VIVEK SINGH, executive chef and CEO of Cinnamon Collection Limited, is one of the most successful and respected British Indian chefs in the country.
His refined approach to Indian cuisine transformed how people in the UK thought about Indian food. His success and reputation grew with the publication of six cookbooks, media appearances, and a regular guest slot on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen.
He now runs four London restaurants and one restaurant in Oxford serving modern Indian cuisine: The Cinnamon Club, Cinnamon Kitchen, Cinnamon Bazaar, Cinnamon Kitchen Oxford, and Cinnamon Kitchen Battersea. All these entities together employ 150 people.
"I have been lucky enough to follow my passion for food with a career as a chef," says Singh.
"Growing up in India, food was at the centre of everyday life.
"From festivals to wedding celebrations, huge feasts were commonplace in Asansol, West Bengal, and it was here that I fell in love with the sights, smells, and celebration of food," he adds.
"Even on a regular day, my mother would cook four meals a day, with each one featuring around five dishes! Asansol also had a strong Anglo influence, and we celebrated Christian festivals as well as Hindu ones, experiencing many different cuisines along the way.
"This exposure was vital to my experience as a chef later in life as I began to develop my personal style, marrying Indian spices and flavours with Western techniques and ingredients," he says.
He founded The Cinnamon Club in 2001, and it immediately set a new benchmark in the Indian dining scene in the UK. Now, each of the five restaurants is completely led by homegrown talent, be it front-of-house staff or chef teams.
He helped raise funds for charities such as Hospitality Action by contributing recipes to their cookbook, the proceeds of which went to the charity.
According to Vivek, Cinnamon Collection outperformed its pre-pandemic levels during the past 12 months.
"All of it is down purely to the commitment of respective teams; it's a collective commitment to excellence and a testament to its quality," he says.
He completed his bachelor's in hotel management from the Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology, and Applied Nutrition in New Delhi and his master's from the Oberoi Centre for Learning and Development.
He also received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Warwick (2015) and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of Buckinghamshire (2020). He received the Best Chef award at the Craft Guild of Chefs Awards (2010), and his book Spice at Home won the Best Book award at the World Gourmand Awards (2015).
A role model for the hospitality industry, Vivek always believed in giving people an opportunity through encouragement, inspiration, and nurturing, no matter what background they come from.