Owner of New Delhi Restaurant & Chef

When Chef Ranjan was still in high school and only 14-years old, he became a vegetable cutter at Calcutta’s Park Hotel, thus launching a still-continuing career in the food industry. After finishing high school, Ranjan graduated from the Institute of Catering Technology, Hotel Management and Applied Nutrition. Yet, all this while, he continued to work part-time at different hotels. After graduating, Ranjan joined the Grand and Great Eastern Hotels in Calcutta before moving to India’s capital city of New Delhi to work at the Akbar and Janpath hotels. Ranjan then spent two years as a senior Chef in the kitchens of the Maurya Sheraton Hotel in New Delhi, before moving to Hong Kong. Arriving in Hong Kong in 1979, Ranjan was recruited to run Gaylord Restaurants worldwide from its headquarters in the Pearl of the Orient. Eventually, Ranjan parted with Gaylord and launched New Delhi Restaurant in the city of Hong Kong. This popular restaurant soon grew into a chain of five individual restaurants. Hong Kong is also where Ranjan met California girl, Kodi Gamble. They were married soon after. With the birth of their first child, Sarah, they moved to San Francisco, and brought the restaurant with them. Today, Ranjan Dey is the star of the documentary series "My India With Ranjan Dey”, where he takes viewers on a cultural and culinary travel adventure through India. He is the creator of New World Spices, a special blend of six different spices inspired by the favorite dishes of three kings and three queens from six different regions of ancient India. And Ranjan’s other delicious creation, New Delhi Restaurant has been consistently voted the best Indian Restaurant in the Bay Area over the last 33 years. Yet, Ranjan’s heart belongs to the kids of Compassionate Chefs Cafe, a charity that helps three hundred children in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, and in the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, India, become global citizens like you and me. At New Delhi Restaurant, Chef Ranjan has been serving delicious Indian meals with his own unique style of hospitality since 1988. Under his stewardship, New Delhi Restaurant is privileged to have operated from the same location in downtown San Francisco - with many of the same guests - since 1988. During this time, Ranjan has been visited by President Bill Clinton, President Obama’s family, Chef Martin Yan, the late Julia Child, Anthony Hopkins, Deepak Chopra, Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra, and countless others.

President of Harlan Scott Hospitality & Industry Restaurant, Owner of Valentino’s Pizza.

A career restaurateur, Harlan moved to Austin in 2010 at the beginning of Austin’s explosive food scene. As director of operations, he opened and managed five unique concepts with over 150 employees. In 2016, he founded Harlan Scott Hospitality, a full-service restaurant and bar consultancy that has since worked with over 40 clients, many well-known bars and restaurant groups in central Texas and beyond, helping open new concepts, creating beverage programs, building operations and training systems, and advising on marketing, technology and vendor relationships. In 2018 Harlan founded Industry in San Marcos, Texas, a beer garden style, counter-service hybrid, all-day restaurant focusing on healthy and everyday cuisine with native Texan influence that shines equally with its expansive bar. In October of this year, they opened a second location in the heart of East Austin. The concept is a subtle homage to life in the service Industry where they champion 40-hour work weeks, fair wages, comprehensive benefits and mental healthcare, and even tip share for the kitchen. He and his business partner have just restored a 40-year-old iconic pizzeria and bar, Valentino’s, down the street from Industry in San Marcos that opened to media acclaim and local buzz as some of the best New York style pizza in Texas.