Co-founded by Anshumala, Neha and Vaibhav, Conosh was built on the simple foundation of something very fundamental and human – share a meal and include everyone!
Anshu and Vaibhav have been friends for over a decade. A culinary journey through Istanbul in 2015 helped them conceptualise Conosh. It was a part of their larger gastronomic exploration that had seen them through Italian and French cuisine during their MBA days in Milan and Paris respectively. To them Turkey was a paradise; the culmination of not just an extraordinary history but also diverse cultures and of course a gateway between East and West.
Turkey denoted food and food denotes friends. And that is exactly what they did in Turkey! Transitioned through cultural barriers and connected with people and their stories; built friendships that will last a lifetime. The trip was also the beginning of an idea, that finally took shape and became Conosh. Enabling them to share with others what they so wonderfully had experienced; bring people together through food! Neha met Vaibhav during his days at Louis Vuitton in Delhi in 2017 and they instantly connected over their passion for food and travel, Vaibhav having mentioned his amazing journey through Istanbul and Neha about her culinary experiences across the world. In the year 2018, destiny brought all three budding entrepreneurs together and finally got them thinking about creating a common platform where people across the world could meet and connect by simply sharing meals. Conversations converted into Conosh, a platform to make friends over food.
What does ‘Conosh’ mean?
Co comes from the word community, conversations and Nosh is a word of Yiddish origin, it quite literally means eating. Nosh also means “eating” in urdu. Conosh is about eating together and sharing stories – community eating in its true sense.
How did the idea of starting Conosh come about?
We started our journey back in April this year with the idea of bringing people together over food. With the penetration of Swiggy(s) and Netflix(s) of the world, we have become pretty isolated digitally, limiting our possibilities to meet new people and make new friends! We believe food from time immemorial has always brought people closer. Even Anthony Bourdain believed that there’s nothing that cannot be solved if the world leaders got together over a dinner table.
What trends did you notice then that helped you set up Conosh?
People are traveling more and are more into experiential living. There’s growth of micro communities based on passion and interests. Nomad lifestyle and conscious consumption is evolving. We curate home and outdoor based food pop ups over food cooked by our home chefs.
How does the entire process work?
We identify passionate home chefs who want to offer a taste of their authentic cuisine at a casual home style gathering. Over food tasting, we brainstorm to come up with the best of the menu, a suitable date, time and place to host (which is mostly their homes) and commercials. We push the comms out via our digital touch points to our existing and potential Conosh-ites, a community of people who love to believe in Food pe charcha. Average size of the home-hosted pop-ups is about 12-16 diners with people from all ages and multicultural ethnicity, mostly in their 20s.
How does one book?
Once we publish the event on our digital channels (website, instagram(@conoshofficial), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/conoshofficial/), one can book through our website (conosh.com). We do send a whatsapp broadcast to all those who have opted in to receive messages. People can check out what kind of experience connects with them and sign up for it, they can choose to bring in friends/family including pets/kids or come solo.
How much does it cost?
The veg experience starts at 300-400, while non veg experiences are priced 799-1099 depending on the cuisine, meats used, with/without alcohol.
What are your food specialties?
We do an array of cuisines depending on the hosts (home chefs). We have done regional Indian cuisines including Coorgi, Goan, Andhra brahmin, Mangalorean veg/non veg, Avadhi, Oriya, as well international cuisines including Dutch (for sinterklaas day), American (for thanksgiving). We are planning for a French one soon.
What are the future plans for Conosh and what’s in store for 2020?
When someone goes to someone’s house, they get a taste of their food, get to see their kitchens, get more comfortable with them – establishing a sense of trust. There on a lot more interactions open up between these customers (example ordering daily lunches to event based orders or just a masala or homemade wine that you might have liked). Aside from penetrating deeper in Mumbai and Delhi, Homemade by Conosh is the organic/natural next step for us in 2020, where we are looking at closing the open loop – we will be helping our home chefs deliver their home-made goodies, daily lunches or take event based catering to expand their reach and scale up their home kitchens. We’d also be doing a lot of traveling home chef series that we started with Sumitra, taking more of the home chefs to different cities and different places. We will continue to connect a lot more passionate home chefs with people who crave the warmth of eating home food in a warm environment and sharing more stories. We want to take the home chefs who have so far been always in the kitchen to out in the living room & share their journeys, don’t all our moms have so many stories to share?
Quick One-liners
- When did you start?
We started in November 2018, that’s when we registered the company and started working on the specifics) - When did you start your operations?
Our ops started in April 2019 in Bangalore. - When did you do your first pop up, where, how many people ?
We did our first pop up in April 2019 in Bangalore with Goan Cuisine with home chef Bobby, with seven people attending. - How many pop ups have you had so far and how many have conoshed?
100 plus pop ups. Around 1000 people have conoshed since we started in April 2019. - How many home chefs?
We have had 110+ home chefs across Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.
