Biriyani By Kilo swears by authentic aroma, taste

Bengaluru: Co-founder of Biriyani By Kilo Kaushik Roy noticed that biriyani in India was being made the wrong way -- cooked in bulk and served in plastic containers, robbing it of the essence of a good home-cooked biriyani. Biriyani By Kilo, the name that surely tickles your taste buds, was started in 2015 to remedy this gastronomical error, he claims.

Dismayed at the mass-production of biriyani and serving of pre-cooked biriyani, Biriyani by Kilo aims to deliver freshly-cooked food, served in non-plastic containers.

From its humble beginning in 2015 from a single outlet in Gurgaon, the chain has grown over more than 50 outlets across 25 States. With the opening of the third outlet in Bengaluru, they hope to launch 10-11 more in the tech city as part of the company's grand plans to expand its base in South India.

Biriyani by Kilo serves its customers biriyani in earthen pots sealed with the 'dum'. Once it's cooked, the 'dum' seals the flavours and aromas and does not allow for the food to be touched by the staff. Even before the outbreak of Covid-19, they followed a practice that limited human contact. Customers can break open the seal and consume food without worrying about hygiene and the various hazards of eating from plastic containers.

Committed to providing quality biriyani to their customers, they source all their ingredients from Kerala, use the most expensive basmati rice that aids the texture and flavour, and butcher the meat themselves. What makes this place special is that they cook biriyanis on an order basis. Though they have a longer wait time than most places, the quality of the food meets the expectation.

Unlike most places, they also specialise in three types of biriyani style - Hyderabadi, Lucknowi and Kolkata. For the Bengaluru palate, they have launched a new range of Nilgiri and Guntur-style biriyani. The biriyani recipes have been developed by the in-house R&D team that worked on improving the traditional recipes without altering the essence of the original.

"I have been in the restaurant industry for the past two decades and have worked with over 200 restaurants, and realised there is no competent leader in this industry. We knew there was a great opportunity here," said the co-founder of Biriyani by Kilo, Kaushik Roy.

He also added that in his vast experience he noticed that people either over order or under order. "We wanted to avoid this wastage and allow customers to moderate their portion size as per requirement. This is how we started selling our biriyanis by weight," he added.

Though mainly they operate as a cloud kitchen, there is at least one outlet in every city. To instil confidence about hygiene, they also have a 24X7 live-kitchen streaming on their website. Customers can watch the food being prepared while they wait for their orders.

Biriyani by Kilo opened its 52nd and first fine-dining outlet in Koramangala, Bengaluru on August 16. The outlet was inaugurated by noted Sandalwood actress Kavya Shetty.