Shamil Thakrar, co-founder and Executive Chair of Dishoom, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about building one of Britain's best-loved restaurant groups with no restaurant experience, while friends and family thought he was bananas. Thakrar believes in the power of storytelling and explains how invented backstories shape every Dishoom restaurant. He shares his mantra, "deepen, don't dilute", his father's advice that success needs "a little poetry at the heart of it", and how he learnt to put quality before profit. After handing the CEO role to long-serving colleague Brian Trollip, and following years of bootstrapping the business with family backing, Thakrar brought in private equity investor L Catterton. Having compared starting a restaurant to "the first ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan", he explains why he is now braving a second beach landing in New York, and where future international expansion could take the business.
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