Dev Gandhi

Hi Dev, how are you? I feel as though we have a lot to talk about. You're running two Instagram accounts, your personal one, and then another one called @abbioccooo.

Yes, @abbioccooo is basically a baby that I grew in my hometown. It started on my mom's birthday, 5th February 2017. Abbiocco means when you have a good meal and you are full and just want to just sit back. That's the feeling after you have really good food. I opened that because I was doing finance in my hometown an doing a Bachelor's in business, but I got so bored with it. When I had done two years at college, I decided to pursue my passion for cooking. I have always loved food. I used to love cooking for little occasions. But then I started thinking, you know what, I might be onto something. I started posting recipes, started doing blogs on Instagram. After six months of doing it, there was a little community growing. Someone saw a post and randomly asked me if I could take an order. I did not know how to take it because I was just doing it randomly. So that started and from there, after three years, I hit a hundred clients a month.

That was big for me because I was doing it from home. I decided to come to Melbourne to do this professionally because I thought that I have something that I want to use. I love food. I love baking. I wanted to see this side of me where I am doing the savoury side, the culinary side of it, not baking or pastry. So I came here to learn. That's my backstory.

And you went to Le cordon Bleu?

Yes, I went to Le Cordon Bleu in Melbourne.

Was that a year ago?

I did my certificate three. I'm still doing my certificate four. Basically, I'm doing that and working side by side. I'm working at with Delaware North for now.

Where's that?

Thats the MCG.

Oh, okay. So, big scale catering?

Big scale catering. Currently I'm hired there as a CDP and they're making me handle outlets. We do production together in a very big kitchen, and then we go to our outlets. So I get to handle one of the outlets. That's also very new experience for me, to actually manage something for the first time, not just the food, but two or three people. Its still a new experience for me. Its pretty good for me for now.

How great. I was just speaking to someone recently who said his advice for young chefs was to go to all kinds of different places; the large scale catering, cafes, restaurants, all of that. You're ticking boxes.

The last place I was working at was, I think one of the best places, and the best chefs that I've ever worked with. I was working at Botanical Hotel. I was working with a chef called Sam Hopkinson. I don't think I've ever seen such a calm chef. Before that, I was working at Bistro Thierry in Hawkesburn. The chef there was superb, very good. But he has his own way of doing things. He's French. Frederic. I think he taught me discipline in three months. I wouldn't have learned it in even 10 years somewhere else. The way he treated food so wisely. I was like, wow. The standard just goes higher, even if it's a best store. He loves the food he's serving and he would do anything for it. So that commitment for food came from there. And then I went to Botanical, starting in Larder. I think that was one of the hardest sections for me, because there was a lot of stuff. They used to do a lot of seafood. I had never filleted a fish before. So for me to learn that skill was new itself. Sam was so helpful. He learned in Japan, and I don't know if you know this, but Japanese chefs are very calm kind of people, and they're very patient with what they teach. Even if I might have slipped up so many times, he used to always say, Dev, listen, this is how we do it. This is the technique. From there, in two or three months, he shifted me to pans, which was a big moment for me, shifting sections. I knew I needed to know how to maintain the section well in order to move on to the next level of it.

What sort of things are you doing in pans?

Pans is hot. We were are doing pastas, seafood. I was doing, there was a flat grill as well. So we were doing a lot of fish. We did John Dory a lot. In the larder we were doing kingfish. But it wasnt just the food, but the way they taught me. Because we all do long hours, people work insanely in hospitality and that is something that inspires me to do more. A human can do so much. What I learned from that place was not just the food, but also the kind of chef I want to become. For me right now, I'm learning so many things. Even this conversation for me, I don't think that I deserve it. Talking to a person who wants to know my story is so random for me right now because I'm in a very different space. I'm still learning so much and you having so many good chefs on your page.

I think its interesting to hear someone at the start of their journey and to be reminded about some of those things, about what it's like to start out. Especially in a city like Melbourne where there are so many amazing restaurants and a lot of food writing, and amazing chefs. It's good to be reminded about starting out and putting in the hard work. Because another point is that people watch MasterChef or cooking shows and think they can go from zero to a hundred really fast. And as you say, you have to put in the hours.

I've loved my journey. I never thought that I could work so long for so many hours.

But isn't that regulated now? Should you be working for so many hours?

I'm doing 24 for now. But at the same time, it just came in in July, right? We need to do 24 hours only, before that we had unlimited hours. I've never seen Christmas in Melbourne. It goes mad, because it was so busy. I think that it was one of the wildest experiences I've ever had. I was at Botanical and there were two chefs in each section, and they had a separate menu going on. I think generally the service goes on for three hours and then there's a break, and then you prep and do the evening. This one went on for six hours and the pace never stopped. The dockets were flying everywhere. I was like, how do you process this much? It is so important to have that experience and to see someone handling that, and seeing they're so capable of doing so much more.

You're studying and working? How many hours a week do you study?

I did my Certificate III from Le Cordon Bleu. Le Cordon Bleu is big commitment. It was the first time I ever sat on a bench for the whole year. I took notes every day and saw so many different things. And after that I was like, I have learned a lot of it. I learned a lot when I was on placement and so I thought I wanted to learn on the job. So I changed my college to Acumen, there is a college in city, and I am doing my Certificate IV there. The hours are, I have one practical and a couple of theory classes a week. That is two or three days sometimes. And then I get to work three days a week. Then I'm also working on this personal project that I just started about Cooking, Culture, Connection.

Tell me about that.

Cooking, Culture, Connection is a very, very fresh baby. We just started it one month back. The goal of that event is that we want people to come together. We want to explain the culture. If I've chosen South Indian food, or the next event is Egyptian food, we want to talk about the culture. We want to set the table according to what it would be like in our heads.We set menus, focussed menus. Then the people come in, they get to meet each other, and they connect there. There's already a common interest for food then basically they're meeting each other, they're talking about the food, and then we start playing little games where you talk to each other about your life and stuff. You bond around a family dinner table, that kind of a feeling.

And where is it held?

We just started off, so we are doing it from our own homes. We are setting up dinners for six to eight people, setting a dinner table, and then people come in. Thats in Docklands for now.

When you say we, that's your friend and you?

My friend's name is Harsh. He's not in this field. He's in construction. Okay. But during Covid, he found this insane passion for food. A lot of chefs were born during the Covid phase. His passion is cooking, but he's stuck in a different job. So he wants this to be the outlet of his passion. He was my client in my hometown in India.

What part of India is that?

Gujarat, next to Bombay. It's in the West. When I used to sell food there, he used to buy food from me. So that's how we know each other. When I came to Melbourne a year and a half back, we connected once again. He had this idea to start something like that on a small scale. As an international student coming in, there's so much going on budget wise and you need to manage that time or commitment to do something new while your other things are going on. There's a job going on, there's studies going on. I really need to be passionate to do this.

You also need a lot of hours in the day because that's a lot.

24 is just less. We seem to manage it. Hes very helpful in his own way. He loves cooking food. We both respect each other's work because he has this hustling mindset of, I want to go and meet people. Even while I was coming here, I told him I was going to meet you. He was really excited because he loves meeting new people. We were similar in our thinking that we needed to do something with food. But we want to do something where it's not just food, it's hospitality. Hospitality starts from a simple dinner table, doesn't it? How you treat people at your home really shows how you treat people outside. That's what we really want to deliver in this; I want you to feel at home, but at the same time, you're going tobe served some of the best food. And we will serve it with a smile.

Is it an entree, main and dessert?

For now we are doing four course menus. We start with a canape and a welcome drink. That's our first course. That's where you get the ice breaking session where people meet each other, introduce each other. Then you shift to the dinner table where you get your entree and people are eating and having a chat. We have little cards with questions that we want each other to ask. We have little notes and a whole menu where there's a description of each dish and people ask us questions. That goes on for 45 minutes. Then the main comes out. We've always decided for the Main, it's going to always be big bowls. Everyone's going toget served, of course, but it's going tobe like a family thing where everyone gets to pick their food. Then we finish with dessert. Desserts are my speciality, because I used to sell them in India. Harsh completely trusts me with desserts, so I do the desserts by myself. That's the flow.

How are you researching the cuisine? So far you've had an Indian one.

South Indian.

So that was a bit closer to home, but for the Egyptian one, how have you gone about deciding what to cook?

Whatever we are trying to cook is something you wouldn't find in restaurants. It has to be local and street food with a modern touch. We're not going to change the main ingredients of it. We just want to make sure that when two ingredients combine, they make sense together. We research the ingredients, we sort some of the dishes, and then we start thinking, okay, do we want to do fusion of two Egyptian dishes together, or do you just want to do this as a traditional one? For example, we are doing koshari, an Egyptian dish, which is a mixture of pasta, beans, lentils with a spiced tomato curry that goes on top. Its a family meal that we're doing. When we researched it, we saw it was how people in ancient times used to have their food. Everything's mixed together and everyone gets to eat everything. Were going for that in our main course. We find out which region it is from. What we are trying to do is going to give you a little piece of the history or the culture it represents.

Do you get that from YouTube, Instagram, books?

We have recipe books. We obviously Google some of it, and Instagram as well. Even Twitter helps because there are so many locals talking about it. I found it very interesting seeing that people talking on Twitter, even Reddit for that matter, there are food pages on it. Even Facebook has some pages that talk about all these things. We try to get different perspectives and make our own with that. We are still learning stage. We can make mistakes. But I don't want to stop this out of the fear that we are going tobe wrong. We are going to push it and try to get a big thing going on later.

And who's your clientele? How do people find you?

For now, we are trying to use Instagram, and we are trying to go to Meetups. There are different types of meet Meetups. We talk to the host and ask how they get people coming in? That way we can network.

But obviously they pay?

Yes. We are charging $30 to $40 for the whole thing, because we just started off. Then we sometimes get random people hitting us up on Instagram, so that is also a lead. We are trying to collaborate with other meetups as well. If someone's taking people camping and they need food, we can try and supply some food. That way people start knowing that we are doing this. It can be as basic as sandwiches or cookies, but it's just that they know what the story is.

Do you have to have a certified kitchen for that?

Yes. I've done Certificate III luckily and I have food safety.

There's a lot to think about, isn't there when you're doing these things? It sounds like you're really tapping into different markets as well. The camping one's an interesting idea. What would be your hope? Would you want to keep doing this kind of thing? Or would you like to have your own restaurant? What's your ideal?

My ideal would be to create a community of genuine people who really understand what we are doing. Then later on, once the snowball effect has started, we can think about growing this into a small van. And if the van snowballs into something bigger, then we a small shop, or a cafe. That probably will take a lot of time. But once we research enough, once we know enough about what we are doing, we can think about opening a restaurant in the future. That would be with Harsh. I like Abbioccooo, I want keep that going as well. But that would be more, not catering, more for parties, not hosting events. It would be tapping into a different sort of crowd. This one's for food enthusiasts. And this one would be more like if you're hosting something, you want this amount of food. The third thing is I want to do, is a job where I learn everything I can so that I can give the other two meaning. Because that's where the meaning comes from. Me working somewhere, learning from a chef. And that's where I understand, okay, it's not just loving food, it's about how you treat it every day. It's so important to know that once you're home from a busy shift – and I can tell you 95% of chefs eat shit food when they go home – but for me when I'm home, I want to make sure that I'm eating right. I'm making sure that I'm okay with my body so that my mind's okay to give out. I'm trying to work on that routine where I can manage all three and have a personal life at the same time. Because all of this gives meaning to it. Or else my day would be a little boring. I'm doing things continuously. I have the time and I want to do it. Like you, you came from a job directly, which is insane as well. You are also doing something that isnt work for you. It is something you like.

Exactly. That's it. Going back to your mum, because you started Abbioccooo on her birthday. Is she a great cook?

Yes. I think the magic happened when she made me taste her food again and again. Then I started getting interested and I thought, this is not normal food. This is really, really tasty. I give her major credit for the way they brought me up because it's very frowned upon in India to change career. My dad has a business, and the whole family does the same business in India. What happens is you are the next one. I'm the only child, so I'm going togo into the business directly. That's going to happen. For me to break that pattern and come here was a big thing. My mom supported me very much in this. Her seeing that I love food, she defended everything. People would come and ask why I was doing this. Even my own family telling me that I had a business going and shouldn't do this. But she was always protecting me. I absolutely like that she backs me because I needed someone to support me that way. Mom is an awesome cook, and a better supporter. Even dad for that matter. But yes.

What is some food that you remember growing up with?

I have this thing that every Sunday we used to meet at my mom's mom, my maternal grandparent. We used to have this family meal going on where we had potatoes, basically cut in the form of chips and cooked with Indian spices. We have a mango paste and we have semolina and water and baking soda mixed in and we used to dip that into the mango paste and have it. I always used to overeat those things, and that's why I gained weight. But that with some roti or bread and having rice and a lentil curry, which was a kind of sweet thing. I remember this because every Sunday I used to overeat so much that my mom had to say, stop, you're going to get food again. This is not your last meal. I would say, mom, I just don't know. I can't seem to stop. Every time I go back home, the first and the last meal has to be this. I have this the first time I arrive back and when I'm going, I have to have this. And my mom makes amazing red Thai curry. She has amazing cooking skills, not just for Indian food, but all these international curries. I wasnt used to those things and she made me taste it. All her sisters love food, so they always search for different things. And they come from a time when Google wasnt a big thing, so they used to find it in newspapers. My mom's dad has a whole folder of recipes. He died in Covid, but he has a whole folder of the newspapers from 1960s with the recipes. He cut those out and kept the folder with 200 to 250 recipes. Those are not on the internet. Those are like handwritten ones. I have that folder and it's so close to my heart. That's like a gold mine.

That's good. You obviously come from a pedigree of food and you want to share that with everyone.

Of course. I recently participated in the World Food Championship.

Tell me more about that. What is that?

It's a culinary event where there were several categories of food competitions. I participated in the vegetarian one, but there were other things going on. I had to apply online. These guys ask about your favourite dish, what you know about it and what's your inspiration for cooking? Then they decide the contestants according to If they like the answer. Then they bring in the top 10, and you compete. I had to create dishes that come from across the world, that's what the world part of it is. It's not a culinary competition, it's a world thing. They want something from every culture or possibly a fusion of something around the world. I opened a book and started writing things and made my own dishes in my head. It was my first competition ever. It was a very good experience. I got the thrill of cooking in one hour. Its not MasterChef, but it was still the feeling of being ready with two, with your own mindset, of okay, this is the dish you wanted to do. And reaching that goal in one hour was amazing.

And what did you do?

The first dish I did was a potato rosti here, but it's a mixed vegetable rosti that I combined with corn starch so that it got really crispy. I made sure all the liquid was out. And it was served with broccoli puree, roasted pumpkin infused with a little garlic and orange slices. That's also a dish that comes from my hometown, one of my mom's sisters made this dish.I thought about that dish and changed the things in it, but the feeling was the same. The second dish was probably one of the best dishes I think that I have ever done. It was a herb, rosemary infused tart, basically green in colour completely, filled with mushroom and cheddar custard, topped with chives spinach pesto and there was a glaze of orange caramel on the bottom with some orange segments around it and zest. That was a very good dish for me.

Where was it?

The Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

Who runs it?

I think it's run by people from the US. One of them is going on in Sydney right now, 30th and 31st August. The people who win get a chance to go to Dallas for the World Food Championship in their category. I think people running it are from there. John McFerrin won the seafood category last year for the world. He went to Dallas and he won $100k dollars for winning that competition. He was the judge this time and very wise, very nice. He was very helpful. It gives me bonus or practical points doing it outside. Doing it at home, it's way easier. But when I did it in front of 10 people, I was under pressure. Even in kitchens, people are not seeing you that way. I kept overthinking it and washing my hands all the time.

Do you think you'll do more competitions?

I want to. I want to participate in MasterChef, but I can't because I've done Certificate III. And I don't have PR here. Because of that, they don't allow us to participate.

I think there's a lot of other competitions though.

Yes. I'm trying to get in as many as I can because I love the thrill from the first one. I think that's where I can actually get all the information that I've learned outside on the plate. That's the goal. Its not about winning. It's fine if I lose. It's just the experience that I get out of it that matters to me.