About us
Nuun, meaning salt in Bengali, began life as a brand in May 2019 to host Bengali food pop-ups once a month. The aim was to introduce foodies to traditional Bengali meals, aquaint them to dishes that were lesser known, and create a space to meet new people and connect through the language of food.
In September 2020, Nuun: The Flavour of Food grew into a cloud kitchen, serving a variety of breakfast options under the label NAASHTA to the larks and owls, in addition to our Bengali food pop-ups, offered under the label BANGLA AHAR. We also catered for several private parties, offering multicuisine menus that were specially curated for each of our clients. In April 2021, we launched LUNCHBOX, a lunch tiffin service that catered to those craving for simple homecooked meals and also to those affected by COVID-19.
​
After three years of serving our food in North Goa, we moved our base to Bangalore, Karnataka in August 2022. Over the years, we have been offering the following services in this city - Personal Chef, Traditional food pop-ups and Private cooking classes.
We believe that the best testimonials are through word of mouth and we're immensely grateful to all our parons who have helped our small business grow organically over the years.
At Nuun, we aim to be as sustainable as possible. Almost all of our supplies are sourced locally and we cook primarily with seasonal vegetables and fruits bought from local markets. We also try our best to make sure we waste less and generate lesser waste in our kitchen, by ways of refuse-reduce-reuse-recycle/upcycle most of the produce that would otherwise go to the landfills. We have participated as a food partner in several events that promote sustainable lifestyles and love connecting with like-minded individuals. We love to collaborate with spaces and people who share similar ethics and work values and offer wonderful experiences together.
Photograph by Shraddha Lotlikar.
About our founder
Kheyali Vaze was born and brought up in Pune, Maharashtra, and spent her childhood at her maternal grandparents' home (her Didu and Dadu). After completing her graduation, she moved to New Delhi in 2012 to pursue a Masters in History of Art. During this time, she interned with art galleries and museum spaces and worked extensively in the field of research and outreach. She has worked with several schools and heritage spaces in various cities and with over 10,000 children as a museum educator for almost four years. She moved to Goa in 2016 and spent the next few years engaging in various art, education & heritage based projects as a freelancer and also actively spent time volunteering with charitable organisations.
​
The kitchen has been one of Kheyali's happy places since her childhood. She was always fascinated watching her Didu and aunt cook and thought of them as magicians whipping up delicious delicacies effortlessly. The kitchen was the only place she ever wanted to be in and literally grew up in that space as she spent most of her time there, learning about various cooking techniques, ingredients and recipes while doing her homework and studying for exams. She had her own recipe book and often made menus for her imaginary cafe. Trips to the vegetable and fish markets with her grandparents remain one of the most exciting memories from her childhood.
​​
Her travels all over India and several parts of the world helped explore multiple cuisines and communities, which in turn boosted her curiosity of learning more about ingredients and the unique taste each one added to the dishes. It’s then she started experimenting heavily in her kitchen with ingredients (sometimes brought back from travels) and flavours while feeding her friends and continued doing so for years. With immense encouragement from them, following her passion of almost three decades, she began her journey as a home chef and sowed the seeds of Nuun: The Flavour of Food in January 2018, which sprouted in May 2019.
​
In September 2019, she was able to rekindle one of her long-lost dreams of running a café. As the new co-owner of a cafe in Goa, she found that running a commercial kitchen came quite naturally to her. While managing a café that ran everyday for 14hrs, she also catered for large outdoor and indoor events and also collaborated with various individuals to host workshops and events at the cafe for several age groups. The cafe was picking up momentum when the pandemic hit and unfortunately it was forced to close doors in April 2020.
​
With the desire to keep her dreams going, she decided to start a cloud kitchen single handedly in August 2020 from her own home and expanded the business organically. Her hardwork and dedication helped her food get noticed and was soon featured in several notable magazines. After two years of running the cloud kitchen, she moved base to Bangalore in August 2022 to pursue a second Masters degree and continues to offer her culinary services mostly as a personal chef for daily meals and private parties. She is in her final year MSc Clinical Psychology and is also pursuing a Diploma in Nutrition and Health Education to serve her clients more nutritional and healthy food.
​
Apart from being crazy about cooking and exploring new places and cultures, Kheyali is a dog mom to two adorable babies - Kiah and Alyx. She is also a jack of several trades. She loves dabbling in handcrafted works and enjoys embroidering, crocheting, knitting, painting, making jewellery, upcycling products at home and learning a new skill whenever she has some spare time. She also loves going on adventures with her dogs and gardening. When on a break, she is mostly travelling and exploring new places and participating in outdoor adventure activities. She can speak fluently in Bengali, Marathi, Hindi, English and can understand basics of French, Kokani and Kannada.
