These Chefs Moved Into Their Workplace To Feed the City and Its Migrants

For 22-year-old Siloj Kumal, ‘home’ is a vague concept at the moment. It’s a rented room with two others in Mumbai’s Wadala. It’s in Tikapur in Kailali district, which is two hours from Kathmandu in Nepal, where his family lives. But for now, it’s also the interiors of a 2,500-square-foot experimental dining space in Byculla in Mumbai, where he has been living with around 10 other staffers since March 26, and making food for people stuck under the lockdown. “I couldn’t really go home because the government had sealed the borders,” Kumal tells VICE, “And ghar pe baithke kantaal aa raha tha (I was getting bored sitting at home).”

Over the last few months, even as several restaurants and commercial kitchens had to close down because of the lockdown, a few remained open to meet the demands of online food orders, despite the risks. And Magazine Street Kitchen (MSK), where Kumal works, was one of them. In fact, the co-cooking space with a kitchen-on-hire, bakery and events venue, had downed their shutters much before the lockdown, and most of the staff had already made their way back home.

But Kumal had a long way to go. “[It takes] almost two days to Kathmandu from Mumbai, and then two more hours from there to my village,” he says. So he stayed put, spending days talking to his family or just hanging out at home. Ten days after they shut down, he got a call from his employer at MSK, prominent Mumbai restaurateur Gauri Devidayal, who asked him if he was still around. “A lot of our staff had already gone home and we wanted to open up the option to deliver food, since that was part of essential services. But we also wanted to ensure that whoever comes into the restaurant does so while observing the best safety practices,” Devidayal told VICE. After the chat, Kumal packed up and moved into the restaurant.

Together, the minimal MSK staff—four chefs at the moment, along with a few utility staff and a guard—is doing more than just keeping the business afloat even as they live out of the dining area, which has now been converted to a sleeping zone. Not only are they taking regular orders of customers on apps like Scootsy—which total to around 200 a day—but they are also a part of a nationwide campaign called #FeedTheNeedy, initiated by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI). Through this, the MSK staffers are making special food packages for the disenfranchised and underprivileged, especially those left with little resources under the lockdown and pandemic. “We did actual food distribution in a drive parallel to the #FeedTheNeedy campaign, in which the idea is for the restaurants that have the infrastructure to cook food, to provide to the needy,” says Devidayal, who, along with MSK, also runs prominent Mumbai establishments such as The Table, Magazine Street Bread Company, Mei 13 and Iktara (all of which reopened for delivery services post lockdown).

Together, Devidayal and the staff have put together approximately 100 special food packages per day over the last two months, to be distributed. “The packages have a balanced meal of dal-khichdi, some vegetables, pickle, etc. One package can feed one to two people,” says Devidayal, also adding that the distribution has slowed down considerably as many migrants are managing to make their way back home as the lockdown has eased up and special trains are being arranged.

But orders continue to stream in. And under this “new normal”—which includes the merging of professional and personal space across the world—the MSK staff are working overtime, sometimes up to 12 hours, to make sure that everyone who orders gets their meals. Kumal, who heads the pastry section at MSK and loves to bake sourdough, croissants and burger buns, says this new schedule took some time to adjust to. “We do rest once a week. We need to catch up on our sleep, or wash our clothes, etc. Sometimes we play Ludo together on our phones to relax,” says Kumal. “We do miss home. Our families are scared, and it does feel weird that we haven’t stepped out since we moved in. But cooking makes me happy.”

In this duration, Devidayal feels she has bonded as much with the different departments as they have with each other. “We’ve even had a few birthday celebrations under lockdown,” she says. Even though the thought of home and uncertainty of these times are keeping people on the edge, the staffers at MSK are staying positive. “I know everyone is stuck, and there are migrants we have helped out, those who’re stuck without any resources. But it gives me happiness that I could help,” says Kumal. “I’m also a migrant in this city. I moved to Mumbai six years ago from Nepal. Those people out there are just like us. If I’ve fed some of them, I’ve done my bit.”

Follow Pallavi Pundir on Twitter.