Jal’s Sikh property dealer now German celebrity chef

Amritsar: A turbaned Sikh property dealer from Jalandhar has become a German celebrity chef without any formal culinary training. A master of even Italian, Greek, and Punjabi cuisine, he now trains the other German celebrity chefs along with running four restaurants and a hotel in Magdeburg city near Berlin.
Bhupinder Singh, 47, popular as Singh Laly, started off as a property dealer in India after Class XI, but his passion for singing took him to Paris in 1998 before he came to his brother, Amarjit Singh, in Germany.The opportunities there helped him recalibrate his life’s trajectory and establish himself in a foreign land.

In 1998, Laly became a small-street entrepreneur of toys and electronic merchandise in Magdeburg and opened a pizza shop within a year out of determination and industriousness. He overcame a car accident to build a second pizza shop. Leveraging his background in property dealing, Laly used the German real estate market to acquire two buildings in 2004 and another two in 2006.
A meeting with Deafine of Kosovar in Germany blossomed into love and marriage. A rift with brother made him relocate to Munich to work in a restaurant, where he honed his culinary skills. Laly’s talent in the kitchen caught the attention of his employer and he encouraged him to beat self-doubt and turn a full-time chef. “My first wage was 15 euros an hour, and I have never since turned back,” he said. Devoting 400 hours a month to cooking flourished his culinary skills and made his employer’s restaurant popular for steak and grill dishes, besides Indian cuisine in which he turned the desi roadside ‘aaloo tkki’ into a fine-dine dish.
His fame spread beyond the restaurant to both mainstream and social media platforms such as TikTok, where he has a big following. He said: “After 4 restaurants and a hotel, besides properties in Germany, we plan to open another restaurant this year. My daughter, Emily Harnur, is my strength and builder of the social media sites of the family hotels and restaurants.
After 2019, Laly started taking grooming seriously and visiting salon every Monday for hair and beard maintenance until a Hazuri Ragi of Golden Temple, Bhai Lakhwinder Singh, reshaped his perspective and brought him back to Sikh maryada and retaining his beard and hair. Laly said: “Since then, I’ve stopped going to salon. His Sikh appearance also fetched him modelling assignments for Karlowsky Fashion and Chef’s Culinar. He was named best chef of Saxony-Anhalt.