Exploring Sattvic food journey with Chef Aditya Fatehpuria

Most people know just two categories of food — vegetarian and non-vegetarian and now the vegan variety. However, Chef Fatehpuria has taken it up a notch with sattvic cuisine. He, along with his co-founder Arvind, set out to rediscover and repackage Bhagavad Gta’s wisdom on food and set up an exclusive restaurant that serves sattvic food blending tradition with modern flavours.

Excerpts from an exclusive conversation with Sattvam co-founder and chef, Aditya Fatehpuria.

Q. Tell us about your growing up years, the food choices you were exposed to and formative experiences?

I was raised in Nagpur, where my family was into the food business. And I grew up in this entire environment of food. I was a foodie because of which I started cooking. Once I started cooking, I would go to my family restaurants, cooking food, and serving food. And I was enjoying all this during my growing up days.

Q. You have been a chef with ITC hotels catering to eclectic food choices of the guests including non vegetarian? How did the journey towards Sattvic cuisine start? Was it also due to your Marwari roots? Or was it due to some spiritual inclination?

It was not spiritual then. I was looking at growth. ITC was giving me slow growth, and I was very surprised when I got a call from ISKCON. They found out that I am a Marwari and I have done my hotel management from a prestigious institute working with a good hotel. So they wanted such a profile for their upcoming restaurants, their kitchens and Akshaya Patra kitchens. When I went there, I realised their vision was much bigger than anything that I could have imagined in my life, or wherever I was working. And anyway, I was a born vegetarian. So for me that transit was very easy and smooth.

Q. But how did your family take it when they discovered that you were cooking non veg?

That was really crazy. I was not allowed to enter my house with my chef coat. So I used to change my uniform at the college lockers, and give it to the laundry before going home. I used to keep knives and other things in my bike boots. And that is how I managed my hotel management days.

Q. How was the experience of transitioning from a full fledged ITC kitchen catering to veg, non-veg, jain cuisines to kitchen catering only to Satvik food felt like?

It happened gradually. I was a junior chef at ITC, but I was climbing up the ladder slowly. And then I realised that it was not about my capabilities, but something else. It was not going smoothly there. So I was looking for a change, but in the hotel industry itself. When ISKCON came, it was a pleasant surprise. As soon as I entered ISKCON, my life totally changed from day one. I didn't have to think through even on day two. Maybe it was destined for me. I realised this is what I was born to do. And I loved it. I enjoyed it. I was there for five years in ISKCON and those were the most fantastic days of my life.

Q. Puri Temple’s Bhog menu is very simple and fixed. Was there any scope to innovate? What was your major contribution to it?

At Puri, I got to learn a lot. Basically puri is the epicenter of Sattvic cuisine. So Jagannath Puri serves only sattvic food to all its devotees. I learned what was our traditional food, what ingredients we were using/not using and what we innovated. After that, I came to ISKCON Food Lab, where we were re-discovering the recipes. So if I learnt moong bath rice in Puri, I changed it a little with some modern ingredients, which are Sattvic as per principles, not exactly what is used in Puri kitchen and made it a little more suitable for a youngster or for a person who doesn't understand what Jagannath Puri cuisine is.

Q. What prompted you to embark on an entrepreneurial journey with SATTVAM

I am a co-founder at Sattvam. My co-founder, Arvind, was also working in ISKCON. I was into production and restaurant operations, while he was working with sales and marketing and business development. Both of us wanted to take this entire Sattvic journey to a bigger audience and decided to move on and start something on our own. And this is how Sattvam happened. But we have been fortunate to get a lot of support from ISKCON. Until today, we both complement and patronise each other and are glad that ISKCON has been so supportive.

Q. In Ayurveda, food is categorised into satvika, rajasa and tamasa. While one type of food is said to keep the mind cool, the others are said to increase aggression and induce lethargy. Based on your experience as a chef, do you agree with this categorisation?

Ayurveda and Sattvic are two different things. Ayurvedic is a medicinal food. It is more to do with your body, whereas Sattvic food is more to do with your soul. Sattvic food is as prescribed by the principles of Bhagavad-Gita as to what should be cooked, what can be offered, and what can be had by a human body for their spiritual and enlightening growth of the body and soul. So Sattvic food is not Ayurvedic food. Of course, the sattvic, tamasic and rajasic are the three categorisations of food as far as the principles of Bhagavad Gita. And definitely sattvic is where you feel lighter. You can practice your spirituality easier once you are on a sattvic diet, because rajasic food creates little denseness in your body, and tamasic is all about aggression. So for a normal human being, this kind of diet is not recommended. What is recommended for people like us, for a businessman or for service class, is sattvic food. So this is what I learned from ISKCON and from the little bit of Bhagavad Gita I read and understood. And this is what I preach and follow now.

Q. Modern science claims that vitamin B12, which is essential to the proper functioning of the brain, is available in animal fat. What alternatives do satvik food have for B12 other than dairy products?

Technically, I don't know much about this, because I'm out of meat for a long time right now. I was there for a very short period in that category. But I am 43, on a vegetarian diet all my life and right now on a Sattvic diet, my recent report shows I have adequate B12 levels. And I have seen a lot of my non-vegetarian friends taking B12 shots. I am not making a statement here. But it could be body to body or your lifestyle. Right now, for me, B12 is not an issue.

Q. Besides Sattvam, there are also other restaurants working on the temple food concept. What's it about this newfound fascination and shifting people's food preferences?

Temples have always been the epicenter of food in our entire civilization. Initially, the entire civilization was around a temple, which decided what we eat, how we eat, when we eat, and as per that, the entire civilization was developing. Now, in the recent past, you see this has come full circle because temple food is soothing for your body and soul. Once you have it, you feel peaceful. The Puliyogre at Melukote temple in Karnataka is the most famous. It is the best experience that one can have in terms of temple food. So when you eat at Jagannath puri Temple, anybody irrespective of being vegetarian/non vegetarian or an atheist, can feel the difference in their entire body, the hormonal changes, it's so soothing and calming that everybody loves that. And I think that is the reason people are shifting towards temple foods and sattvic like food and maybe a lot of other derivatives that have come out of these particular branches.

Q. What kind of trends have you noticed in the food industry right now?

I see innovation in the food, service, presentation, and modernization. Everything is getting so innovative every day. I see that more people are moving towards vegetarianism, veganism, healthy food or Ayurvedic food. The awareness about sattvic food is not much because we are not very spiritually inclined, most of us are not into the scriptures or may not have read them. But there's definitely a shift.

Q. How did you come up with a wide range of dishes without onion and garlic at Sattvam?

For ISKCON food lab, I researched and documented recipes for five years.I have that entire bank of recipes I created that time. It's not about paneer or aloo, it's beyond that. I see that this innovation is helping us create new recipes every day which my guests enjoy and I have more than 100 dishes on my buffet every day and my menu changes everyday for nine days. So, I have more than a thousand dishes coming every week. You can see the difference. You don't see repetitions. I see non-vegetarians struggling with their choice of variety, but here in vegetarians, we have a lot of variety.

Q. What are the signature dishes you have at Sattvam that nobody else has?

The aloevera subzi and saffron Shikanji are not seen anywhere. But overall, we have a lot of innovation in our dishes. Since I travel a lot, I learn authentic dishes from every place. We serve a chutney from Barsana, made of meetha neem (curry leaves). These are the kinds of innovations we keep doing.

Q. What's the future you have envisioned for Sattvam?

I hope that while I am running this restaurant, if not the world, at least the entire country should understand what sattvic food is, whether they have it or not.