By Marie-Antoinette Issa.
There’s a particular kind of Chef shaped not by a single kitchen, but by the restless hum of airports, night-shift dish pits and the soft, unspoken longing that comes with living far from where you were born.
Paawan Engineer is one of them. You feel it the moment you step into either of his Melbourne venues - the candlelit time warp that is Mill Place Merchants, or the morning-bright bustle of Cuff cafe on Flinders Lane. Both hum with the precision of someone who has built his life in chapters, each city leaving a quiet fingerprint on the next.
Paawan’s story starts long before he ever owned a set of keys in Melbourne’s CBD. It begins in Ahmedabad, in the west of India, where birthdays meant family outings and the seed of hospitality was planted without fanfare.
It continues through Bangalore, where he washed dishes at night after hospitality school; through Delhi and Mumbai, where the Hyatt shaped his discipline and showed him the beauty of moving between worlds – from banquets to fine dining, from all-day service to the quiet choreography of room service.
"Starting as a dishie/waiter and working in various styles of venues, has been the most valuable experience for me. If you don’t know how to wait tables or wash dishes, you can’t manage or run any operation,” he says.
His early career taught him to thrive under pressure. "Opening a hotel is an amazing experience, stressful but incredibly educational. I knew that’s what I wanted to do moving forward, open hotels,” Paawan recalls.
Every posting – Grand Hyatt Delhi, Hyatt Regency Mumbai, Rosewood Manila, Rosewood Beijing – added layers to his understanding of people, service and the rhythm of a successful operation.
"Travelling around the world, working in different countries, learning about how to work with people, seeing various concepts, some historical places and some very modern places, teaches you a lot about how to navigate through the industry,” he adds.
Like many Chefs of the diaspora, Paawan carries home not as a flavour he tries to recreate, but as a compass. "I don’t think it’s just my heritage that helps me with menus or running operations; but travelling around and understanding what works in a few places has,” he says.
"What I’ve realised is that going back to basics and consistency are two things that have worked for me all the time. Pick food that is seasonal, focus on preparation, understand the history of the dish, etc. New things come and go, but the basics – they will always hang around forever.”
Mill Place Merchants is perhaps the clearest expression of that lived-in worldliness. Hidden behind a heritage facade, the bar feels like the home of a well-travelled collector – which, in many ways, mirrors Paawan himself.
"Personally, I think every place is destined for a specific style of venue, you have to go back and forth many times to understand this,” he says. "I went to the venue almost 30 to 40 times and it always made me feel like someone must have lived here.”
That careful observation informed the vision: imagining mid-1800s merchants, hatters, coal traders and spice and spirit merchants shaping the laneways Melbourne now drinks within.
Cuff, on the other hand, is sunlight and steel and Melbourne energy – a tribute to Flinders Lane’s old seamstress trade, stitched together with the same hands-on discipline that built Paawan’s early career.
Here, the diaspora shows up in a different way: through respect for place, through the belief that food should reflect the people walking its streets. "The smashed avocado is obviously very Melbourne, but I think our Cuff Florentine, with poached eggs, wilted spinach, crispy capers on an English muffin with Hollandaise, optioned with ham, smoked salmon or spicy beef brisket, is probably a dish that shares the same vibrancy as our laneway culture,” he says.
For all his global experiences, Paawan’s palate for memory is grounded in simplicity. There’s a tiny restaurant in Ahmedabad he still visits – Agashiye – where meals are cooked as they were hundreds of years ago.
"You learn about your roots, how things were prepared and the context behind it”. It explains why, despite his travels, he resists unnecessary reinvention. "I don’t like improvising dishes or cuisines. There is a time and place for that, however there are specific reasons why a dish has certain ingredients, particular style of preparation or sauce etc.”
Running two drastically different venues would exhaust most people, but Paawan approaches it like someone who’s worn every apron in the room – because he has. From dishie to director. From room service during breakfast rushes to boardrooms planning luxury hotel openings in Asia. "As soon as I step into any of these venues, I almost certainly know what needs to be done.” It’s not instinct – it’s experience layered so deeply it feels like instinct.
Beyond the doors of his venues, he looks to sport for creative clarity: AFL, test cricket, Formula 1. Not for escapism, but for structure – the idea that culture wins championships, not individuals.
"Building culture, expectations and understanding that players don’t win championships, teams do, helps me overcome challenges,” he explains. It’s why he hires on passion. Why his teams show up with purpose. "I need to lead by example first and foremost. Bringing together people who share similar passion is critical, that’s what I look for when I’m hiring. Get the basics right, keep them consistent. Once you break it down this way, things start to fall in place eventually.”
He’s not done building. In 2026, he’ll open an intimate Japanese restaurant a stone’s throw from both Cuff and Mill Place Merchants. "It’ll be an authentic Japanese restaurant, focusing on fresh local produce, classic preparation techniques and paying respect to the cuisine in general. It’ll be about 35-40 seats, intimate and warm. It’ll operate as a restaurant until 10 pm and then turn into a bar until late on weekends.”
Ask Paawan where he sees himself in Melbourne’s dining future and his answer is simple: laneway culture. Authenticity. Small venues that do one thing with conviction. It is, in many ways, the perfect philosophy for a Chef who has spent his life travelling only to find his calling in a corridor between two very different doors – both of them his.
