When Meherwan Irani reminisces on his youth in Ahmednagar, a city in western India, he often thinks of train stations. As a teenager, he and his friends made frequent 2 a.m. runs to the stations, where food stalls remained open all night. They could always count on someone to be selling vada pav — spiced potato fritters sandwiched between soft buns — which they paired with cups of piping-hot chai.

Decades later, Irani has become the guy selling vada pav, albeit at brick-and-mortar locations on the other side of the world. In 2009, he and his wife, Molly Irani, co-founded Chai Pani, the James Beard Award-winning restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina. He oversees the culinary side of things, while Molly handles culture and hospitality. Within a few years of opening, Chai Pani expanded to

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