With a degree in Hotel and Hospitality Management, Ankur has 16+ years of experience in high-impact leadership roles in the F&B Industry, both as a Chef and as a business leader. He was GM of Tablez food company, UAE, a subsidiary of the retail conglomerate LuLu Group. He was instrumental in driving profitability through sustainable dining concepts, and from 2015 the portfolio grew from 3 brands, 90 team strength to almost 35 restaurants across 8 brands with nearly 800 team strength by 2020. The Tablez portfolio, consisting of home-grown concepts, were ideated and executed, along with identifying new franchise concepts and bringing them to the region with successful negotiations and agreements with multiple brands. Ankur also designed and setup a 20,000 square foot HACCP-certified central food processing kitchen for Tablez to optimize cost efficiencies and give structural support. He began a new world of delivery-only cloud kitchen concepts.
A highlight in Ankur’s career was leading a large F&B setup for an indoor theme park in Dubai as the Head of Culinary, where fresh concepts were created to work with IPs like Marvel Studios, Cartoon Network and Lost World. This project had a F&B footprint of over 28 concepts spread across 1.5 million square feet and a processing kitchen of almost 40,000 square feet.
Ankur has worked under Chef Atul Kochhar from the UK, who has One Michelin star and has conceptualized ZAFRAN, for Foodmark( A unit of Landmark group International) in 2010, and delivered multiple restaurants under this brand as its Concept Chef and Business Manager.
As a young Executive Chef, he has also successfully set up and managed Indigo, an Indian restaurant at Beach Rotana Hotel, Abu Dhabi in 2006.
Spearheading high-volume and high-quality culinary operations has provided him with a rich working experience across the F&B in Hotels, institutional catering and multi-unit restaurant operations.