The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Now hotel industry with global yet local flavour CITY PULSE

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Tuesday, Jun 19, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Now hotel industry with global yet local flavour CITY PULSE

City Bureau

Food for thought: City’s appetites have become more complex in the fast changing modern times

A NEW RECEIPE: Rising incomes and changing lifestyles are making eating-out a regular option for several families in Chennai.

CHENNAI: Globalisation has come to Chennai on a platter... quite literally. And, given its famous trait of not fully letting go of the past when embracing the new, the city can now boast of a cuisine spread that offers the best of both, nay, many worlds.

The old-fashioned and the new-fangled coexist in the city’s booming hotel industry: From your conventional go-to restaurant in a Mylapore bylane when the mood suggests idli and sambar, the modest restaurants that serve Andhra, Bombay or Kerala meals and authentic dhabbas, to pizza chains, KFC outlets and the upmarket hotels with crossover cuisines.

Whatever the food fixation, the industry seems to have the right recipes. The city’s population is much more heterogeneous in profile than it was a few decades ago. And, its tastes have correspondingly become more complex.

In an era of nuclear families and working parents, eating out is making more sense than it did a few years ago. Homemakers like middle-aged Shanta in T. Nagar buy food from the various caterers in West Mambalam. “They provide rasam, sambar, two vegetable dishes and even tiffin items for the night. They are not expensive either. I can spend my time productively. I only cook rice and make coffee.” She also experiments with the various caterers in the area.

The demand has resulted in a mushrooming of roadside eateries, fast food joints and speciality restaurants across the city.

According to the Chennai Corporation’s data, the city has about 35,000 eating establishments, of which 20,000 are in the unorganised sector. About 1.5 lakh workers are employed in the industry.

According to the civic body’s estimates, over 50 per cent of the city’s roughly 60-lakh population eat out daily. This includes a large number of people, who consume snacks, tea and coffee from small restaurants and roadside eateries, said Corporation Health Officer P. Kuganantham.

Though the city might lack the original street food culture of Kolkata, Mumbai or New Delhi, it more than makes up with its share of ‘kaiyendi bhavans’. The most prominent additions to the city’s street eateries in recent years have been the ubiquitous biriyani centres. It is also a pointer to the increasing patronage for non-vegetarian food in the city.

And, for those who find hotels too crowded to enjoy the food, there is always the alternative of convenience foods.

If projections are to be believed, the city could soon have more hotels, each as crowded as the other. The boom in IT and medical tourism industries is expected to fuel more investments in the hotel and hospitality sectors.

M.P. Purushothaman, president, South India Hotels and Restaurants Association, said that Chennai at present had 85 approved hotels with 6,000 rooms from the five-star deluxe to one-star category. . The industry would need to add another 4,000 rooms if it were to meet the CII projections for 2010.

While there is general optimism among the hoteliers about the long-term prospects of the industry, several big names in the industry as well as new entrants have finalised plans for new facilities across the country including Southern India.

Interestingly, old-fashioned hotels have survived change, remaining the same through the decades. For instance, Ratna Café continues to be more or less what it was when it opened about 60 years ago. Sticking to the core speciality — idlis and sambar — has had the loyals content and won over new patrons.

The booming hotel industry has also increased the complexity of the Corporation’s tasks in regulating food quality and hygiene.

Recently, it launched a food handlers licensing programme for waiters, cooks and kitchen staff in eating establishments. The food handlers will be given a licence after they undergo medical tests and take vaccinations for contagious diseases. They will also be trained in personal hygiene and safe handling of food. ‘We plan to take food handlers to model restaurants in the city to show how food is prepared. It is proposed to visit a range of hotels including Saravana Bhavan, Savera, Ponnusamy and Anjappar, to show how food is organised and stored,’ said the Health Officer.

Food inspectors conduct surprise raids on hotels to check if the food is prepared and handled in a safe way.

If members of the public find that an eating joint serves unsafe food, they can prefer a complaint with the Additional Health Officers, who can be reached at the Corporation zonal office concerned.

(With inputs from T.S. Shankar, Karthik Subramanian, Kannal Achuthan, Meera Srinivasan and M. Dinesh Varma)

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