After retiring from the hotel industry Chef Mandaar Sukhtankar who served as the executive chef at Park Hotels, Hyderabad has joined the Australian cricket team as the team chef. Mandaar’s creativity is however not restricted to the pots and pans, it comes manifold. Apart from being a passionate chef, he writes, loves music and an avid photographer. Whenever he finds some spare time while juggling these many passions, he sweats it out in the gym. “I love to take care of myself and make time for some form of workout everyday,” he says.
Currently touring with the Australian team in India, Mandaar, also a travel buff, is enjoying his time. Mandaar’s speciality is Italian but he has a keen interest in all sorts of cuisine. He attributes his inclination towards various cuisines to his growing years where his dad’s transferable job in the army took them to different places. He is of the opinion that the spectrum of food is so vast that it is not possible to wrap it up with ‘I know it all’. Born to a Belagavi family, Mandaar was at home with North Indian cuisine but his first major assignment was when he joined The Park group 18 years ago. He spent three years in Visakhapatnam. After which he was posted in New Delhi with the same hotel when it decided to open a Spanish restaurant there.
Mandaar came to Hyderabad in 2009 and says “I have spent some really good years in the city of Nizam.”
Also an author of a book Romancing the chicks , this chef’s inquisitiveness about ingredients, techniques and methods have taken him to the weirdest of places where he could gain an insights into local flavours and methods.
“This assignment of mine (with the Australian team) is totally different from what I will be doing once the tour is over. I am loving this stint and hope to learn something from this,” says Mandaar, currently in Guwahati for the second T20 match.
