Samyukta Singh opens up about her Japanese place Tsubaki

Actress Samyukta Singh has been running a successful Japanese-Korean restaurant called Tsubaki (at Worli, Mumbai), and loves it. The actress says that she always wanted to own a restaurant.

“I have been thinking about getting into the restaurant line since childhood. I have been very interested in the hospitality industry. I used to always say that one day I want to open my own restaurants. I got into it at that point because I went through my divorce and I was very lost. I didn’t know where to go, what to do because I had already given up my career because of him at one point and acting was the only thing I knew in my life. I didn’t know anything else. I have no complaints because after all it was my choice, my decision and then my divorce finally happened. After that I was lost. I wanted to run away because it was very difficult for me to stay here and face people. We had been together for 11 years. It was very difficult for me to deal with the fact that I had gone through a divorce. And then God sent this project in my lap. My sister and brother-in-law bought this plot in Goa and because of my niece they could not be there all time and they needed some family person to be there to be the face and the owner. It was a big challenge and it was a big change for me. I packed my bags and left and I learned everything from scratch, from operations to the billing to the purchasing. As a matter of fact, when I was dating my exhusband, I had actually got cata - logues from Switz erland from The Le Cordon Bleu. I wanted to go and enrol myself for the course. So, like I said, even hospitality has always been something that I wanted to do. I love feeding people, I love cooking. So, it was just God sent. I love what I am doing right now,” she says.

She adds, “Right now, I have this place called Tsubaki, which is a Japanese-Korean restaurant. It’s in Worli. The concept came about because our partners are actually family friends of my mom and dad. Our Japanese partner is actually my uncle and he calls my mother his soul sister and my dad was his very dear friend. So, the concept came because he made DIY sushi one day and my other partner and I thought that we should start a Japanese restaurant and my uncle also wanted to join. So, it was just a spontaneous decision and we worked from there. Now we are five partners who have started Tsubaki and we are hoping that we can open many more branches all over India,” she says.

Talking about the cuisine that it offers, Samyukta says, “I became vegetarian seven and a half years ago. I have eaten non veg all my life before that. I still cook it. I have not been telling everybody to become vegetarian but I gave it up out of choice because I just stopped liking non vegetarian food. So, one of the unique features about Tsubaki is that half of our menu is vegetarian and we also have a Jain menu. I have eaten all over the world in Japanese restaurants and getting good vegetarian choices is not that great. So that is definitely one unique point that Tsubaki has. We are serving a lot of vegetarian food. And also, we have a hydroponic garden where we are growing our own greens.