W L INTERVIEW
BBC
AN INTERVIEW WITH NISHA KATONA
Nisha Katona, founder of Mowgli Street Food restaurants, author and television presenter talks to Wirral Life in an exclusive interview.
Where did your story begin? I was born in 1971 growing up in a village on the outskirts of Skelmersdale in Lancashire, where my parents were Indian doctors, part of a wave who came to Britain in the 1960s to take up jobs as GPs. Indian food was hard to get – turmeric was only available from a chemist, and for garlic and ginger we’ d have to travel to Manchester. We were the only Indians in the village. My earliest memory was of a brick being thrown through the window with‘ Paki’ written on it. Twice a week we’ d have firebombs thrown at us as we played in the garden. It was the norm, and it was terrifying.
I remember my mother saying that on the way to surgery someone was shouting and throwing stones at her, and then she got in and that was her first patient. Skip forward to my first work placement, and I found that prejudice still existed, just more politely expressed. After my first day, the head of chambers sent a note to my pupil mistress saying,‘ Your pupil is female and Asian. You need to tell her she has no place at the Bar.'
I had a very happy childhood, despite the taunts, and I went on to become the first female Asian barrister in Liverpool. I think many immigrants of my generation have this kind of resilience. I sailed into a blissful 20-year career as a child protection barrister. I had security, esteem and stimulation. As an older woman, with two grown children and a busy guitarist husband at 47 years old, one wants a comfortable rut. A rut of safety and contentment. For entrepreneurs like me however something will always howl in the night.
I opened the first Mowgli back on Bold Street Liverpool in 2014 when I was still working full time as a Barrister. We expanded quickly to Manchester just a year later in 2015 and are currently working towards our 7th site due to open in Sheffield in the Autumn. Having been priced out of a local shopping centre, I began to look in the hinterlands, the bohemian districts of Liverpool and found the site and a landlord that would take a risk. The rest is history and we are pursuing our dream to become a national voice for good, home style, fresh, clean Indian food.
You were originally trained and worked for many years as a barrister, what triggered the massive, risky leap into food and becoming a restaurateur? There was always an eddy that ran alongside my love for the law.
It should have been a silly daydream, but it became loud and bold. It related to the base matter of real Indian food which, in Britain, sits in a shrouded and misunderstood corner. I wanted to build a restaurant that was modelled on an Indian home kitchen and this swirling mission would not let me sleep. I gathered together all my savings and built my first restaurant while still working the day shift at the Bar. I would finish court and, in my suit, don a high vis and hard hat, sand floors, train chefs and plan menus.
I have always been passionate about Indian food, but not the stuff of curry houses. What is peddled in curry houses is a far cry from the way Indians actually eat at home and on their streets. Our food is actually fresh, light, delicate and extremely healthy which are not words the UK would ever associate with“ curry”. I became a curry evangelist, and spent time giving lessons in the ancient light curry formulas of India alongside my full-time job as a barrister.
How long did it take before you thought, ' this is gonna work '? During those opening few months, I’ d finish in court, then put on high vis and a hard hat. That’ s the hard bit for anyone flipping careers – you do both for a while. Do not presume that you will succeed until there is evidence that you will. It was only three months in, when queues began snaking outside the restaurant, that I took the plunge. I remember the moment at which I looked around and I had this team of 30 staff who lived and breathed Mowgli, and there was me still going and doing the odd case in the morning. And that was kind of obscene.
You ' ve expanded your hugely successful concept to six restaurants so far across the UK, if you could open a Mowgli anywhere, where would be you ' re dream location? We have many followers across the nation who are calling for the smash and grab of the Mowgli home kitchen. We are not everyone’ s cup of tea, but we go where our consumers and followers want us. I still always immediately fall for something or hate it within two minutes. I’ m still a new businesswoman so I need to learn, and I need to understand it better. People often mention going abroad, but my dream right now, my priority, is getting the UK right first.
Where did your love of real Indian cooking come from? I have always been obsessed with the way nations cooked. The anthropology and social genesis of what they created and how they created it. My love of food combined with my forensic love
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