MKT, New Delhi
Four kitchens and a bar under one roof, planned as one business.
Read →THE F&B PRACTICE
EXC
ELS
IOR
The table is an asset.
A restaurant is a thesis served nightly. We write the thesis, build the room that argues it, and keep the accounts that prove it — sixty-five times so far, on four continents.
65
ROOMS OPENED — EACH WRITTEN FROM NAME TO NAPKIN
★
MICHELIN — A STAR AT CAMPTON PLACE, SAN FRANCISCO
Hot Tables
CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER — THE ONLY TABLE IN THE MALDIVES ON THE LIST
85%
OF F&B GROWTH CARRIED TO PROFIT AT THE PALACES — APPETITE WITH ARITHMETIC
I · THE VENUES
Written, not advised upon.
The house does not hand a client a deck and a wish. Name, cuisine, bar programme, kitchen drawings, china and glass, the service book, the pro forma, the opening calendar — one hand, one document trail. A selection:
READ A CONCEPT BRIEF · OZUMO →MKT at Chanakya
A GOURMET DISTRICT UNDER ONE ROOF — IDEA TO OPENING IN NINETY DAYS
NEW DELHI
Deep End
CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER HOT TABLES — THE ATOLLS' ONLY ENTRY
MALDIVES
Perbacco
ITALIAN, BROUGHT TO THE CAPITAL WITH CHEF ADRIANO BALDASSARRE
NEW DELHI
ERAWAAN
FLAGSHIP OF A PORTFOLIO REBUILT — WITH PICKWICK, JADE, AURA & LUTYENS DELI
THE CLARIDGES
Sheesh Mahal
THE ROYAL KITCHENS RETURNED TO THE TABLE, RECIPE BY RECIPE
LEELA PALACE UDAIPUR
Rockfish & KOI
TWO DESTINATION ROOMS OPENED UNDER THE FIRST FIRM, OVERTURE
GOA
Frangipani · India Jones · Opium Den
FIVE ROOMS RETHOUGHT IN FOURTEEN MONTHS ON MARINE DRIVE
TRIDENT NARIMAN POINT
The Oberoi Wine Dossier
CELLAR PRICING REBUILT ON CONTRIBUTION, NOT MULTIPLIERS
UDAIVILAS
MKT AT CHANAKYA — THE MARKET AS THEATRE
TWELVE COUNTERS — EACH ITS OWN SMALL HOUSE
THE BAR BOOK, COMPOSED LIKE THE MENU
II · THE ENGAGEMENT, IN FOUR COURSES
Served whole, or course by course.
Each course is complete in itself; together they are the whole life of a room.
FIRST COURSE
Before a Brick
PROVE THE IDEA
◇The concept, written as a thesis
◇Who the room is for, and against whom it competes
◇The pro forma that must survive committee
◇Site, terms and tenancy
◇Permissions, cover to cover
◇The first drawings of the space
SECOND COURSE
The Making
BUILD TO THE BRIEF
◇Interiors and the working kitchen, drawn together
◇Builders and suppliers held to the brief
◇Everything the room touches — furniture to flatware
◇The name, the mark, the collateral
◇The menus, food and bar, costed line by line
◇What the team wears, and why
THIRD COURSE
The Opening
REHEARSE, THEN ADMIT
◇The team, found and formed
◇House rules in writing
◇The service book, drilled to habit
◇Dress rehearsals before a single paying cover
◇A first hundred nights with the authors present
FOURTH COURSE
The Keeping
PROVE IT, MONTHLY
◇Stewardship after the applause
◇The accounts, examined
◇The kitchen and cellar, audited
◇The building, walked and checked
III · THE DISCIPLINES
Eight crafts behind every cover.
New rooms and tired ones; hotels, standalones, bars and estates that need a restaurant more than they know.
◇Concept authorship
The idea given a name, a statement of intent, an audience and a business model — clear enough that architect, chef and accountant all build the same room.
◇Menus that earn their keep
Dishes guests return for, priced on what each plate contributes — not on custom, and never on a flat multiple.
◇The scientific kitchen
Capacity planned to the seat count, layouts drawn to the order flow, equipment chosen on utilisation and return — the back of house as an investment, not a cost centre.
◇Tired rooms, turned
Labour and larder examined, the menu's mix dissected, the brand reset, the team retrained — and the honest recommendation when a concept should close.
◇Counsel to developers
Dining as the amenity that carries an estate: which operators to admit, what the market will bear, and the numbers a lender will accept.
◇Strategy for the long table
Positioning, growth, catering and delivery thought through before launch — and the road from one address to several, taken at the right speed.
◇Capital and its questions
The investor deck, the raise, the diligence on both sides of the table — and forensic work when the figures deserve suspicion.
◇People, world-class
Chefs, bartenders and heads of house found, formed and accompanied — with a span of care closer to a private cabin than a call centre.
IV · THE METHOD
From conviction to covers.
The same spine as every Excelsior mandate: the idea is written down, costed, built to its brief, rehearsed, and then audited for as long as it trades.
The written concept
Vision, brand grammar, guest journey and target audience set down first — with the complete business case beside it.
Counsel to the drawings
Briefs to the architect and designers, reviews of every plan and layout — adding value to the vision rather than critique to the margins.
Eyes on the site
Presence through construction, measuring progress against the positioning statement — the intent, not merely the drawings.
The rehearsal
Standards, recruitment, training, distribution and the launch calendar — the whole opening practised before the room admits its first guest.
The seven-year ledger
Revenues, departmental profit, cash flow and the ratios an investment committee expects — projected before opening, examined monthly ever after.
Course correction
From opening night to engaged stewardship: audits, refinements, repositioning — and scale only when the first room has earned the second.
V · THE WINE DOCTRINE
Price wine like you respect the guest.
A conviction refined over decades of cellars — from the Oberoi wine dossier at Udaivilas to every list the practice has priced since. It is offered here so the trade can learn it, use it, and pass it on.
The instrument is a single grid: a sliding multiplier that fixes the house's absolute contribution in rupees, and lets the percentage fall away as the bottle rises.
People do not get rich by being fooled. The guest who can afford a great bottle knows precisely what it costs in the world — they can verify it from their chair. Wine is a good with a perceived market value, and the guest carries that number into the room with them.
Be honest about what the house adds to a sealed bottle: cellarage, glass, temperature, a hand that pours. Very little. The establishment is a custodian of someone else's craftsmanship — and a custodian should not attempt a killing. The old habit of a flat 3–4× multiple asks the guest to be a fool, and the guest declines: the bottle sits, the cellar dies, and the list becomes decoration.
The damage runs past the cellar. Overprice the one item whose market value the guest knows, and they will assume the same markup on everything they cannot verify — the room, the spa, the laundry. One gouged bottle reprices the entire hotel in the guest's mind, and makes for a disgruntled guest. Priced fairly, the opposite compounds: the careful money sees genuine value and chooses to indulge. Good wine moves, enjoyment rises, an entire industry of growers and makers is supported — and the house earns more in absolute rupees than the proud 4× list ever produced. The multiplier grid below is the whole doctrine in one column of numbers.
THE PRICE MULTIPLIER GRID · BOTTLE COST → LIST MULTIPLE
₹1 – ₹550
× 2.75
64%
₹551 – ₹1,000
× 2.50
60%
₹1,001 – ₹2,000
× 2.25
56%
₹2,001 – ₹3,000
× 2.00
50%
₹3,001 – ₹5,000
× 1.75
43%
₹5,001 – ₹7,000
× 1.50
33%
₹7,001 – ₹10,000
× 1.40
29%
₹10,001 – ₹15,000
× 1.30
23%
₹15,001 – ₹25,000
× 1.20
17%
₹25,001 and above
× 1.15
13%
COST IN ₹ PER BOTTLE, LANDED · MARGIN SHOWN AS CONTRIBUTION SHARE OF LIST
THE TOOL · PRICE A BOTTLE
₹7,875
LIST PRICE
× 1.75
MULTIPLE APPLIED
₹3,375
CONTRIBUTION / BOTTLE
43%
MARGIN ON LIST
Read the grid from the guest's chair: the better the bottle they choose, the fairer the house becomes. That is how a cellar earns trust — and how trust fills rooms.
“The menu is the argument; the accounts are the verdict.”