The Bombay Pantry has brought the Indian takeaway to new heights - and now plans to expand into north Dublin. Marie-Claire Digby reports.
It's 7pm, homework supervision is proving a challenge, it has been a long, hard day, and dinner preparations aren't yet under way. What do you do? Raiding the freezer or opting for a dial-up dinner are the most popular options. If you're fortunate enough to live within the catchment area of the three Bombay Pantry Indian restaurants in Dublin, you can order a guilt-free meal that has been cooked to order and contains no additives or preservatives.
Bombay Pantry first opened its doors in 1997 in a single modest outlet in Glenageary. Its reputation spread quickly. Critical acclaim was matched by customer loyalty, and further outlets have opened in Rathmines and Clonskeagh. "We're actively looking for sites in north and west Dublin - we just missed out on a site in Clontarf. Our aim is to have three new shops in the next 18 months, and the northside of Dublin is a priority," says Emma Sheehan, who recently took on a marketing and business development role with the company, having worked for the past 10 years in the software industry: "The company I was working for made us all redundant and moved to India, ironically."
The career change is proving to be a good move for Sheehan, who has already launched a number of new initiatives based on the feedback from an extensive customer survey, the results of which are posted on the walls of the three shops.
"I kept thinking everything was fine with the menu, but the comment card showed we needed more variety," head chef Vivek Sahni admits. As a result, two special, off-menu dishes are now on offer every day. "It keeps the chefs interested, and allows them to be creative, too," says Sahni, who together with Emma's father, John Sheehan, former proprietor of The Queen's, an award-winning pub and restaurant in Dalkey, owns 75 per cent of the company.
A range of cook-chill meals, which can be reheated in an oven or microwave, and fresh sauces packed in tubs, ready to be paired with your choice of meat or vegetables, are other responses to customer demand. "Customers really don't want to wait, and at times we're so busy they can't even get through on the phone," Emma Sheehan says. The cook-chill meals are already available from Bombay Pantry outlets, and will be stocked by several shops in Dublin from mid-May, with countrywide availability to follow. The initial stockists are Nolans of Clontarf; Mace in the IFSC; Eurospar in Lucan; JC Savage in Swords and Patterson's on Foxrock Avenue. In addition, they are available from a selection of butchers - Justin Loughnane in Foxrock; John O'Reilly's of Mount Merrion and Michael Byrne of Sandymount.
A centralised kitchen is the next move in the Bombay Pantry expansion plan, and although the base sauces will be made in bulk there and transported daily to the retail outlets, the meals will still be cooked to order - from the elaborately spiced and seasoned main courses down to the naan bread.
Self-raising flour, homemade yogurt, milk and vegetable oil are combined to make this Indian staple, and Bombay Pantry's naan breads are freshly made, hand-rolled and cooked only when ordered. You can tell your takeaway is the genuine article if the nan breads have the distinctive hole in the centre, which comes from the hook used to retrieve it from the side of the blisteringly hot tandoor oven. "The tandoor is the nerve centre of the kitchen," Sahni explains. "It has a thermostat, but our chefs don't use it; we just go by experience."
Experience is something that is in plentiful supply in the airy, open-plan Bombay Pantry kitchens. The chefs are mostly Indian, and all veterans of top-class hotel kitchens in their homeland. Customers are encouraged to watch the team in action at the industrial burners and the tandoor ovens. The Glenageary premises, which has doubled in size since the initial opening, has full-length, floor-to-ceiling windows on to the street, and it's not unusual to see a line of children with their noses pressed to the glass as the kitchen team go about their business just inches away.
Probably the best endorsement for Bombay Pantry's menu is its popularity with Dublin's growing Indian community. "A lot of our Indian customers order vegetarian food, and they want it hot. The northern Indians eat more breads while in the south they eat rice. We can usually make out from their order where they are from," Sahni notes.
The Irish customers, too, are showing signs of regional preferences. "In Glenageary we get a lot of business from families, so the orders can be a bit conservative. They're very loyal customers, many have been with us for eight years," Emma Sheehan explains. "Clonskeagh is similar to Glenageary, but the Rathmines shop gets more adventurous orders, and they eat hotter food there, too."
Free samples are being sent out with midweek orders to entice regular customers to try something new, and Sheehan notes that she is beginning to see a response to her attempts to broaden the Irish palate, before adding: "but it will be a long time before tikka masala is overtaken as the top seller."
Bombay Pantry: Unit 2 Glenageary Shopping Centre, 01-2856683; 14 Rathgar Road, Rathmines, 01-4969695; 107 Clonskeagh Road, 01-2607885; www.bombaypantry.com