Ajit Kalra grew up around professional upscale restaurants kitchens. His father was one of the foremost Indian food writers and restaurateurs, and a formal ambassador to Indian food as appointed by the President of India. That exposure to ultra fine dining over decades led him to an entrepreneurial food journey of his own. Although a banker by profession, he has been an advanced cook for many years with an obsessive love of food and fine wine.
He founded his first business in the form of a food truck with his wife back in 2012. In 2021, after graduating from Kellogg with an entrepreneurial degree, he and his wife launched their first brick and mortar concept serving modern Indian food called Bhoomi that leveraged home recipes from a cookbook he co-authored with his father. Bhoomi gained immediate success (In 2022, Yelp formally recognized Bhoomi as the highest rated Indian restaurant on their platform in the state of IL.) and eventually led to the advent of their next concept, Indus - a fine dining progressive Indian restaurant that showcases Indian food carefully and purposefully paired with a world class curation of elite wines and spirits. With both these food concepts (and a third on its way), his mission statement has remained consistent - to proliferate Indian food to all American families by introducing the cuisine in an approachable and inviting way. Indus was just recognized as Suburban Restaurant of the Year by the Chicago Tribune.