project Sāra

Specialties

project Sāra appeals to adventurous diners and restaurant explorers who love to experience inventive and inspired cuisine to respect and enjoy the art of food creation.

Imagine the citrus notes of orange, tomatoes in the farmers markets. Think of the markets themselves, the smell of the wet wooden crates, the blends of aromas from different ingredients, mingled with fragrances and whiffs coming from all around you spark paint a picture of the market itself in your mind.

And then comes the Chef, each chef has his own essence, a unique sense to approach ingredients, treat them, mix them plate them. At ‘project Sāra’ we believe that being a Chef is a process, it is not an event. One cannot be a Chef by reading thousands of books, writing hundreds of exams. It has to be in the blood from the start. And we at project Sāra seeks to focus on this essence of being a Chef.

Using anti-​restaurants as a platform, we tie up with any willing aspiring chef, food blogger, culinary students and allow them to express their creativity through our supervision, guidance, location, team and resources. The result is a pop– up restaurant with a unique menu, innovative setting and an unforgettable dining experience. We call upon all those who speak the language of ingredients to come and share this experience.

History

Established in 2013.

Based on anti-​restaurant concept project Sāra made its debut in TriBeCa in July in an upscale location. Restaurateur Viraj Borkar, a Culinary Institute of America alumna coined the words project Sāra (derived from the Sanskrit word meaning essence) with an aim to project the essence of being a chef and those of each locally grown ingredients through series of pop-​ups each exclusively engineered in a unique way. Mangesh Elag, an active hospitality professional co-​founded the concept and directs the service front.

This one-​of-​a-​kind dining experience is offered to a set number of diners and tables are arranged in deuces instead of communal dining. We are a white table cloth pop-​up with a set team of servers aiming to give service through modest precision of hospitality. Each environment is exclusive to the menu and experience. Our menus are engineered in a grid style format only revealing the ingredients the chefs play with enunciating the Omakaze style, our underlying approach to food.

Meet the Business Owner

Viraj B.

Business Owner

When Viraj was growing up in India the thought of food sent him on an emotional roller coaster having been kept away from food due to an illness derived dietary restrictions. But as he recuperated, his mother’s creativity and his own curiosity inspired him to dive straight into the culinary world, secure his bachelors in Hospitality in a reputed university, train in Japanese cooking technique, intern in Dubai and fly to New York to hone skills in The Culinary Institute of America. He then trained under Chef Floyd Cardoz of Tabla fame, assisted James Kent in Bocuse d’Or 2010, won PMA scholarship for culinary innovation and staged in reputed restaurants in NYC.

While working along side Maneet Chauhan he was encouraged to switch from chef suit to business suit and get an all rounded experience and he soon managed operations at the Michelin starrer Tamarind TriBeCa.

With the thought of creating platforms for all chefs to express their creativity boundlessly Viraj established project Sāra