Chatpata chaat in California

Nikhil Merchant, who has worked as a food blogger and restaurant consultant in Mumbai, is donning the chef’s hat for the first time with Imli. Pics Courtesy/Stan Lee

To pursue a dream in the midst of a pandemic can be daunting. Food blogger-journalist Nikhil Merchant, who travelled between continents, to see his dream through, would know. A familiar face on Mumbai's gastronomic circles, Merchant moved bag and baggage to Los Angeles, sometime in the fag end of 2019. There, in the upmarket Whittier, California, he along with his childhood friend and former South Mumbai resident, Ashwini Jhaveri, were to launch the city's first Indian restaurant, when the Covid-19 outbreak threw a spanner in the works. While they settled for a pop-up on weekends that offered a rotating menu of Indian snacks and meals, they are now just months shy of finally realising their passion enterprise, an all-day restaurant named Imli.

Merchant and Ashwini Jhaveri, co-owners, say their dream restaurant has been five years in the making

Testing new waters as the architect and co-creator of Imli was a sound decision, feels Merchant, who despite a glowing foodie resume, never donned the chef's hat. "I don't come from a conventional food background. This wasn't the line my family expected me to take. They wanted me to get an MBA, and become an entrepreneur. So, while I was passionate about cooking since I was 11, I only pursued it as a hobby. The thought of doing a hotel management course hadn't even occurred to me," he says over a call. Merchant started slow, cooking meals for family and friends, while researching about food histories. As his interest grew, he landed writing gigs with publications, and began consulting for Mumbai restaurants.

Watching his journey closely was his friend Jhaveri, a legal professional, who moved to LA in December 2007 after she was married. She had become nostalgic about her home city, especially its street food. "The food [at restaurants] here didn't strike a chord with me. That's also because it was meant for the American palate," she remembers. On a whim, she reached out to Merchant "to pick his brains" about starting something that would come close to the chaat eateries of Mumbai. The idea to start a restaurant came up during these conversations, says Merchant of the project, which has been over five years in the making. "I kept travelling between Mumbai and the US during this time, developing recipes, and curating the menu."

The murgh badaami shorba, a slow-reduced, spiced chicken bone broth scented with saffron, poppy and almonds, is part of the chef's special menu

In the US, Indian cuisine is synonymous with butter chicken and chicken tikka gravy, which are, if anything, interchangeable, feels Merchant. When he came on board, he was happy to start with a town like Whittier that had little or no exposure to Indian food. The challenge here was to acquaint the locals with the cuisine, about which many of them had no clue, except that it was "too spicy". "It was my prerogative to paint a perfect picture for them."

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"When the pandemic happened, construction of our restaurant took a hit. In the same building, where we had bought a space, was a brewery, which had opened in January 2020. It had managed to survive, as they were allowed to do takeaways," says Merchant. At some point, the brewery owner reached out to Jhaveri and Merchant, asking if they'd like to collaborate and do a weekly pop-up.

Goan pork soportel

The menu at this pop-up includes experimental street style offerings, with favourite Bombay eats like rasta sandwich, kheema pav, sev puri, aloo chaat and chicken frankie, it also has a "chai bar", where you can pick from filter kaapi, and masala, elaichi and pudina chai to enjoy with the buttery, and slightly sweet Shrewsbury biscuits and puff pastries. For those craving a hearty main course, there are "family style" meals - shrimp moilee (the vegetarian option is jackfruit and cauliflower moilee), Goan prawn curry, achari murg, and also desi thalis, comprising paneer makhani, dal makhani, mixed vegetable raita, pickles, and papad. There has been an attempt to ensure that the lesser known curries, like the coconut-based moilee, have their moment in the sun. "I am trying to stay away from trends and all the boxed-up assumptions of what Indian food and culture is about," he says.

That's also one of the reasons, why Merchant refuses to tone down the spice in his dishes, unless, of course, the customer makes a special request. Even then, he doesn't, before trying to first convince them. "Recently, we had someone come in, who told us point blank that she has ‘zero tolerance' for spice. I went up to her with the sauce that I had prepared for the jackfruit curry, and which I had blended with some spices, and asked her to taste it. She had a lick, and then some more, before polishing it off. She was taken aback. Until before that day, she didn't know she could handle spice," says Merchant.

The menu has everything from "street" style offerings, like rasta sandwich and sev puri, to special "family style" shrimp moilee, and achari murg

In March, the pop-up launched the Golden Quadrangle Series, showcasing one dish from the North, South, West and Eastern parts of India every month. The dishes are part of the chef's special menu. They started with the crab rasam, a broth-style soup from the region of Chettinad, made with rasam masala, black pepper, sweet red chilli and coriander. This was followed by the sorpotel from Goa in April, and recently, the murgh badaami shorba, a slow-reduced, spiced chicken bone broth scented with saffron, poppy and almonds, from the North.

Jhaveri and Merchant are now gearing up to launch their restaurant in the next few months. With residents at Whittier already able to tell the difference between puri and papad, their experiment seems to be working. The ultimate goal, says Merchant, is to bring these lessons back home. "Sometimes, I wonder how I managed to uproot myself from Bombay," he later confides, quickly adding that you have to move out sometimes, to appreciate everything you've left behind.

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