Imagine running the kitchen at a fine-dining hotspot that just got picked for the Michelin Guide, serving up elaborate plates to high-paying guests, and then turning around to quit your job and sell chole bhature out of a tiny takeaway joint. Sounds like a total risk, right? But Indian chef Pradeep Khullar did exactly that in Dubai, and looking at the massive lines outside his shop, he clearly hit a nerve.Khullar, along with his business partner Saubhagi Veer, launched a small street-food outlet called Bhaturewala with a crystal-clear goal: serve the kind of comforting, authentic chole bhature that instantly teleports people back home.They charge AED 20 a plate – around ₹520.Since setting up shop in Dubai’s Oud Metha neighborhood, the tiny counter has been getting mobbed. People are routinely standing in line for over an hour just to grab a brown paper bag of food. And despite the huge demand, the duo refuses to scale up too quickly, capping production at just 200 plates a day, as per a report by Emirates 24/7.
From Rohini’s streets to high-end kitchens
Khullar’s path to the kitchen was anything but smooth. His passion for cooking started long before he ever wore a chef’s jacket.Back in 1998, when he was only 15, his father passed away from cancer. His mother stepped up to support the family, working a regular job while running a small tailoring business out of their home in Delhi’s Rohini area. Money was tight, and paying ₹4 lakh for a fancy university degree was completely out of the question. He actually got into hospitality by sheer luck when a friend handed him an unused application form for a hotel management program.By 2004, he was working in professional kitchens. Over the next decade, he honed his skills at prestigious Indian brands like Indian Accent and Punjab Grill before moving to Dubai in 2015.So when he decided to start frying bhaturas, it wasn’t a sudden impulse from an amateur. He brought years of top-tier professional kitchen experience with him.
Leaving the Michelin spotlight behind
The idea for Bhaturewala goes all the way back to Khullar’s childhood. He remembers lining up outside his local neighborhood shop every single Sunday morning to pick up chole bhature for his family. That weekly ritual stuck with him, even as he climbed the ranks in fancy restaurants.His last big gig was at Nazaara, a restaurant featured in the Michelin Guide Dubai’s Selected list. That honor dropped in early October. But just days after the announcement, Khullar and Veer packed up their knives, quit their jobs, and poured their own savings into opening Bhaturewala.They ditched multi-course menus and artsy plating to focus entirely on one comfort dish and get it right.
No fancy tables, just long queues
Bhaturewala isn’t trying to be a fancy sit-down venue. There are no reservations or servers – it’s a simple takeaway counter where the food speaks for itself. Beside the core chole bhature, they also offer mutton bhature and cold glasses of lassi.The response was instant. Reports quickly surfaced of people patiently waiting over an hour in the heat for their order.One particular customer interaction really stood out to Khullar. A guy had been waiting in line for over an hour, and when Khullar apologized for the wait, the customer just hugged him and said, “No, this is pure love, man. Don’t drop the quality. Continue with this.”That moment pretty much captured what Khullar was aiming for.
Trashing bad food instead of serving it
When you’ve got crowds wrapping around the block, the usual business instinct is to rush out more food and make as much cash as possible. But Khullar takes quality control almost dangerously seriously.On one occasion, despite a long queue waiting outside, he refused to serve a batch of mutton curry because he felt it had overcooked. He tossed it out instead of serving sub-par food.As he put it, “This is the only asset we have.”That mindset tells you everything about why people keep coming back. He knows customers aren’t just buying lunch—they’re buying trust.
Why a simple plate of food hits so hard
There is something really refreshing about Khullar’s decision. After years spent in elite kitchens chasing culinary prestige, he chose to build something of his own around a dish millions of people grew up eating on weekends.No confusing menus, no pretension, and no trying to transform a street-food classic into something it’s not. Just rich chole, pillowy-soft bhature, and a tall glass of lassi.At ₹520 a plate, it’s certainly not dirt-cheap street food. But for the Indian diaspora living in Dubai, that plate represents a taste of home, memories of family Sundays, and pure comfort. And looking at the lines wrapped around Oud Metha, people are more than happy to wait for it.
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