An accomplished Restaurant Consulting Managing Director with 17 years of exhibited history of working in the food and beverage industry, Panchali Mahendra is skilled in ideas, plausibility, food and refreshment, business planning, operations management, and turn key. Her most prominent achievement is to become the Managing Director of over a 10-million-dollar hospitality company at the age of 32 along with developing over 45 concepts and restaurants in the region. The only woman F&B specialist to have done more than 45-50 cafés, she has consistently kept innovation and technology close to all project management, linking systems and personal training and time investment in each and every staff. She has in every case by and by broke down the profession chart to access and help in development. She began her excursion around 9 years back in Dubai with restuarants like Qbara, Fume and then worked for another organization and began doing easygoing casual dining. 3.5 years back she joined Altamarea group from NYC and opened their Dubai office named Atelier House Hospitality and since the time at that point have around 10 cafés like Marea DIFC, Mohalla at D3 and some more.
How and why did you choose D3 as a destination?
I chose D3 in the beginning of 2017 for my HQ office as I feel it has a very chic and millennial vibe. Being a free zone area, we didn’t need any local partner. Plus the rentals were very competitive and the team very helpful. very centrally located and then all my restaurant were in close vicinity. We chose Mohalla for D3 as their were no other Indian restaurant and nothing like our brand in entire Dubai.
Are you a Bollywood film buff? What was your first Bollywood film?
I am not a lot into Bollywood but try and not miss well-made cinema. I do like Hindi classical songs. They are mesmerizing especially movie gazals. I dont remeber my first Hindi movie as such but i think it was “Hum hain rahi pyaar ke” I can watch this over and over again.
How do you keep up with food trends across the world and incorporate it in Dubai?
Keep reading and keep up with trend to be able to be innovative and help stimulate your brain cells. Talk to people, talk to colleagues, interaction and viewpoints are always very important especially the people who work at the lowest rung of the ladder. They know the real deal. Travelling is very essential and visiting the local cult joints to understand the history and geography of cuisine and real ethnic savours. I love street food and am never shy to try them.
What are your plans at expansion across the world and the UAE?
We are opening Mohalla in KSA, Morini in Riyadh and Mohalla in USA. As for now no expansion as such in UAE as we are concentrating in Saudi and opening 2-5 restaurants in the coming year. We might have an amazing project with an amazing chef in Dubai in 2021. I am also working on a bar project for Dubai revolving around technology.