Date:22/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/02/22/stories/2006022203380800.htm

Back Speciality Restaurants plans new chain to revive old recipes

Sudha Menon

Pune , Feb. 21

SPECIALITY Restaurants, the company that owns multiple restaurant brands including Mainland China in Mumbai and Kolkata, is all set to launch `Sigree', a new restaurant chain that will revive the long-forgotten recipes that were part of undivided India's culinary legacy.

The company has also firmed up plans to foray into the `mall chinese' business with Haka, a new chinese fast-food chain which it plans to roll out across the country in a couple of years, the Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Anjan Chatterjee, told Business Line on Tuesday. Sigree, the new Indian restaurant "will bring back to Indian palates the magic of slow cooked Peshawari food with a modern twist in the form of low oil", Mr Chatterjee said.

Connoisseurs of good food in Pune will be the first to partake of char-grilled bektis and nehari gosht from the new restaurant a 220 seater, which is scheduled to open here in the first week of April. Next stop for `Sigree' will be Chennai where it will open out of a location above sibling Mainland China on Sterling road in June before it goes to Bangalore in September.

"We have already firmed up plans for Kolkata after that, and will then look at cities such as Hyderabad," Mr Chatterjee said. Sigree will be launched in Mumbai at a location next to the In Orbit mall in suburban Andheri. The company will spend over Rs. 5 crore on rolling out the initial outlets of Sigree depending on the location and price of property, Mr Chatterjee said.

Speciality Restaurants is also simultaneously working towards launching of a Chinese fast food chain along the lines of American chains such as Panda Express where customers can walk in and expect to be served starters and main course within five minutes of their order. Mr Chatterjee said the first Haka outlet will open at Pune's International Convention Center (ICC) in three months from now and add another mall location in a few months in Pune. The Haka brand will be rolled out through the franchisee route according to Mr Chatterjee, who said plans are to set up at least 48 such outlets in the next 18 months. "With malls mushrooming everywhere and customer footfalls the maximum in malls these days, it presents a huge opportunity for fast food chains like this," he said. Haka will come up Mumbai's upscale shopping destination, Phoenix Mills and in Andheri in six months from now, he added.

Speciality Restaurants owns restaurant brands such as sea food speciality `Oh! Calcutta', `Mostly Kababas', `Just Biryani' and `Sweet Bengal'.