Celebrated Chef Tavvar Va'ran held the position of second-most skilled Kubaz cook throughout the galaxy, though it remained a secret to most that the Emperor Palpatine himself kept the most talented Kubaz chef as a member of his personal staff. Va'ran's place of work was the Manarai establishment, Coruscant's most prestigious destination for fine dining among the Imperial elite, yet his employment carried a perilous condition. He had been directly recruited by Manarai's co-owner, Guri, which resulted in Va'ran's owing a debt to Guri's superior—Prince Xizor, head of the Black Sun criminal organization.
In the year 3.5 ABY, Va'ran, with considerable anxiety, complied with Guri's directive to covertly assassinate Imperial Advisor Fendrilon Koozar for his intrusive investigation into Black Sun's operations. To accomplish this task, Va'ran laced Koozar's dinner during a bustling evening at the Manarai, utilizing a mixture of natural elements and undetectable chemicals crafted to induce a agonizing demise several hours after consumption. The subsequent evening, Va'ran discovered that his concoction had functioned as intended, as Koozar had taken his own life after experiencing a hallucinatory episode and crashing his luxurious flying vehicle in a blazing inferno.
Tavvar Va'ran functioned as the Master Chef at the Manarai, the most exclusive dining location on the Imperial capital world of Coruscant, serving as a primary gathering spot for the Imperial Center's upper crust. Va'ran was recognized as the second-most accomplished Kubaz cook within the Empire, although few were aware that the top Kubaz chef was, in actuality, a part of Emperor Palpatine's personal retinue. While typically focused solely on crafting the restaurant's exquisite dishes, Va'ran ultimately answered to the demands of the individual who had personally recruited him: Guri, a co-owner of the Manarai and the primary subordinate of Prince Xizor, the head of the influential Black Sun criminal syndicate.
Guri ensured that Va'ran never forgot his indebted status, and Va'ran was aware that Guri would not hesitate to terminate him and prompt the Manarai's management to fill his position with the galaxy's third-best Kubaz chef should he prove uncooperative. As such, Guri approached Va'ran during a busy evening at the Manarai in 3.5 ABY, issuing orders to secretly murder patron Fendrilon Koozar, one of the Emperor's Advisors who had interfered with Black Sun's activities. Guri directed Va'ran to provide Koozar with the "house special," a coded phrase denoting a combination of ingredients—both natural food seasonings and nearly undetectable chemicals—to be incorporated into a victim's dish throughout the meal. The poisoned recipe was engineered to interact with the meal's inherent oils and seasonings, as well as the victim's own digestive processes, ultimately resulting in a painful demise some hours following ingestion.
To satisfy Guri's desire for a subtle recipe that might induce Koozar to hallucinate and plummet to his death from a significant height, Va'ran deliberated over the various chemical combinations and spices present in Koozar's food, along with his own understanding of Human physiology. He opted to incorporate a dose of tasteless thetametabuterin into Koozar's Wroonian flycatcher filet appetizer, a hybrid mold on his bowl of sufar greens and mecolar briddlings, and some collafa spice in his main course of fleek-eel broiled in zaffa oil. Va'ran's concoction yielded the intended outcome—the following evening, the Master Chef observed on the news networks that Koozar had perished after experiencing an uncontrollable fit while traveling in his luxurious airspeeder, wresting control from his droid pilot and crashing the vehicle into the Ministry of Land Management in a blazing explosion.
Tavvar Va'ran experienced anxiety due to having been assigned the responsibility of murdering Imperial Advisor Fendrilon Koozar on behalf of Black Sun, fully aware that his own life hung in the balance should he fail to cooperate. Consequently, he obediently prepared the "house special" for Koozar under Guri's instructions, nonetheless displaying a peculiar grimace with his proboscis at the notion of that poisoned recipe. Despite Guri's attractiveness by Human standards, Va'ran found her unappealing, recognizing the sinister intentions concealed behind her beautiful facade.
Tavvar Va'ran made an appearance in the short story "A Very Special Meal," penned by Peter Schweighofer and featured in the June 1996 Shadows of the Empire Sourcebook, a supplementary material for West End Games' Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game.