Star chef Ranveer Brar was thrown out of his Boston restaurant, lost everything overnight; reveals grandfather’s advice that keeps him grounded: ‘Ek baar zameen dekh le…’

During the podcast, Allahbadia brought up how people often romanticise the culinary world. “Often, when someone wants to enter the food industry, they have a very glamorous outlook on it – but that’s not the reality,” he said, asking Brar about the grind behind reaching where he and chef Vikas Khanna are today.

Brar responded saying, “You, me, Vikas, we are all the final products that people look at and say, ‘Well, that’s what I want to be.’ But there was a journey to the product before it got to the showroom,” and went on to explain that in India, people focus too much on product marketing, the glossy end result, rather than journey marketing, which tells the story of how one got there. This, he feels, creates unrealistic idols for the youth, who aspire to the success but remain unaware of the path it takes.

Brar then recalled one of the darkest periods of his life, his struggling days in the United States. He revealed that after his restaurant in Boston shut down due to a fallout with his partners, he found himself on the streets. “My restaurant in Boston crashed. We had a fallout, and I was thrown out of the restaurant by the partners,” he shared. For a while, he had nowhere to go and slept on benches, surviving each day without certainty about the next.

Looking back, Brar calls that time a turning point in his life, one that humbled him and reshaped his attitude toward success. “Those days taught me not to take myself too seriously. Even though it was tough, I actually enjoyed the phase because it taught me so much.”

When Allahbadia asked how he keeps himself grounded today, Brar replied with a smile, “Main roz koshish karta hoon ki ek baar auto mei baith jaaun.” (“Every day, I try to take an auto-rickshaw at least once.”)

He then shared a lesson from his grandfather that continues to guide him through life: “Jab tere ko lage na ki tu bohot bada zameendaar hai, toh ek baar zameen ko dekh le. Woh tabhi degi jab tu kaam karega zameen pe, warna kabhi bhi flood aa sakta hai, kabhi bhi sookha pad sakta hai, and you are zero.” (“Whenever you start feeling like a big landlord, just look at the land once. It will only yield for you if you work on it; otherwise, a flood or drought can wipe everything out, and you’re back to zero.”)

Brar explained that this philosophy keeps him anchored, and at home, his parents are his “zameen.” “Kabhi bhi apne ko lage toh maa baap ko dekh lo, set ho jaati hai life.” (“Whenever I start feeling too full of myself, I just look at my parents, everything falls back into place.”)