Our Story

Located in Trowbridge, the county town of Wiltshire, PLANYA is cooking up distinctive Indian street food, and all plant-based.

Hi, my name is Mulk raj, one half the PLANYA couple. When you’re brought up in an Indian family, you realise everything was made from scratch, so when I left home I took this with me, together with a few scribbled down recipes and good bout of trepidation.

In my 20s, I tested out my recipes on my poor fellow students to varying degrees of success. I learned from my mistakes and got better; slowly adding to my repertoire of recipes over the years.

Cooking was just a passion: to make sure everybody had a great time, was fed and was happy. It made me feel good that I could do this for my friends and family. 

Wherever I went, I would resist the temptation to offer to cook.

I was just doing what I learned growing up. We looked after each other, worked hard and came together once or twice a year for big family gatherings. 

Back to my industrial placement at University, it was a colleagues’ 40th birthday party and I was asked to cook a dish of tandoori chicken (I am of course vegan now) and onion bhajis.  

I had to dust off those recipes and put them into action.

The food went down really well and the guests wanted to know “what was in my sauce?”. The tamarind sauce, was my favourite too.

When I met Louise, the first thing I did was cook her a curry. We shared all our love of food and recipes, so much so that I have had the honour of cooking Christmas dinner for many, many years. 

Going Plant-based

There was a huge shift coming in 2016 when I went vegan. Everything had to change, but I realised, actually for the most part we were eating vegan and vegetarian meals all week.

I discovered new ingredients, new recipes, new ways of cooking and that tasted amazing and with less impact on the world. A new world had just opened up.

Our menu is the story of our lives, expressed in food. It’s a little bit of something taken from a meeting or a moment of discovery.

So here we are 2023, starting PLANYA with Louise.

I find myself wanting to share great tasting vegan food with people around me. I want you to experience how amazing real food can taste, and when you throw in some experimental dishes using mushrooms or tofu, you realise: “I’m not missing out” 

Our menu is the story of our lives, expressed in food. It’s a little bit of something taken from a meeting or a moment of discovery.

Integrative Nutrition Health

Just before the pandemic, I had started a nutrition course to learn more about food in general and make sure we were knowledgeable when it came to plant-based eating. For almost 3 years, I studied and practiced integrative health coaching and functional medicine.

During this training and practice, the one question I was always asked was “what should I eat?”.

We learned the benefits of a whole-foods, plant-based diet, hence our slogan “Pure Wholesome Goodness”. We endeavour to create food that is minimally processed, with a few treats along the way.

We thank you for reading so far and I hope this gives you an insight to our story, and I hope to see you at our next pop-up very soon.

Peace and love

Mulk and Louise.