A Life In 3 Questions With Samyukta Nair
The restaurateur and creative force behind some of London’s most beloved dining rooms reflects on her own legacy, how to be discerning and the key to making guests feel good. By NATASHA BIRD
Samyukta Nair believes in serendipity. She hadn’t intended to become a restaurateur, even though hospitality was always in her blood. She grew up watching her grandfather, Captain C.P. Krishnan Nair, build The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, while her father, Dinesh Nair, grew the textile business Leela Scottish Lace.
Her own way into the industry was more happenstance: an opportunity took her to London and became the starting point for a career that has since seen her create some of the city’s most distinctive restaurants, including Jamavar, Bombay Bustle, MiMi Mei Fair, Nipotina and MIKO Mei Fair. As Michelin-starred Jamavar approaches its tenth anniversary, Nair is having a long, hard think about what she wants the next decade to look like.
What are you building right now?
I’m building a hospitality company with a very specific, clear point of view. It comes from the values I grew up with and this very particular understanding of Indian hospitality: generosity, warmth and attention to detail. We’re building the restaurants that we would want to go to and visit as a family.
My legacy has given me a really great foundation, but I think you need to be able to evolve with that. I wanted to take the values I’d grown up with and interpret them in ways that felt relevant for a new generation and newer markets.
I’m increasingly interested in depth, versus scale for scale’s sake. I want to build restaurants that have their own worlds, rituals and personalities, but that also feel culturally relevant. The endeavor is that they become part of the fabric of the environment they’re in so seamlessly that you feel like they’ve always been there. It’s like a hug.
I also feel that restaurants, now more than ever, need to become experience-centers for human connection. They can be beautiful, glamorous and glitzy, if that’s what your market needs them to be, which mine does, but you can never take away from the warmth. That personal element is so crucial, especially as we stand on this brink of change. As AI is making us more efficient in some areas, people will always want to go out and have experiences. It’s our job as restaurateurs to give them the opportunity to really find value in those experiences.
What have you outgrown?
I think I used to equate momentum with constantly moving forwards: the next opening, the next project, the next milestone. I’ve learned that discernment is just as important as ambition. Knowing what not to do and giving the right things enough time – that has become quite important to me.
When you’re in your late twenties and early thirties, you’ve got this fire in your belly and this drive to try many things. I’ve realized that failure as a concept doesn’t really exist, because what goes down then goes up. You learn along the way and you just have to keep moving. But when I say keep moving, I don’t mean, ‘I’ve finished this, now I’m going on to the next.’
My father always says you have to allow yourself to “smell the roses.” I think it’s about allowing yourself time to ponder and think deeper. When we’re in this rat race, you get so caught up that you don’t really look at things through a wide lens, so that’s my current major focus.
I’m also not a very trend-driven person. My choices of restaurants are quite classic. If you’re going to constantly chase cool, there’s always going to be the next thing. Sometimes classic is the real cool.
What do you know for sure?
How you make people feel matters the most. Whether it’s around the table, around the team or in your personal life, everyone remembers warmth, generosity and how present you were.
I think you’re going to be scared, but you’ve got to do it anyway, because you’re never going to be completely ready. Often the first step is just the step you take in the right direction, and then it grows into something bigger.
I also think it’s super important to find your own voice, especially for a “legacy baby” like me. Finding my own voice, trusting my instincts and understanding that if there is no blueprint, then you’re just going to have to create it, has been quite amazing. You have to look at yourself in the mirror and be brutally honest with yourself. There’s really no room for ego. If something didn’t work, you’ve got to change direction and just do it. The faster you cut your losses, the better.
And I’ve learned that nostalgia is a really hard thing to bring to life for people. I cannot make you a bowl of pasta that reminds you of your grandmother. I can make you a pasta that reminds me of maybe my grandmother, and that might be nice. That idea of identity and how hospitality allows people to showcase and share so many different parts of themselves, is quite amazing. It also makes you vulnerable, because it feels very personal.
So, in a line: find your own voice, trust your instincts, stay curious and remember to have fun.