Now, everyone can cook a gourmet meal

It is 9 pm and you haven’t had dinner yet. Your stomach grumbles, transmitting an ‘I am hungry’ message. But since you can’t go around breaking coffee mugs ( à la Thor), you’re forced to get off your sofa and trudge towards your fridge, only to be put off by its vast emptiness.

You can’t order in, because you’re broke; or you’ve eaten so much food from nearby restaurants that the thought itself makes you sick. So, here you are, holding a cauliflower in hand, and feeling a lot like Hamlet, musing: to cook or not to cook.

It is to solve this eternal conundrum — of cooking or ordering in — that Ordook swoops in.

Started by the trio of Harshita Ravi, Abhishek Chandrasekaran and Anush Rajasekaran, Ordook, Chennai’s newest DIY (do-it-yourself) service looks to give Chennaites a chance to cook gourmet food in the comfort of their homes. “The cooking is pretty straightforward too! Most of the dishes that we offer can be made in 20-30 minutes,” says Anush.

Being foodies themselves, Anush says he and his co-founders always wanted to do something in the food segment. “It all started sometime late last year, when Abhishek was in the US. At that time, all three of us were still in our former jobs. We had a few ideas of what could work for us and a DIY meal-kit delivery service seemed like a good idea.”

While the conceptualising started around September 2015, the trio didn’t “seriously” start working on Ordook until January 2016.

“That was when we quit our day jobs and started working full-time on the service,” Anush says. The start-up is self-funded at present, but the founders intend to seek external funding later, as the business grows.

Twenty-year-old Aayushi hovers over the stove as she waits for the mushrooms for her quesadilla to cook. She had heard a lot about this new start-up from her Twitter newsfeed and was eager to try out their food. “The Mexican Quesadilla I’d ordered was quite easy to make, but definitely took more than the 30 minutes that I was told it would. The packaging was quite nice too — they sent everything, from the oil and seasonings needed to the vegetables, cut and ready to use!”

At present, the start-up works on a subscription model and the orders are made on their website ordook.com. “We went with that model because most of the companies abroad that offer similar services also use it,” Anush admits. “This model allows for loyal customers to keep coming back. Subscribers have 10 dishes to choose from; three to four change weekly.”.

There are two types of subscriptions to choose from — the first one for ₹600 gives you two meals in one week and the second plan of ₹1,000 gives you four meals spread over two weeks. One meal kit serves two people. Subscribers are informed every week, via email, about the dishes available.

The cuisines offered at present include Thai (Pad Thai), Mediterranean (Veg Pita and Tahini) Spanish, Philippine, Mexican, Italian (Vegetarian Pesto Pasta) and Indian (Chettinad Chicken Wrap). Subscribers also have the option of paying cash on delivery and can choose the day and time of each meal kit’s delivery. The ready-to-use ingredients are packed neatly in colourful cardboard boxes.

The produce used is mainly sourced from SunnyBee, a Chennai-based farmer’s market that operates out of suburban Kolapakkam.

Other ingredients are either sourced locally or from other cities, depending on the availability.

Ordook officially went live on April 7, but has already created a lot of buzz in Chennai. “We keep getting more and more orders everyday. At present, it’s just the three of us doing the delivery and we’ve hired one other person to help us out,” Anush says.

So, no time to cook? Call Ordook.

COMMENT NOW