Chennaites would most certainly know of Hot Breads or the fine dining restaurants like Ente Keralam, Benjarong, Teppan, etc…, but little less known is the architect of this ‘world on a plate ‘is the change’ that he wished for the culinary scene in Chennai.

The stand-alone restaurants are specific, artistic, hygienic & the food ‘unparalleled’. He eschewed the familiar cookie-cutter mentality of fast food chains and chose to open multiple brands of specialty restaurants. In hindsight, the drive came from Arthur Hailey’s ‘Hotel’. This intense passion kicked off moonlighting as a Professor by day and as a trainee at a hotel by night.

In 1981, while still teaching, he opened a Chinese takeaway ‘China Garden’ with an investment of Rs. 60,000/-, appropriately when Chinese cuisine was a craze in the city. Today, he has operations across 18 countries and has a finger in the pie of more than 300 eateries across the globe. Mahadevan’s templates to be adhered to are diligence, quality control, hygiene & authenticity.