How two New York restaurateurs are changing the face of Indian food in the West

Scene 1Two middleaged Indian women walk into Masalawala a restaurant in Brooklyn New York and ask for butter chicken and samosaldquoItrsquos not availablerdquo the chef respondsldquoWhat kind of an Indian restaurant doesnrsquot serve samosa and butter chickenrdquo one of them retortsldquoA Bengali restaurantrdquo reasons the chefldquoSo whatrdquo they say visibly irritated and walk awayScene 2An enthusiastic customer tells the chef you should try adding wasabi to the dishldquoPray whyrdquo asks the chefldquoBecause it would elevate the dishrdquo the customer respondsldquoI donrsquot think itrsquos elevating itrsquos alienating it Would a Japanese chef ever use Indian ingredients The answer is nordquo the chef saysThe chef in both these stories is Mumbai boy Chintan Pandya chefpartner at Dhamaka who was awarded the 2022 Chef of the Year by the prestigious James Beard Foundation Unpretentious is the first word that comes to mind when we meet him with restaurateurpartner Roni Mazumdar of Unapologetic Foods for the Masters of Marriott Bonvoy and Culinary Culture meet and greet at Saffron JW Marriott Juhu The pair was in the city to host select dinners at the restaurant to celebrate the dishes that Indians love to eat at home baigan bharta mach paturi chatpata aam woodwrapped seekh kabab murgh pulao and meetha paanSmoked eggplant mashed with green garlic chilli bajra and a hint of jaggery mach paturi PicsShadab KhanPandya was cooking on his home turf after 15 years and was visibly thrilled to be in a place that inspires him in the kitchen in New York every single day ldquoSome of our best food is whatrsquos on the streets and in our homesrdquo said Pandya who was raised in a Gujarati vegetarian family in Juhu and is ironically a champion of headtotoe cooking using goat brains kidneys testicles and even the pigrsquos face And guests love it If we had gone with the assumption that everybody visiting an Indian eatery only orders butter chicken and samosa wersquod never have showcased the food that truly excites usrdquo he saysMazumdar who grew up in Kolkata in the 1980s believing that foreign is better than desi is quick to dismiss the idea of the Americanised versions of Mughlai and Punjabi food served in New York ldquoIndians canrsquot even relate to it It is cheaper and takeoutfriendly but is more labourintensive and uses ingredients like cauliflower ginger coriander and mint that are in fact more expensive As Indians we have a habit of questioning our own identity The colonial impact still lingers strongly in our minds and I donrsquot blame America for any of our problems We have never put our real cuisine out thererdquo he says adding ldquoIn high school Irsquod tell my mom to not make fish curry when friends were coming over This sense of insecurity keeps playing in our minds So when Chintan came up with the idea of putting bheja fry on the menu I wasnrsquot convinced It was his conviction that made me change my mind If wersquod go by the assumption that everybody only orders butter chicken or samosa then when would we ever showcase the food that truly excites usrdquo asks MazumdarLR Chef Chintan Pandya and restaurateur Roni Mazumdar of Dhamaka in New York had arrived in the city last fortnight to host dinners with Marriottrsquos Chef Gaurav Malhotra and celebrate the forgotten dishes of IndiaTheir first restaurant Adda Indian Canteen launched in 2018 in Queens New York became a national sensation in the US and it gave them the confidence to take it to another level with Dhamakamdashgoing into unexplored food choices of India ldquoWe took an approach where each region got its due It made the conversations with our guests richer and created a whole different narrative in New Yorkrdquo says PandyaDhamaka isnrsquot swanky On the contrary their glasses are from Ikea and the plates are stainless steel Just like at home Most of the dishes are cooked and served in the same clay pots cast iron dishes and pressure cookers they are made in ldquoWe are an expensive Indian restaurant but not in the manner of being posh or shaving truffle on a dish We are expensive because of the ingredients we use It has been a fight against the normal perception and people questioning our intentions but we are okay with thatrdquo says Pandya who goes on to explain the math ldquoAt a good Italian restaurant the price of a burrata salad is about 24 About 90 per cent of the restaurants donrsquot even make their burrata and the ones that do get a yield of 30 per cent from a gallon of milk For paneer the yield is 13 to 14 per centmdashon a good day So technically we should be pricing our paneer dishes higherrdquo adds Pandya who makes paneer from fullfat milk sourced from local dairies buying out their whole batch ldquoWhen we sell it at a certain price people complain about it being expensive I ask them if they liked the quality They say itrsquos the best Then why would you not want to pay for itrdquo he asksThe nuanced difference between lamb and mutton is hard to tell even for some of the most experienced chefs ldquoAnything that you want to do depends on how far you want to go with your vision There is no mutton vendor on the east coast of America so we source from someone in Arizona a fourandahalf hour flight away every two weeks You have to push yourself to do that nobodyrsquos asking you to do itrdquo says PandyaThe first rule at Unapologetic Food the company that runs Semma Dhamaka Adda Indian Canteen Masalawala Rowdy Rooster and Kebabwala restaurants is to not change the food to suit others ldquoWe serve Indian food which is the best version of the dish Eat it or leave itmdashwe are not here to please you instead we would serve a version that the chef feels is the best version of the dish So when wersquore making Champaran meat from Bihar we donrsquot make a version that is ideal for a restaurant setting we make it like that man is making on his chula in a clay pot by smoking it and using whole garlicrdquo says MazumdarThe duo feels that at times chefs want to mimic what a Noma or Eleven Madison Park has donemdasheven though that cuisine is radically differentmdashbecause it wins awards ldquoA lot of it becomes about the personal journey of a chef The real power of a chef is to know when to hold backrdquo feels MazumdarAdding to it Gaurav Malhotra Executive Chef at JW Marriott Juhu agrees He highlights the irony of Indian students at Institute of Hotel Management studying from French food Bible Larousse Gastronomique while chefs abroad are learning about Indian culinary culture ldquoUsing the sous vide technique or confit garlic makes them feel that they have elevated a dish Some Indian techniques are far more complex but havenrsquot received their due Today everyone wants to be a pastry chef no one wants to be a halwai Also Indian recipes need better documentation When my mother shares a recipe that was passed down from my grandmom it is at 95 per cent accuracy By the time it comes to me it would be at 90 per cent thatrsquos deterioration of authenticity over timerdquoWhen Mazumdar moved to the US with his family at 13 he witnessed firsthand the inferiority complex most Indians experienced ldquoAmericans are not sitting and judging us we are in our own headsrdquo he says It doesnrsquot surprise us why Pandya and Mazumdar are also the only Indian restaurateurs to hold a seat at the New York State Restaurant Association That Naomi Watts Jennifer Lawrence Michael J Fox and Padma Lakshmi are their regular patrons proves them right