Creative Culinary artist !

Chef Vaibhav was on  leave today(reason - it was his wedding anniversary). 

Vaibhav Bajaj (40), the Executive Chef, at Park Plaza Chandigarh, Zirakpur impressed me with his incredible guest connect. During my four nights stay in this hotel, he is the one person who was in touch with the guest in me the most-relentlessly! I liked his patience and composure - he was always so kind, warm, gracious and generous. 

Chef Vaibhav's professional experience is both rich and diverse - spanning from hotels to retail to cloud kitchens. After passing out from IHM Lucknow in 2003, he joined the Taj group of hotels as a management trainee. He worked for 18 months at New Delhi in two marquee Taj hotels. Taj Exotica, Goa was his next stop. He worked there for 7 years. For the next 15 months, he was with a restaurant chain in Delhi. He thereafter moved to Vatika Hospitality. He was instrumental in opening eight QSR's (quick service restaurants in 18 months).Between 2016-18 he was with Whole Foods wherein he opened 28 outlets with healthy food concepts. These Eat Fit eateries kindled his creativity and helped him evolve from a unidimensional way of thinking about food. After that a Bengaluru based start up, the first company to introduce the concept of a cloud kitchen offered him an opportunity to him to handle 16 kitchens in Delhi, Gurgaon, Jaipur and Punjab. Post Covid, he was wedded to the unique concept of 'Food Bus of India' for a year. As part of this concept three London Buses (The first floor was designed as a restaurant whereas the kitchen functions at the lower level) were stationed just outside the metro stations in Delhi-NCR regions.........He finally joined Park Plaza Chandigarh, Zirakpur as the Executive Chef in March of last year. 

Vaibhav is married to Radhika. She is working with HCL. They are blessed with a daughter Kkimaayra, who is three year old. (Radhika who works in the marketing department, is also interested in numerology, hence the spelling of daughter’s name looks very unique. 

Dear Chef, my heartiest best wishes for your wedding anniversary!  

Vaibhav with his Chef brigade 

Text and pics: R Kesava Mallia in Chandigarh