How Karigari Turns Culinary Intelligence Into Enterprise Value

In conversation with Yogesh Sharma, Managing Director of Karigari Ventures, we explore how India’s cultural food intelligence can be codified into scalable systems without diluting authenticity. From emotional promise to unit economics, Sharma outlines a blueprint for building a chef-led, investor-aligned hospitality platform designed for institutional growth.

 Karigari is deliberately not positioned as a chef-led brand. What convinced you that India’s cultural food intelligence could be built into a culturally Karigari-based, investor-aligned platform?

Karigari is, in fact, a chef-led restaurant at its core. That foundation shaped our conviction from day one. What inspired us was the belief that India’s deep cultural food intelligence and traditions deserved to be interpreted through a chef’s disciplined lens that is not diluted by trends. By anchoring the brand in culinary authorship, we ensured authenticity, consistency, and innovation could coexist. At the same time, we structured the platform to be investor-aligned, proving that a chef-driven vision can scale responsibly while preserving craft, culture, and commercial rigor in equal measure.

 You often describe hospitality as an emotional business. How do you translate something as intangible as emotion into structured systems unit economics, formats and expansion playbooks without losing authenticity?

We first define the emotional promise, how we want a guest to feel when they walk in, dine, and leave. That promise is then translated into observable behaviours, training modules, kitchen protocols, music curation, lighting standards, and service choreography.

On the unit economics side, clarity creates freedom. Strong cost controls, format discipline, and standardized processes protect margins so the team can focus on warmth rather than firefighting. Expansion playbooks codify culture so authenticity becomes repeatable, not accidental. Emotion inspires the brand and systems protect it.

Karigari has scaled to 11 operational formats since its inception in 2022. What were the non-negotiables you set early on to ensure culture and consistency grew alongside footprint?

When you scale that quickly, the biggest risk isn’t operations but dilution. So, we were very clear about a few things from day one.

First, the food could never become a spreadsheet exercise. Karigari is chef-led, and that wasn’t just branding, it meant every menu and every city had to respect technique and flavour integrity. If it didn’t taste right, it didn’t go out.

Second, we systemized the back-end early. That’s what gives you consistency without making the brand feel factory-made.

Third, culture. We hired for attitude, trained for skill, and built internal leaders instead of importing them every time we opened.

And finally, format discipline. Each outlet had to make economic sense on its own. Growth is exciting, but sustainable growth is what keeps you in the game.

As Managing Director, you straddle brand storytelling and capital discipline. How do you balance creative ambition with the operational rigour required to prepare for institutional growth?

In our business, creativity and capital can’t sit in different rooms, they have to share the same table.

Brand storytelling gives us direction. It defines who we are, what we stand for, and why a guest should care. But capital discipline decides whether we’re still around five years from now. My role is really about ensuring the story is ambitious, but the math is sober.

Every creative idea has to answer three questions: Does it strengthen the brand? Can it be operationalized without chaos? Does it improve or at least protect unit economics? If it fails one of those, it’s either premature or unnecessary.

Institutional growth demands predictability like replicable formats, strong second-line leadership, tight cost controls. But none of that works unless the brand has soul. So, we build the emotion first, then engineer it.

Many Indian restaurant brands falter when they expand beyond founder presence. What organisational design choices have you made to ensure Karigari remains resilient as it moves towards 25 outlets and beyond?

That’s a very real problem in our industry. A lot of brands are personality-driven, not process-driven. The founder is the glue. Once that presence thins out, cracks start showing. We were conscious of that early.

First, we built roles before we built outlets. A strong culinary leadership layer and a central support team were in place before expansion. That way, growth wasn’t dependent on one or two people being physically present everywhere.

Second, we documented culture. Not just SOPs for recipes, but service philosophy, training frameworks, escalation protocols, the “why” behind decisions.

Third, we invested in second-line leadership. We promote from within aggressively. People who’ve grown with the brand carry the DNA forward far better than lateral hires alone.

And finally, governance. Clean reporting structures, weekly performance dashboards, tight inventory controls. They can be boring but are critical.

As you prepare for a market-facing narrative in 2026, what do you want global investors and readers to understand about Karigari that goes beyond numbers and store count?

As we step into a more market-facing phase in 2026, I’d want global investors and readers to see Karigari not just as a fast-scaling Indian restaurant brand, but as a culturally intelligent platform.

Yes, store count and revenue growth matter as they signal discipline. But what truly differentiates us is that we’re building institutional Indian hospitality. We’re taking something deeply emotional and traditionally unstructured, and engineering it into a scalable, chef-led, systems-driven company.

Karigari isn’t about trend-driven Indian food. It’s about codifying India’s culinary depth in a way that can travel across cities, formats, and eventually geographies without losing its soul.