PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 63 portobello mushroom with popcorn sauce to soya chaap curry featuring meat-like soybean nuggets and vegetables in a creamy yogurt-based turmeric sauce, to pistachio chicken sheekh with almond sauce and beetroot. Desserts include a version of tres leches cake with mango, coconut mousse and jelly. Bar manager Roger Gomez created the cocktail menu, using a flavor wheel that helpfully groups drinks and their ingredients by the six ayurvedic tastes: sour, sweet, pungent, bitter, salty and astringent. The Mumbai-born Gomez offers a Vasco Hi Ball that contains feni, a spirit distilled from cashew apples that’s made only in Goa. Mango puree, melon, makrut lime, vodka and egg white star in his Ratnagiri, named for an Indian city famous for Alphonso mangoes. Anu and Vikram had 25 years of combined experience working for Microsoft before they started Good Times Restaurants group with chef Sujan. (Fittingly, when asked to name his favorite cookbook, Sujan cites Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s first chief technology officer.) Anu acts as chief operating officer, while Vikram handles expansion, finance and legal matters. When the couple wanted to open ROOH in SoMa in 2017, their San Francisco landlord was reluctant to lease to them because the pair had no experience owning a U.S. restaurant—so they flew his manager and a consultant to see their family’s restaurants in India. “They were totally blown away by what we do,” Anu beams. San Francisco’s ROOH went on to earn a Michelin star, and was followed by locations in New Delhi and Columbus, Ohio, with the Palo Alto restaurant opening in early 2020. “My parents thought I was crazy to leave tech,” Anu smiles. But their years at Microsoft powerfully influenced the couple, from their restaurant website featuring alluring photos and customer reviews to measuring performance PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF HARDY WILLSON
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