A devastating fire and a battle with cancer couldn’t stop this Toronto bar owner

On August 1, 2024, Naveen Chakravarti, owner of Ossington favourite Oddseoul, purchased a space down the road to house his new restaurant concept, Please and Thank You, a lounge serving cocktails alongside East Asian and Indian snacks. One week later, Oddseoul burst into flames after a kitchen fire went disastrously awry. Three weeks after that, Chakravarti found out he had two forms of Stage 2 cancer: lymphoma and lung.

“I was trying to get my new restaurant off the ground while managing repairs and renovations from the fire when my neck suddenly became extremely swollen—it blew up,” says Chakravarti. “My sister, who is a doctor, had just gone through cancer herself, and we have a lot of it in the family. I took myself to Princess Margaret and demanded an immediate PET scan.”

Chakravarti was admitted to the hospital on the spot. “They told me I should get all of my affairs in order, just in case I died,” he says. “They were going to blast me with the most intense chemo there was.”

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He spent three weeks in hospital, followed by another six months of less intense but still brutal chemotherapy. During that time, he reopened Oddseoul. “I still had to work to survive,” he says. “The restaurants are my only source of income—and rent doesn’t pay itself. I’d be throwing up and passing out while making decisions and figuring out next steps.”

On December 24, 2024, Chakravarti completed chemo. By January, he opened the doors to Please and Thank You. Business boomed through the spring—until his health took another turn. “One day last May, I was walking and suddenly felt like I couldn’t take another step,” he says. “My legs felt so weak. I almost fainted. So I took myself to the hospital again.”

This time, doctors discovered that three of his major organs—his heart, lungs and kidneys—were all in failure. Chakravarti was once again admitted to hospital, a turn of events that forced the closure of Please and Thank You just four months after it had finally opened.

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Finally, three weeks ago, after months of struggle, Chakravarti decided he was strong enough to open the doors to 108 Ossington once again—but this time with a new name and a new concept.

“I’m a first-generation Indian Canadian, and there aren’t enough Indians in this city cooking Indian food,” he says. “Since my illness, I feel more connected to my heritage and my family than ever. Neon Tiger is unapologetically Indian, with modern cocktails and authentic food—the kind my mother makes to help me get strong.”

India-born chef Akshat Chawla helms the kitchen, sending out charcoal-grilled chicken, avocado kebabs, tandoori shrimp, and an Aleppo-pepper coconut curry that leans boldly into heat and depth. Butter chicken, notably, didn’t make the cut.

“Butter chicken isn’t Indian food,” Chakravarti says. “I’ve rewritten my health story. Now I’m going to rewrite what Toronto thinks Indian food really is.”