Have you ever heard about a digital thali or cryptocurrency in the restaurant business? If not, then your visit to Ardor 2.1 is a must in Delhi’s Connaught Place. It is the first multi-cuisine restaurant in India where cryptocurrency is accepted, and customers are served ‘Digital Thali’ as well. In an interview with Rahul Mehra, co-founder of Ardor 2.1, Megha Kalra talks about the journey of their venture, which is a mix of European, Indian and Chinese cuisine.
What is the story behind Ardor 2.1?
Ardor 2.1 is a famous & reputed restaurant started by my husband Suveett Kalra and myself. It began with a concept and a story of serving the food to Delhiites in a most enjoyable way and manner, providing a space for people to dine on a table of various flavours.
With MBA and Jewellery Designing, how did you end up in the restaurant business?
In the world of fast-changing professions, a course like MBA gives you the daring skills to go and do business analytics of any domain you might have to take up. When it comes to jewellery designing, it means you are good with detailing to get in the business and make it a success. So, be it what background education or profession you had in the past, what matters the most at the end of the day is what gives you happiness, what makes one happy. A career or a work that brings a smile to your face and you can passionately involve yourself matters the most. And I could see being a people’s people. I am good at connecting with people all around, and serving them with the best hospitality is the key priority.
What’s the USP of Ardor 2.1 that marks a difference?
Ardor 2.1 is a multicuisine restaurant. What makes a difference is we aim to always stand out from the rest, be it our cuisine, which is a mix of European, Indian and Chinese, or how we have presented our traditional Indian cuisine. We even have thalis like Bahubali thali with spellbound presentations that our guests love to be more creative and innovative. Understanding the impact of digitalization, we at Ardor 2.1 became the first restaurant to accept cryptocurrency. To make it more attractive, we have a United India and a Digital Thali too. We are moving forward to change the landscape of how people eat to change the exciting methodology. One of the finest examples is la carte, which adds more power and ease to customers.
What are the struggles and challenges you face?
Struggles and challenges are a never-ending process but what’s important is how we overcome it and stand high to face still, and find the best solution out of this. It was challenging to go through so many licenses to handle the storage and shortages issues during COVID time, but we sailed through it. Business like our’s is very dynamic and comes with thousands of uncertainties today or tomorrow, so to keep the pace, we have to think a day or week ahead what could be niche the customers looking at and always trying to be one step forward and deliver the best within the stipulated time
What are the expansion plans? Where do you see Ardor 2.1 five years down the line?
Ardor 2.1 is already a big and known brand. In the future, we plan to have a franchise outlook too. We are even working to systematically increase our restaurant count over the next five years in Tier 2 cities in India. We are sure we won’t be sacrificing the quality and the hospitality standards.
We want to see Ardor 2.1 in every Tier 2, Tier 3 & Tier 1 city all over spreading as a pan-India brand.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting, what would it be?
A-Whatever you do or are wishing to do, do it wholeheartedly. There should never be a Plan B; your Plan A should make noise all over. So, make sure what you have thought about or what you start you are going to do with all passion and dedication.
