“It’s good to be a dreamer, but there’s no point dreaming if you’re not good at implementation,” says Vaibhav Vishen, whose Indian street-food pop up, Chaat Street, stormed Visa Wellington On a Plate in 2021, becoming a full restaurant in 2022 (also winning Burger Wellington in 2022, with the first vegetarian burger to take the title in over a decade).

This vein of steely pragmatism runs deep in Vaibhav, who grew up in a family of academics in Kashmir, India. “The cultural training is deeply ingrained,” he says, explaining that his grandfather attended Yale, his mother was into education and his father was a sculptor who gave up his art to follow his parents’ wishes of a more conventional academic career. “I was taught that things that don’t make you money can be your passion, but passions cannot be a career.”

Already with a business teaching cooking in Delhi – which made him happy but didn’t make any money – he decided he needed business training. Le Cordon Bleu school in Canada offered a business course wrapped around the culinary arts. Accepted onto the course, Vaibhav’s dreams were scorched when his Canadian visa application was rejected. Five times.

Who doesn’t love a story with a touch of serendipity? Engrossed in The Raj at the Table, by acclaimed New Zealand writer David Burton, Vaibhav thought, “Are there any culinary schools in New Zealand?” That very year Le Cordon Bleu in Wellington had established a Bachelor of Culinary Arts and Business. When Vaibhav enrolled in 2013, he found David Burton was one of his tutors.

By 2022 he was head chef at Double Tree by Hilton in Wellington, but newly married and with COVID having reduced his income, he needed to improve his finances. His wife Maanvi Chawla encouraged him to try the pop up to get his name out there.

Chaat Street was born from the snacks and street food he ate growing up. “When you emigrate to a country, your nostalgia kicks in and you relate back to your childhood as the most comfortable, peaceful and cherished time of your life. Food is one of the major denominators of this. Thinking of occasions that made me happy, the common theme was food. I put all those associations around food into a menu.

“At Chaat Street my idea was to give people Indian food that would change the narrative of how they perceive it.” He certainly did that: expecting 600 diners over the two days at WOAP, he was knocked flat by its popularity. He ended up serving about 1800 plates a day.

That pop up led to the first Chaat Street restaurant, a 25-seater that was soon outgrown. Then in 2023 came another venue in Auckland’s Parnell, which opened with a bang. But the arrival of twins caused Vaibhav to consolidate his time, leading to the closure of the Parnell restaurant (though he intends to open in Auckland again in future). “Now I want to put my time and effort in with the babies. That is something I value more than anything in life; more than Chaat Street, more than myself.”

He doesn’t call Chaat Street an authentic Indian restaurant. “If you use the word ‘authentic’ about food, you’re not being true to yourself or the food. What I make today is dependent on my mood, the ingredients, weather, and type of heat I’m using. Those parameters will not be the same tomorrow, so you’ve already lost authenticity. Everything is authentic to the moment. The word ‘genuine’ makes more sense. We promise genuine Indian food. But with my training for the aesthetics of a dish, it’s Indian food that has put on branded clothing – that’s what Chaat Street is all about.” Tracy Whitmey