30Nisha Katona:reaching them it's so there's the marketing genius guy i've interviewed seth godin who um says so scale kills magic in the sense that sometimes you get you get so ubiquitous that it kind of you're not the cool place anymore but he said some brands who really get it right he's shake shack as the example is actually where the scale becomes the magic and that's exactly what you're you're the only person who's probably sat opposite who's kind of um managed from almost from the jump and maybe just be like we're going to get bigger but how do we actually turn this not into like oh we're getting bigger more sites we go turn the scale into the fucking magic

54:06Dan:tell you what growth is the we must never be disdainful of growth every entrepreneur that i food opportunity, you know, I talk about growth because you create jobs. You know, we've created the Mowgli Trust alongside. For every restaurant I open, we donate about 40, 50 grand per annum to local cancer charities and children's hospices and world charities. Growth is what keeps the economy going. We are the new thing. We are the money that we bring into the economy. We are the creator of jobs. You know, we create whatever 30, 40, 60 jobs per site that we open. You don't well need to grow it's an amazing thing so you should celebrate it and also the very you know the the machinery behind that i.e are we going to lose consistency it's for me it's exciting because if we're getting it wrong in edinburgh or getting it i love that because we can change it we can fix it do you know what i mean it's really important and there's one in the more kind of insecure

55:02Nisha Katona:insecure you are about it the more secure you actually are the more you're fucking paranoid thinking is this going to work yeah the more you put these things in place yeah do you know it's

55:10Dan:crazy but those conversations i have where people come to me and complain are the most useful ones and that's an asian parent in me i think honestly i just i want to just hear how bad it is well some of the um do you know what's really interesting most egregious that were actually the best for you no most egregious that were the best for me um god i'm trying to think of something i'll tell you what's been really interesting is is feedback on the menu so we had a brilliant dish on called the catty roll which was an omelette basically in a roti bread and nobody was ordering and it is a delicious dish a delicious dish so i dared to go out to social media and say look what's with this do you not like it is it rubbish and people wrote back and said listen nobody wants to go out for a meal and order an omelette do you know what i mean the it's the word omelette so then we changed the name i had a brilliant cabbage dish and i called it the cabbage tangle again put no one's the omelette one too i changed it to the catty roll wrap okay so just take the word omelette out but then in the description it's still an omelette do you know they still are seeing the word omelette so whatever you know you know the calcutta cabbage tangle and again wasn't selling it's one of the most delicious dishes and went out and they said again you know it's the word cabbage nobody wants to go and order the word cabbage on a menu that kind of thing and so you can really change that you know within within you know 12 hours you can change that across all sites but you know things like um there's a lot of so i built it really for gluten-free people because my best friend's celiac um but you know people wanting more vegan dishes or more meat-free dishes and there's part of me that thinks you know we just got to eat authentically it's not always vegan but actually it's really important to hear that and if that's the way that you know if that's what we need is in fact to develop some more vegan dishes as opposed to putting some more chicken dishes on i need to know that i love people the fact that they're even eating with us right now when it is you know everyone is struggling everyone is thinking about how many times a week they want to eat out the fact that they are even reporting back to me and i do all my own social media so i get every message i mean like you know last night i sent about three things into because somebody was talking about you know gluten freeness or whatever yeah it really matters to me that people are eating so feedback is a brilliant thing yeah interesting what are some of the other

57:21Nisha Katona:system or principles or like systems you've got in place to keep the magic alive do you know what

57:26Dan:you're only as good here's the thing you're only as good as your last curry and the experience that people have is only as good as the people that are serving so if you've got happy chefs you've got good food and if you've got happy servers you've got good service so my you know from the day that I started running this business I had one aim for Mogli and that was to enrich lives in the cities that we go to so if you get your head around that I built her to enrich lives

57:49Nisha Katona:in the cities that we go to you refer to her to Mogli yeah yeah

57:53Dan:why oh god totally because honestly it's like I never wanted to sound so mad I never wanted to do a restaurant this is a crazy thing I was a barisher I was going to be a judge you know I was doing my judge exams had a great salary all of that great prospects this thing I'm kidding I'm not kidding you it's almost like it was a living thing and it's almost like it was tugging my sleeve at night saying are we going to do this are we going to it's crazy this idea of a restaurant this idea of the food that I was teaching being peddled to people so I was teaching this food and I could see that people loved eating it because it's nothing like a curry house it's totally different yeah yeah and it was like a it was like a living thing and i still think of it as a living thing and that monkey you know you can see the monkey with the sort of sassy tail in the air looking for it doesn't look at me it doesn't look at us it's looking at where it's going it's really it is it is a living thing to me and she's miles ahead of us do you know what i mean at restaurant one i would not have ever thought that we get to restaurant two, nevermind 27.

58:53Dan:And yet this thing marches ahead. And I think the secret is to have something that gets me out of bed, that gives me complete passion. So honestly, in whatever, 11 years, we're coming over for 12 years now building Mowgli, I have never lost a single night's sleep about Mowgli ever. Can you imagine that?

59:10Nisha Katona:You've never lost?

59:11Dan:Never lost, even through COVID, I never lost a single night's sleep. Because I think it's that thing, if you love what you do, you don't work a day in your life. because I was in control of it. And it's like you say, I'm the kind of person that, look, if it's going wrong, I love it because I can fix it or I can find a way of fixing it. As long as my heart is in the... What would make me lose sleep is if you fall out with people and you're making people unhappy. That, as a female human, that really freaks me out. I don't like that. I don't like discord. So yeah, so having a principle that gets me out of bed and that principle was how do we build this to enrich lives in the cities that we go to, starting with our people?

59:48Dan:That's the secret. to everything I do.

59:50Nisha Katona:Go through that again, sorry, so building this to enrich lives.

59:53Dan:In cities that we go to, starting with our own people. So my main aim as, you know, the leader of Mogi for all of those years was how do we make our people feel exceptional? Because if they do, if we make their lives a joy, if we make their workplace a place of solace, because everyone's got crap going on in their life. If your workplace is a place of solace, then we get really delicious food because our chefs love cooking it. The recipes are like paracetamol for them. They've got that all absolutely down to the microgram. So they just have to follow the recipe, but I need them to be content. And my servers need to feel absolutely loved by the business that they work for.

1:00:30Dan:And then the service is good. That is my main aim in life. So I knew my food's going to be good. I know my service is going to be good. I know that my environment is going to look good because my servers care about it, etc. If I can make their life brilliant. And so that was the aim. And that is why we send, you know, wherever 30, 40 members of our team across to India, to Assam, to Rwanda, wherever it might be, to go and live a different life for a week to come back and have the scales fall from their eyes. You know, we want to make their life incredible.

1:00:58Nisha Katona:Yeah.

1:00:59Dan:And so we have all of these benefits. You know, you get your birthday off and you get paternity leave if you get a dog. And there's all kinds, you know, you get Christmas Day off, you get Boxing Day off, you get New Year's Day off. You know, it's extraordinary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get an early date on Christmas. this matters so much to our people so we don't lose people and as a result we don't lose the

1:01:18Nisha Katona:magic you know take care of the people and the rest will kind of follow completely and there's

1:01:24Dan:nothing trite about that sounds a little bit jazz hands and oh you just got to love you you've just got to bloody love your people you've got to love your people because then they will create you know but this is easy because it's i'm not asking the chefs to come up with new dishes they've just got to follow my recipes and everything is cooked fresh every day on site so seven o 'clock in the morning you walk past mogli it smells like my grandmother's house in baranasi honestly that's an amazing thing and those chefs are worth their weight in gold damn right you look after your people damn right you make their lives incredible just we're gonna get some food shortly from uber eats but um the so you barrister and this thing is gnawing you in the middle of the

1:02:05Nisha Katona:night yeah saying and you personify your business which i love um i might start doing this with the podcast yeah um because it does i kind of i know exactly we're seeing from the same him sheet for sure um but like what makes you cross the rubicon and actually go and do it because it was the first

1:02:22Dan:one set up in bold street wasn't it yeah i'll tell you what what was wow how are you the moment the moment so i thought okay if i'm gonna start looking at whether to do a business and i recommend this to anyone so I was just I used to work in court obviously every day and at lunchtime you took your wig and gown off and I would go and sit outside restaurants and cafes and greggs and see who was ordering what was there an appetite for curry because remember there were no curry out there was no nothing like Mowgli there was nobody eating you know I put London aside you know but there was nobody eating curry at lunchtime in in the northwest so I was looking at things like were there curried parsnip soups and who was buying them and there was a little Chinese get place open and you know what so i really did it was like doing a gcse business project you know where people buying a drink how much money could i make what what price what rent would i need to be paying to make any money from this and then i thought okay so what kind of buildings would this be what how where would i put it just to interrupt sorry to interrupt but were you logging this down like yeah completely oh god yes it was like a little project you know so what so men excel spreadsheet really interesting so um high viz men in high viz outside you know the chinese men in hivers outside the gregs so they were eating heavier food the men in the hivers were eating heavier food therefore you've got to think about what is my price point so if i want men in hivers to come and eat in my restaurant it's got to be a certain price point do you know what i mean it's got to be affordable which was always the case and then you know women were ordering sort of lighter food you know everyone was buying a drink so you'd always sell a drink with you know nobody's just buying food they'd always go in and buy a drink people the meal deal was not such a big deal then you know back then it really wasn't such a big deal back then um spice was a thing so things like a tikka masala wrap i wouldn't eat that if you paid me that is a thing oh my god that's and you just think okay and that back in 2001 you know robin cook said that you know the nation's number one dish is chicken you know the national dish of britain is tikka masala so you're kind of on that and you think oh my gosh it might even be true so maybe maybe they'd be up for this and the fact that I just had queues of people coming to my classes I think people really do love this food so I then it was about you know is a premises and you push a door and you know if the door opens it's right so I parked up in this one road called Bowles Street in Liverpool and there was one building available it was next to a cafe that I loved and there was a sign on it to let so I rang the landlord just to see what might rent be what are we talking here he was five minutes away he came and met me i walked in there and there was that epiphany where you just think this is right this is not it's a juggernaut that you step onto at that point and there was no going back i walked in and i thought a this is right b this is so exciting i cannot bloody tell you this is so exciting and that excitement has not left me 11 12 years on my hands now talking to you are kind of itching with excitement i love it i love it it's fascinating you gotta love it you know and I think that's what keeps the magic going.

1:05:13Dan:And it's what keeps you as an ambassador. And it's what flows down, I think.

1:05:17Nisha Katona:What's been the boldest thing you've ever done? If it's born in Bold Street, what's the boldest decision you've ever made in business?

1:05:23Dan:So the boldest decision was, and the roof over my head is still invested in Mowgli. I'm not secure. So when I started it, we were going to lose our house and I still had to do it. So what happens is there comes a point where you can take fewer cases because you're building a business. So we were fewer cases as a barrister.

1:05:40Nisha Katona:so I wasn't working as much

1:05:42Dan:I wasn't earning as much and there was a point where my brother had to lend me like 500 quid for pans you were looking down the back of the sofa for coins and we would have lost the house if it didn't work that's everything isn't it that's everything that is the whole you gamble the whole of your life on this that's the thing there's something about

1:06:01Nisha Katona:again this is you know what Santi was telling me the other day also I had dinner with Ashley Pumwatts who does the Devonshire

1:06:10Dan:Yeah, great.

1:06:10Nisha Katona:And he was amazing.

1:06:11Dan:You get me a table there one day.

1:06:12Nisha Katona:Oh, yeah, yeah. Jeez. His son's in ballet.

1:06:16Dan:Yeah.

1:06:17Nisha Katona:A ballet dancer. Ballet dancer. Wow. And, you know, obviously, Ash was at the Fat Duck when he got three stars. Then we were talking about this idea of, again, like when you feel so insecure, you go all in and it makes you secure. And it's like this, almost like there's a gun to your head, you'll make it work.

1:06:34Dan:There's a gun to your head. Do you know what? For me, it's a lot of faith as well, is I've got this rudder where I just sort of, it sounds crazy but I don't do you ever watch Lord of the Rings or read it and there's this point where Gandalf and the hobbits are sitting in the mines of Morin they're sitting on a rock and there are three passages they don't know which one to go down they sit there for about three days and then suddenly Gandalf says you know it it's that one because that one smells least offensive and I think there is an eternity set into the hearts of men where you just feel that this is the right door and I have enough faith to think it is and I haven't been proven wrong yet and it just felt like the right door like there was a light in my life that was flashing above this Chinese restaurant on Bowles Street that was saying, this is the one.

1:07:11Nisha Katona:Did you have to find it or did it find you?

1:07:14Dan:Well, I pulled up on the street and then it fortuitously happened to be the one building that's next to me, next to the one cafe that I love on that street. And then you phone the number. You know, it falls into place and the guy's five minutes away and he comes and he's dead nice. And you walk in and it just, the configuration of the building is amazing because it means you could have two people on and they can see the whole restaurant as opposed to somewhere like this. Do you know what I mean? that that where just everything falls into place and you think this feels and that's how i've chosen every site since as you go in and it's is that light flashing it's so um myth magical and mythical

1:07:50Nisha Katona:it really is so my friend owns black bear burger yeah absolute gent of a leg light yeah amazing human being in exmouth market near farringdon yeah there was a dirty burger yeah which i think was an off-spawn of Sower House.

1:08:05Dan:Yeah.

1:08:06Nisha Katona:Exact same site. Like, literally the exact same site, same road. He goes in, and it's his, so it's basically a burger chain, right? Absolutely, their best-selling site. And I think there is this weird ethereal magic that you put into somewhere. And, again, we've talked about a lot of practical things, but we've also talked about our spiritual things. I think there's a spirit to a restaurant

1:08:27Dan:that you can't, can't fucking... We might sound like absolute arses talking like this. I don't care. But doesn't it make life magical? And I will die under this mad, you know, we might be the maddest people on Earth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't it make life amazing? So, you know, no matter how tough things get, you just think, you know, this was meant to be, as long as your heart is in the right place and you're building something for the right reasons,

1:08:49Nisha Katona:you know what I mean?

1:08:50Dan:So, which I've constantly got to, you know, that is my precept, is that how am I making people's lives better in the cities that we go to with Mowgli? You know, as long as you're doing the right thing, then having that serendipitousness is just, God, it makes life just feel magical.

1:09:05Nisha Katona:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:09:06Dan:And, you know, which might make us the biggest fools on earth, but I will die happy.

1:09:09Nisha Katona:Yeah. Let's get some food. And what we can do is use these as a kind of a launch pad to explore, well, everything we've discussed. But I also want to talk about delivery. Yeah. Because I think this is another example of scale and magic. Yeah, yeah. for people listening we're holding I don't know how gorgeous is this packaging so this is the packaging

1:09:33Dan:for Mowgli's delivery so this is a big thing for us we've just started delivery it's a relatively new thing I've been very precious so I was only going to do it if it was completely right and it starts with the way that it looks I mean this I'm so proud of this packaging

1:09:46Nisha Katona:so talk me on like again for listeners it's so it's dark green so even this green

1:09:52Dan:right this green it really matters to me when I started Mowgli and remember I said I wanted it to be a cut off you know I thought it would fail so so this kind of Norwegian forest green was really I didn't want an Indian jewel green I didn't want anything that said curry I wanted this dark noble Norwegian forest green and this is exactly the color of the box so I'm made up with that and it's got the gold monkey on the top and then you know we've got an in-house designer who's brilliant called John Lee's and he's you know designed the stickers for it and

1:10:18Nisha Katona:things like that so you know what the food is it's just those little touches because I feel like with delivery it can get like it gives you way more reach yeah but how do you again this is stew thing he was saying to me that um his chip the chip do you want to yeah just pile it on it doesn't matter you whack it down and then obviously we can edit this yeah yeah yeah

1:10:37Dan:um i'll i'll take it out and then we just get some nice and forks um and then yes sweet

1:10:46Nisha Katona:happy days yeah sorry I was speaking to Stu and he was saying with delivery often his chips would go cold soggy yeah oh soggy yeah and so what he he used the packaging to as a again you know how do you solve a problem yeah we could just look at this as a okay well you know it's fucked yeah yeah yeah what he did is he turned the packaging into like a storytelling vehicle yeah so it says almost like managing expectations yeah yeah yeah as you should in restaurants bear in mind these chips are probably going to be soggy and cold straight away the customer's like and then he goes here's two ways to get them as close as they can to the restaurant which is you know either put in the air fryer or whatever and I think what you guys are doing here is just really think about how you let keep the premiumness of the brand

1:11:39Dan:that's absolutely key we'll only deliver dishes that will stand the journey. So I'm really... It's fine.

1:11:49Nisha Katona:Right, so what have we got?

1:11:50Dan:So that's mother butter chicken.

1:11:51Nisha Katona:Wow. I'll get these out and then what we can do is just talk about the genesis of these and the story of Heinlein. Gone powder chicken sounds.

1:12:00Dan:Gone powder chicken, yeah. Okay.

1:12:02Nisha Katona:Let's start with... Yeah, so just quickly run through what we've got here.

1:12:06Dan:Right.

1:12:06Nisha Katona:This is a nice panoply of gorgeous food looking right at me.

1:12:09Dan:Yeah, it is. So this is pretty typical. This is what you would have in an Indian home. So, for instance, we've got our rice, which is, you know, made with black cumin seeds. You can see that they're really, you've got to fry your cumin seeds. Then we've got dal. And you remember I was talking about these dishes that are completely without garlic and ginger. These things that are the cornerstone of the Indian home kitchen. This is it. Temple dal. And I call it temple because it is almost like a holy dal. It's what priests would eat during prayer ceremonies. So it's completely clean. It's the food of monks.

1:12:35Dan:You know, it is a real monk dal made with red lentils. So it's the most simple, cleansing, addictive thing. So many of our members of staff, what they crave is temple dhal at lunch because they can eat what they want. This is what they crave. And this is made with red lentils. It's made with cumin seeds. It's made with a bit of lemon, turmeric. So all these ingredients are so good for you. I can't tell you. Really strong anti. Your turmeric is just great for you. You know, green chilies, coriander, really, really light fresh dhal. Then you would always have... In India, when would they have that throughout?

1:13:04Dan:Right. You would have this throughout the day. There is not an Indian fridge that wouldn't have a bowl of dhal in it. That is what you would have for breakfast. you would have it for lunch you would have it at every meal you have dal um then there's a fish this is my anti-greek eaters prawn curry so i'm from um originally from calcutta we're bengali that's my language and we're the fish eaters of india so we're very passionate about fish and prawns now this prawn curry on the coast calcutta has got rivers going through it okay cool it's where all the sailors were um so lots and lots of fish that is cooked with it's very interesting It's a combination of tomato and English mustard.

1:13:38Dan:English mustard is one of the most ancient Indian ingredients that there is. You call it English.

1:13:42Nisha Katona:How mad is that? Wow.

1:13:44Dan:Can I just tell you this?

1:13:45Nisha Katona:What's the anthology of that?

1:13:47Dan:So what it is, is, you know, mustard seeds, the little black seeds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you grind them, they become yellow mustard paste. They become like Coleman's English mustard. In India, the way, before chilies came to us in the 16th century, the Portuguese brought chilies to India. We didn't have chilies or tomatoes up to that point. Most of the world didn't. The Portuguese brought... Yeah, they brought them from South America. So nobody had chilies. Only South America had chilies.

1:14:11Nisha Katona:Were Portugal trying to colonize?

1:14:13Dan:Yeah, so they went across to South America and then they brought them across to Goa. They brought chilies across to India. Up to that point, India was using two things to make their food zingy. One was black pepper and one was mustard, English mustard seeds ground down. And that is what is in that prawn curry. So when you taste it, English mustard, when it's cooked with tomato, is one of the most synergistic things you can ever taste. So that sauce... The English brought mustard to India? No, the Portuguese brought mustard. Forget the word English. The Portuguese brought chilies to India. But before we had chilies, so right the way up to the 16th century, up to that point, we had no chilies.

1:14:55Dan:We were using English mustard paste or mustard paste, the yellow mustard paste, to give our food that zing. this is a really ancient Calcuttan way of cooking so the sauce if you try the sauce you'll see that there's this real zing that almost dives into your endorphins and that is this combination of tomato and English mustard it's a really unique flavour it's delicious

1:15:20Nisha Katona:what about this bad boy?

1:15:22Dan:that is a bad boy because that is one of our number one that's sort of our number one seller that is mother butter chicken

1:15:26Nisha Katona:mother butter chicken and it's got

1:15:30Dan:fenugreek in it fenugreek is like crack fenugreek is called kasurimethi and I cook it with that because there is something about that that is so addictive and actually calorifically that is still really not bad at all it's really good what are the calories in that? how many would you is that about 300?

1:15:47Nisha Katona:that is let me tell you

1:15:51Dan:330 roughly yeah that's a sandwich that it's less than the club sandwich yeah

1:15:56Nisha Katona:that's what's mental

1:15:57Dan:yeah that's what's mental that is mental how people will go

1:16:00Nisha Katona:and smash a

1:16:01Dan:nothing i mean i love it yeah yeah yeah yeah but um yeah but you could have that three for less calories and there's a load more of it so so that's our biggest history of it so the butter chicken is what i tell you what butter chicken is if you want if you're really going to have a really nice meal out in india we didn't really have restaurants we had hotels right what do you well they didn't really have restaurants so whenever i you know grew up sort of you know in out of India until he had street food stalls that would do one thing really well they'd sell one thing really well like they say this gunpowder chicken they just sell that or they sell just chat bombs but it was hotels that had the restaurants in them so they weren't really

1:16:42Nisha Katona:wasn't that long at one point as well like it's not as yeah I knew you're so right that was

1:16:45Dan:everywhere yeah exactly right we didn't have nursing homes they used hotels you know so so um and if you went to a hotel and you want the top dish you would go for butter chicken because it's got butter in it that is such a um exquisitely um elitist ingredient in a way you know to just throw it into a curry so you know that's why that was one of the most beloved dishes in in the hotels and it's got this spice in it called fenugreek that honestly is one of the most addictive spices it's also very good for you but it is a really haunting incredible spice that makes you want to go back for more it's the instant flavor of serious curry so that's what that is stunning yeah it's delicious then gunpowder chicken so gunpowder chicken is something while i was building mowgli i was on the bones of my backside so we didn't have a penny to rub together everything i had every penny and all my savings were invested into my restaurant building that first restaurant and the girls used to love my kids used to love you know that popcorn chicken from kfc yeah delightful yeah and we literally couldn't afford it so i made my own and it's made with ground flour completely gluten-free so it's made with ground flour garam masala onion garlic and ginger paste and spices and i made it and it was a big hit so i put it on the menu and again it's one of our best sellers so that's my gunpowder chicken you know then you got the fenugreek fry so you'd always with an indian meal have some form of tomato of potato potatoes always cooked with turmeric always cooked with turmeric so that you you you're very sweet to say that you're very and you're eating out the takeaway dishes but those dishes are so beautiful that i'm quite proud

1:18:19Nisha Katona:of them well why now with delivery why like what yeah why now and because obviously like we talked about a lot today like hyper premium brand scale kills magic or scale can kill magic why now and like what have you put in place to keep the magic alive because that is an interesting

1:18:44Dan:thing isn't it because scale as me and you have discussed and we truly believe scale does not kill magic you know lack of heart kills magic that's what kills magic yeah so it's like it is lack of heart lack of authenticity that's what kills magic so um and when i said you know what was really interesting i when we decided to go on to delivery and the reason i decided to go on to delivery is quite honestly that business about enriching lives in the cities we go to not everyone can get out and if they want to eat this food it's my duty to deliver it to them i have held off up to this point because i needed to know that the food would transport well that there was an appetite for it so and what happens is i've been building you know we've been building building building so we've now got to the point of 27 and building a delivery element to your business is like building about four restaurants the amount of manpower that it takes so while we've been busy building I didn't you know it wasn't the priority to develop that delivery ring a link link but it's really interesting I've got as I said I've got kids in their 20s that is how they eat the most exciting thing about Mowgli for them is that they can now get it to this is my own bloody kids they can get it they were so proud of it going on to deliver it I can't tell you so it was at that point where you just think you know people want it if people want this food it's an honour for me to be able to provide it for them and that is why it's right that you know it had a bit of breathing space between bills we could put the delivery in and that's what it took

1:20:10Nisha Katona:and what why exclusively with uber eats well do you know it's an all so here's the thing

1:20:15Dan:remember my homeland is in the north i've got two restaurants in london i want more restaurants in london but i built this in areas of the country that need social capital i started in liverpool Manchester, Sheffield, Preston, you know, outside of London is Mowgli. And that is where Uber Eats is. I've got a real passion for these brands that are kind of Northern centric. You know, and Uber Eats is great for the North. That's what is known in the North. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that I'm very passionate about. That means the world to me. Finding a partner that's got the same sort of roots as me.

1:20:49Nisha Katona:And would you, in terms of, I know we've talked about, do you ever worry? because I think a lot of brands Anisha you've got this ability to kind of look into the future and be incredibly prudent and like as we've said like keep the magic alive but do you worry about it like not eviscerating the premium experience like how do you use it to actually make the experience even how are you using it as almost like a marketing power as well because can you use Uber Eats and it's almost tentacles around the north to keep people more in is that how you think about that

1:21:21Dan:do you know what's really important to me Like driving trial is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, it's really important that people, you know, that we don't lose covers. It's really important that people still come out and eat. I think people still do want to come out and eat. Now, we are dog friendly. We are child friendly. But for those times when you can't get out there, I still need you to get your Mowgli fix. I think these two things are symbiotic. I don't think one depletes the other at all. I think going back to that point, you are only as good as your last curry and your food has to be addictive.

1:21:47Dan:If you are addicted to mother butter chicken and gum powder chicken and you want it, you will either go out and get it or you will order it in if you can't go out and get it. But people like to put their shoes on and get a blouse on and go and eat out. So I'm not worried about that. What I think is most important is if you want this food, and I am passionate about it, being really healthy. This is healthy, good for you. This is all cooked from scratch. every chat that goes out in the delivery you know, all the chat it's made within a minute or two of it going in the container you know, it is all completely fresh and it's that business about I live, Mowgli lives to enrich lives by giving them really good food and if they want it on their sofa they can have it on their sofa or they can have it in the restaurant so I don't think about it diminishing pretty much

1:22:36Nisha Katona:and it's a symbiotic relationship and how their threads woven together

1:22:40Dan:to the same place

1:22:41Nisha Katona:I'm really bad at strategy I'm very much a ready fire aim fuck it let's just go for it we've been doing this for five years and it's really nice and it gets me excited of actually planning out the future is there any one or two lessons or mistakes you've made with being prudent into the future how do you set out a strategy do you use Excel spreadsheets don't use spreadsheets at all how do you manifest and use the spirit and the business the divining of it Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:23:11Dan:It's easy. Do you know what? We don't overbuild. We're not building 200 restaurants a year. You know, at the most, we were building sort of five, six, seven restaurants a year. That's easy. That's a piece of A4. You know, in terms of actually, here's the thing. We need five restaurants. How many bodies do we need? What does head office look like to cover all of that? I think the thing is, is when you have a menu that doesn't change all the time, you know, I know what people like. People don't, you know, people go to WAG's because there are certain dishes they want. People go to Nanda's because I go to Nanda's because I want a half chicken, medium peri-peri.

1:23:40Those chips with the sauce on, don't mess with coleslaw.

1:23:43Dan:Don't mess around with my order. Don't mess around with them. Oh, did you get peri-peri salt? I get peri-peri salt on my chip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why would you have chips without peri-peri salt? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:23:51Nisha Katona:It's blasphemous.

1:23:52Dan:Do you know what I mean? So we know what we want. I go to Greg's. I want a vegan sausage roll and a straight sausage roll and a cheese and onion pasty. Yes. Do you know what I mean? We know what to do. Yeah, we're not. So when you streamline your business and the widgets don't always keep changing, and it's it's easier to have a strategy you know it really is if I had a menu that changed every week and we had specials the amount of effort that takes to train it makes your chef's life an absolute misery not just that makes your client's lives a misery because they know what they want and that you know you know this is the thing so it's a beautiful business to grow Mowgli in that way and it really is just a case of you know we know what we needed for three restaurants we know what we needed for seven not a lot is changing in that way you know we've got to constantly innovate and constantly develop things so you know i'm developing our seating a bit and the way that we look a little bit and you know there are some new dishes on the menu but it's not a massive change where the brand becomes suddenly unrecognizable to them so it makes strategy very easy um and as in like knowing what the business is before yeah knowing what the business is and how that you know how how that um you know what's required for you know for per per widget per module so you then times that by five it's quite easy in that way um it's not hard to recruit because thank god we're you know we're one of the businesses to work for sunday times which is great so we treat our people well so recruitment is really easy um our chefs lives are easy because they're not constantly having to come up with new dishes and mess around they are given a playbook and they play by the playbook and they cook fresh and we look after them um and we have a zero tolerance policy on any bullying or any aggression that comes from our days of domestic violence you know what i mean we are a really hygienic kind place to work so it you know the the things that would confound many people when they're growing which has got how do you recruit and are your staff a nightmare our staff are a source of absolute joy they really are i love them you know what i mean they're a source of joy so can you see that strategy becomes quite easy and strategy is absolutely important it really is important you know um you know and the the selection of sites and what what is that module what does that what's the ideal mode

1:26:00Nisha Katona:like let's always strive to get everything's downstream from that one sentence which i'm going to absolutely butcher which is we exist to enrich the lives of the people who love us

1:26:09Dan:yeah in the cities that we go starting with our people yeah and we still we live to enrich the lives of the people who work for us yeah that's the thing you know and and from there all good things flow if i give them a good menu good methods a good you know recipe list they know what they're doing they know how to cook I'm telling them how I want my people to feel when they come in my guests to feel you give them the playbook and it's really comprehensive then you just love them to death and make sure they love being in work and it's as simple as that really

1:26:35Nisha Katona:final question what's one truth you believe that most people would disagree with you on

1:26:40Dan:what's one truth yeah oh my god that that's that whole thing about you know I don't know if people disagree with but I do believe that the right doors open and the wrong doors stay closed. I wanted to come to London many, many years ago. And, you know, a site in Liverpool that cost me 35 grand a year in rent for the same size of site in London would have cost me 285 grand in rent. And I really wanted it. It was hubrisome. I wanted it. I wanted it. And it did not come off. And thank God it didn't, because it would have meant I'd have stopped growing. You know, as opposed to taking a 40 grand site in Preston or whatever it might be.

1:27:19Dan:do you know what I mean? It meant we could keep growing and I do believe that my hand is guided. That again, I may be the most disillusioned person in the world or delusional, not disillusioned, but I'm not disillusioned, but delusional person in the world. But it really helps if you think, if things don't happen, it's for a good reason. So I think the right doors open, but more importantly, the wrong doors stay closed for you.

1:27:43Nisha Katona:Amazing.

1:27:44Dan:That helps. Nisha, thank you so much.

1:27:46Nisha Katona:Absolute joy. Well, thank you.

1:27:47Dan:I think you've been amazing. I think you could do anything. You could be a psychoanalyst. You could be a criminologist. You could be...

1:27:54Nisha Katona:That was... I love that. I mean, I think we could have had like a three-hour conversation about the books alone. We wouldn't have got past books. Yeah, we didn't even get on to films.

1:28:03Dan:We didn't even get on to box sets.

1:28:05Nisha Katona:Yeah, that was such a joy. Thank you.

1:28:08Dan:Brilliant. No, thank you.

1:28:10Nisha Katona:Thank you so, so much for listening to the podcast. I really, really do appreciate it. If you liked that episode, only if you liked it, please do give it five stars subscribe tell all your friends families foes next door but one cat dog whatever please tell everyone about this podcast it means the world to me and i really want to understand what your pain points are as the new wave of challenger food and drink brands please do hit me up on linkedin search dan pope and hopefully we can together create a more meaningful and powerful podcast for the next wave of challenger food and drink brands thank you so much