OctOber 2014 BCBusiness 51
Devour Kelowna Food Festival March 2014:
Vikram Vij is surrounded by a group of adoring fans.
One enthusiastically pumps his hand before blurting
out, "You won't remember me, but..." then beams as
Vij cuts him off , "Of course I do, you had..." reeling
off exactly what the now starry-eyed diner had eaten
a year or so back at Vij's world-famous restaurant on
West 11th Ave. in Vancouver.
It's a skill he learned as a bored teenager, forced
after school to watch his father at work in his Indian
fabric semi-wholesaler in Mumbai (still "my Bom-
bay" to Vikram). "At the time I hated it," Vij confi des.
"I couldn't believe that I had to just sit there. I look
back now and it was the funniest thing: I'd watch
him wheeling and dealing and he always remem-
bered past customers. He taught me that to remem-
ber someone is one of the most important things you
can do."
As Vij poses for photos, roaring with laughter
here, pressing his hands together and bowing his
head in a respectful namaste there, it's clear that
the new star of
CBC's ninth season of Dragons' Den
(launching this month) gleefully embraces his newly
found TV fame, which fi ts him as comfortably as his
trademark long kurta shirts.
ındia
passage from
Vikram Vij is the best-
known purveyor of Indian
food in Canada, with a
growing list of restaurants,
cookbooks and prepared
food lines to his name.
Now with an even brighter
spotlight on him as the
latest "dragon" on CBC's
Dragons' Den, Vij hopes to
export his unique brand
of cuisine to the world
p h o t o g r a p h y b y N i c k K r a s z n a i
b y
N i k k i
B a y l e y
