An emerging restaurateur, Aryaveer Singh Shaktawat is leveraging his experience of working in the hospitality sector in New Zealand to give the finest dining experience to the tourists and locals alike in the lake city.

Aryaveer was born in Bundi but raised in Udaipur as his family belonged here. He studied at Maharana Mewar Public School till 6th std. Then he went to Mayo College, Ajmer and completed the remainder of his school education there.

Aryaveer says all his interests like shooting, writing, playing polo etc. were developed at Mayo only. Growing up, he was a bit of a notorious kid but knew how to deal with it. At school, he liked being outdoors more than classroom learning. He was not an academically bright student but excelled at sports. However, he managed to pass all his classes.

After completing high school, he went to Jaipur to try his hand at playing polo professionally but later decided to keep it as his hobby only and not make it his career or profession. Then he thought of coming into the hospitality and tourism sector. He joined a course in Hospitality at BN College, Udaipur. After studying for about a year at the college, in 2007 he went to New Zealand. He stayed there till 2015 before finally moving back to Udaipur.

Aryaveer shares that staying in New Zealand transformed him holistically. He studied, worked there and did all his chores by himself. His first part-time job there was at a gas station and this experience was an eye-opener for him considering the kind of family background he came from. He worked for many hotels there. During his last year there, he worked at a bank too. Then he decided to come back to Udaipur to start something of his own.

He conceived Shree Dhanop Hospitality in 2015 along with a partner. While they both were brainstorming what can be done in the Indian market, they happened to stumble upon a bungalow in the city and they thought of converting it into a restaurant to give tourists in the city a fresh experience of modern India with a delectable taste of food. He and his entire team put in their best efforts and the restaurant was able to pick up really well within the first year of setting up. Then, to attract the younger crowd, he came up with an idea to open an outdoor cafe. He found a mango tree at the premises of the restaurant which was the oldest mango tree in the area. And hence he named the cafe as Cafe Mango. Later he also started a cloud kitchen in the city by the name Food Circle.

Aryaveer shares that there are a lot of challenges involved in the hospitality sector of the city such as parking and the scenic view that customers demand. Besides, the quality of the food and the menu at your restaurant is of paramount importance. Also, inventory management, costing and making profits are a few of the challenges. Furthermore, he adds that keeping up with the changing trends and marketing of your restaurant are the major challenges.

To aspiring restaurateurs, he advises that before setting up your restaurant, you ought to consider the location, rent, food menu etc. to be able to get a good head start.

If he could go back in time, then Aryaveer would love to relive his school days when he was at boarding school. He says that those were the best days of his life and during that period he made friends for life. Besides, he would also want to learn more aspects of the hospitality sector while he was working in New Zealand.

According to Aryaveer, experience matters more than education in the hospitality sector. He says that you could go to the best of the schools to learn hotel management and culinary skills but you will not be able to do things on the ground unless you have experience and the drive to do something worthwhile.

Aryaveer considers his father as his first role model who always supported him in all his endeavours and taught him to master one thing and be average at the rest of things. Besides, he considers AGM and GM of the hotel he worked at in New Zealand as his role models on the professional front.

Talking about setbacks in his life, Aryaveer says that in his first year at Mayo, he lost his friend while they were just enjoying themselves. It left him devastated and due to that he flunked his 7th-grade. But it taught him the value of life and how important it is to have our loved ones in life.

In his free time, Aryaveer likes being outdoors and playing Polo. He also likes to spend time with his kids and cook food.

His advice to people is whatever you do in life give it your best and keep working hard and results will be taken care of.