For Harneet Baweja, the appeal of the restaurant business was never strictly about the food; it was about the people. Raised in a middle-class communal household in Kolkata, where 14 or 15 relatives would gather around the table, he learned early on that cooking was a form of storytelling, and eating was an act of connection. His father, a passionate home cook and an enthusiastic host, passed down more than recipes: he imbued his children with a reverence for local produce, the joy of feeding others, and the quiet ambition to one day open a restaurant. “I think he had a lifelong ambition to be in restaurants,” Baweja says. “And by default, he programmed his kids to want to be around food and laughter and people.”
London, when Baweja arrived, wasn’t crying out for another Indian restaurant; at least not in the eyes of landlords, investors, or the Mayfair old guard. “No one wanted to rent me a space,” he recalls. The consummate underdog, he had no pedigree, no private equity backing, and no Michelin-starred chef attached to the project. What he did have was a strong sense of belief – in himself, in his team, and in the idea that there was a version of Indian cooking that London hadn’t yet tasted. It’s a belief that has sustained him over a decade in an incredibly testing market, surviving Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic, and now the new hospitality bill. It was his wife Devina, working at Vice at the time, who convinced him to move to the capital from India. “She had a great job and said, ‘If the roles were reversed, you’d expect me to move for your career.’” So he followed her and threw himself headfirst into the high-temp drama of kitchens to learn how restaurants here really worked – how the fish was sourced, the farmers found, the layouts designed – and put his nose to the grindstone, developing the idea that would become Gunpowder. The first site was tiny: 500 square feet of borrowed cutlery and hand-me-down wine from St. John. Branding was DIY, the menu shaped by necessity as much as intention. “We did small plates because we didn’t have the kit for anything bigger,” he shrugs. “Small plates in a small space.”
What Gunpowder did have was flavour. Not the standard curry house format – but the kind of food Baweja grew up eating and discovering on family road trips across India. “We didn’t want to be rebellious. We just wanted people to taste India, beyond the obvious,” he says. “Flavours that hadn’t been popularised, ingredients that weren’t overcooked or overseasoned.” Crucial to the equation was Nirmal Save, a chef Baweja met when the two were pointed toward each other almost as a joke. “He had Michelin-star offers on the table and I couldn’t offer him anything near that,” Baweja says. “But he said yes anyway.”
What followed was a string of successful openings, from Madame D to Empire Empire, each restaurant with its own culinary identity and cultural reference points, such as Indo-Chinese bar food, Punjabi disco dining, and fried chicken via Darjeeling. What unites them, Baweja says, is a philosophy of “putting produce first, honouring original recipes, and not overstimulating the plate.” Even as the group has expanded to Lisbon and Kolkata, each site remains grounded in place, adapted to its city’s rhythms while retaining the spirit of the original Gunpowder.
As the brand approaches its ten-year mark, Baweja remains disarmingly candid. “I didn’t think we’d last this long,” he admits. “We don’t have a private fund behind us. We still go to the bank every time we want to open something new. And yet, here we are.” He credits his team, many of whom have been with him since day one, and the customers who return week after week, asking to be taken somewhere new. “We’re not trying to be clever. We just want to explore. And to bring people with us.” Below, Baweja reflects on the five dishes that define his career so far – from the venison doughnut that channels his student days in Kolkata to a lamb chop that helped bridge a cultural divide in his family.
