Unassuming man, humble beginnings and simple food ethics—that’s life for Mirza Faqib, owner of Al-Bake restaurant. Unlike other restaurants, wherein successors inherit business, Faqib has merely joined in as an extra hand. He says, he could never in his lifetime, overtake his parents in any respect—business or otherwise.
His parents, Mirza Ziauddin Beg and Ishrat Ara, who came from Saudi Arabia, left much of their possessions there but for one thing—their penchant for cooking. “When they came to India many years ago, they had few resources, but abundant enthusiasm to make life work here,” says Faqib. It was with that idea that Al-Bake, which literally means all-baked, a restaurant that serves only baked dishes, started. “We have many dishes on our menu, but nothing sells like our shawarmas—vegetarian and non-vegetarian. To be honest, ours is an adaptation of the Lebanese shawarma and we had to improvise because people here wouldn’t have cared for the authentic recipe,” he says.
Having roots in a royal mughal family, father’s inherent interest in food helped Faqib a lot in the process of re-developing the dish. When in Saudi Arabia, he was introduced to many cuisines but the one dish he liked the most was shawarma. “You have to see the queues outside our restaurant. They’re self-explanatory. We knew that people would like what we had to offer but to this extent, we hadn’t fathomed,” says Faqib.
This family is certainly not part of the hoity toity brigade of new-age restaurateurs who prefer to not get their hands dirty. An engineer by profession, Faqib cooks and cleans along with his parents everyday at their restaurant. “Actually, we cannot afford not to. Our recipe is our bread and butter. As clichéd as it may sound, it’s top secret and I cannot even let you in on one single ingredient. We have to preserve this and maintain quality of food that goes off the kitchen counters. We have good chefs, but at the end of the day, being present in the kitchen is what helps,” he says, adding, “Another thing. Working alongside other chefs has many perks, one of them being unlimited gorging on our favourite food. You know which one I’m talking about.”
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> The Sunday Standard / by Ayesha Singh / July 26th, 2015