🍴Howard Gardening Story #35 Nandan and his engineers stirring the pot

 

🌟 Time for a corporate fairy tale.

This story comes from a personalised book I created to honour Nandan Nilekani, then CEO of Infosys. 

The story is about what’s possible when technologists aren’t boxed into just code.

Here it goes -

In 2007, Nandan found himself seated next to celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor on a flight. A casual chat led to an invitation: “Why don’t you join a potluck my colleagues are hosting tomorrow?”

🍲 The next day, engineers became chefs.
🎉 Tables were dressed with vegetables and laughter.
👨‍🍳 Sanjeev Kapoor was delighted, calling them “scientists of the kitchen.”

The potluck soon evolved into a bold idea: “What if we built a restaurant where people cooked their own meals — guided by Sanjeev Kapoor?”

The idea first got a few blank stares - “Isn’t that like asking them to debug a biryani instead of a program?”

But Nandan wasn’t fazed. He believed the same analytical precision that fixes a stubborn bug could just as easily perfect a stubborn recipe. After all, what’s a kitchen if not a live lab for algorithms of taste?

🌟 Thus began the Do-It-Yourself Restaurant — imagined, funded, and run by Infosys employees.

 📽️ Engineers produced quirky recipe videos with music and humour
🎥 Cooking stations had cameras, so guests could record memories as they cooked.

Even Sanjeev Kapoor invested.

This was no ordinary restaurant. It was:
💡 Team-building with taste
💰 Passion turned into equity
🍛 A platform where employees became creators, not just coders.

It was culture, courage, and culinary creativity at scale.

🌟 What happens when you give people a kitchen, a camera, and a crazy idea?

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Just a snapshot — the full story blooms in Nandan’s book. Ask him nicely, he might just show you. 😊