A tour of the kingdom

Ranjit Mathrani and Namita and Camellia Panjabi have a knack for running iconic restaurants in historic London locations. Can they save the Veeraswamy site too?

- By VIR SANGHVI

There are, wrote F Scott Fitzgerald, no second acts in American lives. I was reminded of this and about how it did not apply to Indian lives when I had lunch recently with Ranjit Mathrani at Amaya, one of the many restaurants he runs in London.

Mathrani has had many acts in his distinguished career. After he got his degree in Physics and Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge, he joined the British civil service and then moved to London, where he became the first person of Indian origin to become a director of a merchant bank.

That's a distinguished resume to begin with. But everything changed when he met Namita Panjabi on a visit to Mumbai. They married and Namita moved to London. They were both interested in food and Camellia, Namita's sister, was already a legend at the Taj group in India. So, why not start a high-end Indian restaurant?

Namita wanted to call the restaurant Indian Summer, but the author Gita Mehta suggested Chutney Mary and the Mathranis liked the name.

When Chutney Mary, with a menu that included Anglo-Indian dishes, opened, Namita was at the restaurant every day. But customers never came.

The Mathranis kept at it until Pat Chapman, of the then extremely influential Curry Club, gave it an award for being the best Indian restaurant in London. More rave reviews came pouring in. Chutney Mary was enough of a success for the Mathranis to take a chance on Veeraswamy.