- Navjeevan Express Food and Hospitality Editor Dr Kaviraj Khialani developed a keen interest in cooking since then and found himself in the comfort zone of a kitchen starting from home where he brushed up his basic skills from cutting-chopping to preparing simple things from tea, coffee, sandwiches and pizza to working his way to getting into Indian cooking
- He has been associated with the Taj Group from hotels to air catering units
- These books are available online on Amazon India and are open for usage by people of all age groups and diet plans
- These books are also a guide to students pursuing courses in hotel management & culinary arts as well
GOWRI MANICKAVASAGAM
A passion which started from the age of seven years and saw no looking back over the years has been ever since working hard and moving steadily up the ladder since childhood! Chef Kaviraj developed a keen interest in cooking since then and found himself in the comfort zone of a kitchen starting from home where he brushed up his basic skills from cutting-chopping to preparing simple things from tea, coffee, sandwiches and pizza to working his way to getting into Indian cooking, his base cuisine at home being Sindhi cooking for which he has always had a special corner. In fact he is one of the chefs in our country who has worked on promoting Sindhi cuisine on a global platform at several occasions from doing fusion with them to dressing them up in a new avatar and has always impressed his foodie audience for over 25 plus years now.
Food for thought has always been his mantra and having inborn qualities like exceptional expressing skills to imaginative abilities he always looked at food from more than one angle which has been well crafted- curated and culminated on to the plates to create magnificence and multitude appreciation by food connoisseurs the world over.
Having completed his basic and professional education starting from India to getting overseas certifications and loads of advanced studies and accolades received by him from the British Executive Training Centre, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the University of Ireland, the Swiss Hotel Management School to name a few.
An untiring attitude and a zeal to do something different and exceptional was ever since parts of his personality and a feeling of doing more and better has never ever stopped him from his long list of achievements over two and a half decades now. He has been associated with the Taj Group from hotels to air catering units, being a sky chef with Kuwait airways and also a lead head of training for the cabin crew added a diverse side to his professional career and there came a twist and variation for him to try with training and development, sharing his views, thoughts, knowledge and experience! The very fact that knowledge is power and expression of thoughts are like cherry on the cake is much visible in his resume as he always did more than one thing at a time from being a model at a tender age of 11 months, a celeb status got attached to his name and that’s where he even earnt his first cheque for endorsing a healthy baby tonic and found his posters across nursing homes in India.
Besides, hotels, airlines, training and sharing of knowledge he has also been into consultancy since the year 2000 having started with menu designing, menu planning, menu strategies, menu engineering to writing for publications, including newspapers, magazines, hospitality journals, e- magazines, blogs and online websites etc. Consultancy has a lot to offer and also learning and challenging yourself and your abilities is on the go, one gets to think out of the box and tap the mind for something different which no one would have ever done! With this mission in mind to carve a niche for himself chef Kaviraj took up various projects from kitchen designing plans to how to run a restaurant, how to manage revenue in f & b outlets and most importantly how to survive in tough times.
From food styling assignments to advertisements, promotions and endorsement of food products, ingredients, gadgets and more he did everything that came his way. His first appearance on media was in the year 2000 where he was invited by Star Plus channel on a cooking show for Mother’s Day! Later as Colors Channel started he was the country’s first celebrity chef to be invited to host and judge a cooking show on television titled L.G. Mallika-e-Kitchen, he did this show for the very first season and completed 13 episodes with a lot of grace and grandeur.
Getting his base back to India is what he always preferred and once he did that, he got into full time interactions and training students of hotel management at some of the best- and well-known reputed institutions in Mumbai. He has also been associated with a number of colleges and universities in the country on the advisory board and board of studies where he assists and offers his professional expertise in curriculum design, planning of modules and teaching methodologies etc which can benefit the student community at large.
During Covid times, he was approached by a number of colleges across the country for joining online and conduct webinars for their students which he most gracefully accepted. In spite of not being very well versed at that time with social media and online medium of instructions he took it up, learnt how to do the sessions and gained much confidence in order to get across to students via social media and answer their queries and be able to keep them at peace during the shaken era. From the very first one to completing over 60 plus webinars on various topics and being appreciated by the institutions at large kept him motivated to do more.
The passion which kick started from a young age and the learning that never stopped got chef Kaviraj to get into detailed studies and experiments on various cuisines over the years and to get that on paper he completed 33 international cuisines which he learnt very well and presented the foods from places across the globe to continents on plates which were not just impressive and tasty but also tempting and delectable!
This record of mastering the art of 33 cuisines on a global platform is one of its kind, and needs a lot of patience and persistence to achieve. From the basic French to the Italian, Chinese to Caribbean, Malaysian to Mauritian, Nepal to Netherlands, Greek to German, American to Asian the list goes on… The fact that we get to experience new flavours, wide array of recipes, cultural connects, and most importantly what he enjoyed during this journey was the people’s connect and sharing of views, thoughts, experiences which are difficult to be replaced by anything in the world. The food maestro, prince of food porn and the culinary guru as people and organisations have tagged & titled him as well for his nouvelle and contemporary concepts and performance.
Having received a doctorate honour for his exemplary and impressive deliveries and deliberations over the years in the field of hospitality education, mentorship programs, coaching and allied resourceful activities Dr. Kaviraj Khialani is a name synonym with excellence and best practices. His list of awards and accolades received over the year has reached a century and now it is this big international honour and wall of fame certificate that is adding into the chef’s overfull cap!
Commenting on the launch of these books, Dr. Kaviraj Khialani said, “The New year 2024 has truly been a blessing and to be able to achieve one’s aim in life is nostalgic for me. It is always very motivating to see my work getting featured & in public domain. I am truly humbled and would like to express my sincere gratitude to the lord for gracing me with this capability of sharing my knowledge via books and it doesn’t stop here. There is a lot more that I need to work on and my vision beyond the horizon and skies. With the blessings and best wishes of my fans and followers, well-wishers I am sure and positive about creating many more global records based on my passion to excel, experience & explore. The four cookery books as displayed with this article are just the beginning to a lot many more titles and topics which are in the pipeline and to be published soon as well.”
These books are available online on Amazon India and are open for usage by people of all age groups and diet plans. These books are also a guide to students pursuing courses in hotel management & culinary arts as well.
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