Harneet Baweja describes himself as being ‘a little stupid’. It’s typically self-deprecating for a man who at times doesn’t like to take things too seriously but it’s also something he regards as being a strength rather than a weakness. The restaurateur presides over a group that comprises three Indian restaurants under the Gunpowder brand as well as its sibling brand Empire Empire, chicken concept Fortune Fried Chicken, and bakery Moi et Toi, and attributes this entrepreneurial spirit to not being clever enough to know when to say no.
“If you’re too smart you often don’t get anywhere because you work out every situation in your head and calculate all the risks,” he says. “If you’re a little stupid like me you go running headlong into the wall to see if you can knock it down.”
Such a ‘yes’ mentality has meant the past decade has not been without incident for Baweja, with success both on these shores and further afield. Gunpowder is celebrating 10 years since opening its doors on White’s Row in Spitalfields (to mark the occasion, for January it is serving its original 2016 launch menu at its original prices) but while looking back Baweja is also looking to the future. When we speak, he has just returned from his hometown in Kolkata where he has opened Chinese restaurant Master Jackie, his second international venture.
A London restaurant
As an Indian restaurateur operating in London, Baweja’s approach has been far from conventional. For many, the opening of a successful restaurant such as Gunpowder would lead to expansion of the tried and tested brand at a time when London was embracing a fresh wave of Indian restaurants from the likes of Dishoom, Kricket and Tandoor Chop House, yet Baweja thought differently.
Next came Himalayan restaurant Madame D followed closely by Indian restaurant Gul & Sepoy, both of which opened close to Gunpowder in Spitalfields in 2017, but which closed the following year after Baweja says he couldn’t afford rent increases alongside other rising costs.
I don’t think I’m capable of changing the world, but I am capable of making people happy, even if it’s momentarily
The closures did however pave the way for a renewed focus on Gunpowder, with a second site opening by Tower Bridge in 2018 and a third opening three years later in Soho in 2021. All three restaurants follow the same approach, with Baweja saying he wanted Gunpowder to first and foremost be a London restaurant rather than an Indian one.
“The dining experience is absolutely like any London restaurant dining experience is or should be,” he says of Gunpowder. “When you go out you want martinis, good fish and meat and dishes that are full of flavour. That is exactly what we are.
“I’m not going to transport you to India. London is one of the best cities in the world I don’t need to do up a space that makes you feel like you’re in some part of India. I want you to feel like you’re in London, where you can get some great food from the sub-continent and some nice French wine.”
Continued expansion
Despite the success of Gunpowder, Baweja’s attention inevitably turned to other projects that have seen his branch out into patisserie and even fried chicken. Before these projects, however, came Empire Empire, a Notting Hill restaurant that he describes as ‘his most fun’ and which, as the name suggests, embraces the culinary legacy of empires as well as (less obviously) 1970s disco music.
Empire Empire came about, he says, after being approached by a landlord who wanted him to open a Gunpowder in Notting Hill. With what now seems like a clarity of foresight given the rise in Notting Hill’s dining scene, Baweja thought the area needed something different, and a bit more playful, and thus a restaurant where you can eat butter chicken and then dance to a song on the jukebox was born.
Then followed bakery Moi et Toi, a venture between Baweja and chef and restaurateur friend Edward Delling-Williams. Launched in 2024, the bakery initially took over Empire Empire’s restaurant each morning serving classic French patisserie with British flavours.
I wish I had this bigger vision, but I don’t. I just want to do the same thing well every day. It’s quite boring actually
“We’d always talked about doing a bakery,” says Baweja. “I wanted to do breakfast because the cost pressures are mad. I wanted to use my spaces for breakfast, lunch and dinner but I’m not capable of doing a bacon naan roll. It’s amazing but it’s been done and it’s not mine. As a Londoner you don’t want to eat dosa and curry and bread for breakfast, for me it had to be coffee and a pastry.”
Moi et Toi has since expanded to Gunpowder’s Tower Bridge restaurant but isn’t available at Spitalfields (the restaurant is too small) or Soho (“Soho doesn’t need another breakfast place,” he says).
Then, in May last year, came Fortune Fried Chicken, a spot in Spitalfields Market serving Bangkok-style fried chicken opened in partnership with Begging Bowl chef Jane Alty. Baweja says he was approached by the market to do a concept but not Indian food, so he instead took inspiration from him and his family’s annual trips to Bangkok from Calcutta.
“Every year for two weeks in the winter the family goes to Thailand, because it is so close to Kolkata. Bangkok is one of the best food cities in the world, if not the best, so it made sense to do something from there.”
Now six months in, Baweja says Fortune Fried Chicken is doing well but that he has no intention of doing another. He adds that leases at the market are renewed on an annual basis, so the site’s long-term future at the site is yet to be decided.
International ambitions
Then there’s the international side of the business. Gunpowder opened a site in Lisbon’s Chiado district in late 2022 primarily to allow Baweja to continue his passion for surfing and to justify the time spent out there (he bonded with Delling-Williams over a love of Lisbon and surfing) and Master Jackie opened its doors in Kolkata on New Year’s Eve 2025.
Master Jackie (named in honour of martial arts expert and actor Jackie Chan) is a love letter to Kolkata’s Chinese legacy - it is home to the only Chinatown in India - and is what Baweja describes as a grown-up version of Madame D. Three years in the making, the restaurant is headed up by head chef Peter Chin, a 68-year-old Chinese-Indian chef whose parents emigrated from China to India.
“I enjoy Chinese food that has travelled the world,” says Baweja. “My parents still live in Kolkata and are getting older so it’s a good opportunity to go and see them.”
Future plans
With so many irons in the fire, and operations across different continents, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what Baweja will do next. There would seem to be future mileage in opening more Gunpowders either in the capital or beyond although even Baweja himself is not sure exactly where the future will take him.
In the short term, Baweja says Gunpowder’s Tower Bridge lease is soon up for renewal so conversations will be had with landlords. He has also sat on a second site in Lisbon for the past year that he says he needs to open, although he’s still not sure what to put in there yet (“Lisbon is like a mini London, its food scene is having a moment”). As for further into the future, he’s not sure.
“I wish there was a grand plan,” he says. “I’d like to do something that has an impact. I don’t think I’m capable of changing the world, but I am capable of making people happy, even if it’s momentarily.”
Instead, he cites the saying of the Indian Army ‘keep the signal clear’ as a guiding principle for any future plans. “The army trains all the time, but they don’t know what is going to happen and when, so they just keep the signal clear and keep going. For me that’s about doing the basics right, getting good produce, going full throttle and not dumbing down on flavours, and trying to be priced as attractively as possible.
“That’s it. I wish I had this bigger vision, but I don’t. I just want to do the same thing well every day. It’s quite boring actually.”
Spoken like a man who’s clearly not stupid - and most definitely not boring.
