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Fresh Catch in Mahim built a reputation on two simple promises. First, the food must taste like home. Second, customers must feel seen. The late Francis Fernandes began with a kitchen shaped by his mother’s hands and a small dream. Today his children, Adith and Ankita, run the iconic space in Mahim and have expanded to Bandra. They also run a younger, faster concept called Frys With Fries on Hill Road. In this interview, the siblings talk about how they hold a legacy and make room to move with the times. This is a story about stewardship, and also a study of how presence, precision and mindful innovation keep a coast of flavours alive in a city that moves fast.
Childhood Rituals That Became Touchstones
Adith begins with a detail that has been a formative memory for him. “My father would make me go to the restaurant during school holidays,” she says. “I was shy and scared of talking to customers. I would sit behind the cashier counter and count the notes.” The memory matters because it frames a first lesson in responsibility. “My father would pretend not to know the total,” Adith remembers. “He wanted me to call out the change. That made me feel useful.”
Ankita offers a different kind of memory. She grew up where the family conversation always returned to meals. She says “My earliest memories are of us arguing about breakfast or the origin of a recipe. Food was the thread that connected every day.” She remembers how her father would seat them as if they were regular customers. “Dad would order crab soup and serve it to me as though I were a customer. Then he would ask, ‘What would you change? What do you like?’ That practice trained us to taste with curiosity.” Those early lessons became a lifelong habit. Even now a bowl of crab soup triggers a checklist in Ankita’s head. She thinks about the celery in the broth and the texture of the crab. Taste became a way of thinking.
Two Personalities, One Shared Ethic
The siblings describe themselves as opposites. The contrast reads like an organising principle rather than a problem. “We balance each other,” Ankita says. “If there is a need for panic, I bring it. If a situation needs calm, Adith brings the level head.” The balance shows in decisions both small and large. Ankita explains how ideas are debated late at night. “Three in the morning is often when a new thought will arrive. We will WhatsApp and talk. We have thirty-minute or one-hour conversations about silly things. Those exchanges make the idea better.”
Adith frames his inheritance in numerals. “My father used to sit with the accounts every Monday when Fresh Catch was shut,” he says. “He believed that to run a successful restaurant you must get the numbers right. He could predict turnover by watching how many seats filled and by knowing food costs. I have tried to take that habit seriously.” This focus on arithmetic sits against Ankita’s skill with customers. “She can soothe the angriest guest,” Adith admits. “If someone is furious she will turn their mood completely. She will make them smile and then they will leave a good review.” The distribution of tasks is therefore practical: Adith looks at margins and Ankita polishes the experience.
The Gentle Authority Of Presence
Both siblings express a shared belief in something intangible they inherited from their father. “Presence,” Ankita says. “So many guests would call to check if Francis was around. They would not ask for a reservation. They wanted to know if he would come and speak to them.” It is a defining method of hospitality. Francis sourced fish himself each morning. He would then go and explain choices to tables as if narrating a small gift. “He would say, ‘I bought this today. Try it,’” Ankita remembers. “That act made customers feel acknowledged.”
Adith describes how that practice shaped the restaurant’s identity. “Hospitality is not only about food,” he says. “You can cook this at home, but coming to Fresh Catch must be an experience. If someone visits they should find a place that feels like a living room, not a theatre of manners. You don't need to act or dress a certain way to come here. It should feel like coming home.” The family keeps that homely tone in small ways. The mother still rearranges flowers. Coconut shells are reused for dessert spoons. The décor includes objects collected on trips. Each artefact signals a human hand and each choice signals care.
Staff, Loyalty And The Pressure Of Succession
The people who worked at Fresh Catch before the siblings took charge continued to matter more than any consultant. Adith names Amar, a staff member who shaped his childhood. “He would pick me up after football practice and take me to tennis. He came to my matches. He was simply there.” The man later became a senior employee. “After my father passed, he stayed. He had the knowledge of decades. Sometimes he knows the restaurant better than I do. He still calls me ‘baba’ and then has to stop because I am his boss now.” The mixture of affection and role reversal has not eroded mutual respect.
Ankita points to a different truth. “Many people who started as interns are still here,” she says. “They have grown up with us. One chef started at eighteen to help his family. He married and stayed. When we had to change processes he would come and tell us what he thought. He argued for the restaurant as if it were his own.”
On Karwari Cuisine And Family Favourites
Karwari food resists simple categorisation. When people in Mumbai hear ‘seafood’ they think of Goan or Mangalorean styles. Fresh Catch occupies a coastal cusp. “We are on the border of Goa and Karnataka,” Ankita explains. “Our food carries both influences and yet it remains its own thing. It is an ingredient-driven cuisine. Spices are used to highlight the seafood, not to overwhelm it.” She gives an example in the Jeera Meera Curry. “Jeera means cumin and meera means black pepper. The dish depends on roasted spices. You can pair it with crab or an oily fish. The approach is about balance and the element of place.”
Adith adds a practical line. “We train our staff to tell stories,” he says. “If a guest does not know the names, the server will explain the origin. People often like to know why a particular fish was chosen. They appreciate the backstory.” That framing turns a meal into a conversation. It also brings the family’s sourcing habits into view. They do not use fish during breeding seasons, instead they work within the calendar of local catch.
Asked to choose a dish closest to their hearts, both refuse to pick just one, every recipe reflects their home kitchen. Ankita’s personal favourite is the Pomfret Hara Bhara, marinated in mint, coriander, and green chilli paste before being grilled to perfection. She pairs it with Ambotik Curry and Neer Dosa.
Adith, meanwhile, can’t resist the Chicken Rossa Curry, a coconut-based dish with a peppery kick, which he eats at least three times a week, sometimes even ordering it on delivery apps without telling the staff. He also swears by the Prawns Recheado and, like any true loyalist, requested a feast from Fresh Catch to be waiting at home when he returned from a trip to Portugal.
Conserving The Flagship While Experimenting Elsewhere
The siblings follow a guiding principle about change. “You do not touch what is not broken,” Ankita says plainly. “We get customers who return after ten years and say that a single bite transported them back.” For that reason, the core menu at Fresh Catch remains stable. They may tweak texture, adjust coconut or chilli balance and create seasonal specials. They will not rewrite the most familiar dishes. The rule is subtle: innovation happens in the margins. It also happens at Frys With Fries.
Frys With Fries started as an experiment in tone and speed. The idea was to provide seafood fast food with clean hands and easy eating. “Everything is boneless and simple to eat,” Ankita says. “We wanted to capture younger crowds on Hill Road who want a quick late-night grub that does not require a fork and the patience of a full table service.” The brand thinking is deliberate. Adith recounts his advertising logic. “When we launched on Swiggy we found the algorithmic problem of not having enough delivery partners nearby,” he explains. “We invited riders to the restaurant, fed them and took their contacts. That created a network. Small campaigns like that helped.” The same hunger for small hacks translated into a naming strategy. The phrase ‘fries’ is highly searched. Including the word in the brand name was a deliberately tactical move.
Technique, Instinct And The Kitchen As Classroom
Ankita trained as a chef. She articulates the negotiation between formal technique and inherited instinct with care. “My father learned at his mother’s side,” she says. “He ground masalas on a stone. He knew the feel of a masala by touch. That labour created texture. I bring technique to ensure consistency and presentation. We implement SOPs so dishes come out reliably and the garnish is thoughtful. Yet the flavour must still echo the home kitchen.” The sibling partnership allows for those trade-offs. Adith counts numbers and Ankita refines texture. The staff maintains the rhythm.
The result is a menu where the old methods and new systems sit together with ease. The freshwater practices and the restaurant’s need for predictability exist in conversation. One side stabilises, and the other opens room for small experiments. Customers who want the original bombil fry will find it unchanged. Those curious for a seasonal special will find the kitchen ready to surprise them.
Stepping Into Succession And Continuing Rituals
Taking on a family business often means reconciling public expectations with private mourning. Both siblings speak of this work with quiet honesty. Adith remembers the pressure that followed the lockdown. “We were young when the change of guard happened,” he says. “People kept asking, ‘Will it be the same?’ That line felt heavy. You also have to handle staff, municipal officials and every problem that comes up. For me, that emotional piece was the hardest. I had to be strong in front of our guests.” He also insists on the privilege of working with his sister. “When you can bounce off another person you are less alone.”
Ankita Fernandes spoke with the warmth and ease of someone describing not just a workplace, but a life built around shared meals, shared laughter, and shared responsibility. “So whether it is being at the restaurant or being at home, we’re always around each other,” she said. “Because we have our better halves, the group has just become bigger. It’s Adith’s wife, Freny, and my husband, Akshay, who have just joined the group. We’re literally besties with each other. Everything is done together. Even stepping out, doing something over the weekend, it’s always as a group. And you know, restaurants don’t really have weekends.”
The family’s conversations are never just idle chatter. Adith mentioned how their mother, deeply involved in advertising and known for many of the hair commercials seen on television and billboards, brings a different perspective to their daily activities.
Some rituals, however, are more spiritual, “Both of us have the same praying style when we enter the restaurant. We picked it up from my father. Whenever he came in or left, he’d stop at the grotto, our little altar with pictures of Mother Mary and Jesus, and pray. We’ve carried that forward. I’ve even seen times when Ankita’s forgotten, walked out, and then gone back upstairs just to pray before leaving. We don’t enter or leave without giving thanks at that altar. It’s our way of acknowledging the blessing that is this restaurant.”
For Adith, the connection to their father is constant and deeply felt. “I always say, and I use this dialogue everywhere, that my father gave me pocket money for life in the form of Fresh Catch. As kids, he’d hand us pocket money. Now, he’s left us this restaurant. It’s the biggest blessing he could have given me.”
