Mashrabiya Restt., The Ashok, New Delhi

Our main office for the restaurant is over in Safdarjung Enclave, specifically at 127 on the second floor of the DDA flats. It’s a bit of a funny place for a restaurant business to be based, tucked away in the residential flats, but it works for us. We spend a lot of time here dealing with the menus and the suppliers. It’s not the actual dining room where people sit down to eat, but it’s the brain of the operation. Downstairs it’s all families and local life, and then you come up to the second floor and find us surrounded by papers and laptops. The Ashok is where the main action is, but this spot in New Delhi is where we get the quiet work done. We’ve got a small team here. We often have samples of food or new ingredients sitting around while we figure out what works. It’s a bit cramped when we have everyone in at once, but we make it work. Safdarjung is a good neighborhood, fairly central but still has its quiet corners. We don't have big signs or anything. It's just a regular flat where we manage the daily grind of running a food business. Sometimes the neighbors pop by to say hello. We like it this way because it keeps us grounded and close to how things actually are on the ground.