The rise of BTech biryani by Hyderabad’s engineer-chefs

Meet Hyderabad’s BTech graduates who switched careers but still flaunt engineering degrees on the signboards of their culinary ventures

Sign boards come in different shapes and sizes. In Hyderabad they also have degrees.

A wave of BTech graduates of Hyderabad launching small and medium businesses are drawing attention thanks to their appetite for quirky names. In Ameerpet, Yashwant Alikatti dons a chef’s hat to prepare his signature dish, fried chicken biryani at ‘BTech Biryanis —The Effort of an Engineer.’

A native of Miryalaguda in Nalgonda district, Yashwant would help his mother in the kitchen during festivals to make crunchy chakkilalu, a savoury snack, and the traditional rice flour and jaggery delicacy appalu. He dived into the food business after finishing his engineering from Methodist College in Abids in 2018 and launched a food truck in Kukatpally along with a friend.

The food truck ended up closing down in two months. Yashwant did a BPO job in 2019 for six months, only to return to the food business by managing a friend’s cloud kitchen for a year. In February 2022, he established BTech Biryanis. “My aim was not just to have another eatery,” he explains, pointing to his modest 320-square foot space. “From its name to the food, I wanted to create an identity that would catch people’s attention.”

The idea to include BTech in the eatery’s name was to connect with students who throng Ameerpet to pursue various software courses. “When they realise this is the effort of an engineer, they will support it,” he insists. “I wanted a name that combines two things – my entrepreneurship story and the fact that an engineer is a chef here.”

Yashwant spent four months on research, tweaking recipes to create a biryani that stands out. “Hyderabad and biryani are synonymous,” he says, adding “We use bite-sized chicken pieces that can absorb all the spices.” Though he employed a chef for two months, he now does the cooking himself. Business has grown from selling 12 plates of biryani in a day in the first month to 150 plates now.

He admits a catering degree rather than an engineering one would have been more helpful for his new career. “Like many middle-class students, I too had pressure at home to pursue a professional degree. It took time to convince my mother about a change in career,” Yashwant explains, adding “I feel proud when students who listen to my story at the eatery feel inspired to follow their passion.”