From Gujarat to Australia, here's the journey of Enter Via Laundry's chef Helly Raichura

This is the story of an Indian-origin Gujarati woman, who with her confidence and culinary skills made a name for herself in a faraway land of Australia. Meet Helly Raichura — a beautiful, young and charismatic chef, who did spend half of her life in India but went on to become a well-known chef in the land down under. Although Helly makes her annual trips to India in search of new and authentic dishes to get inspired from, this year marked a little extra special as she presented her skills professionally for the first time in India in Mumbai.

We met Helly at the Flavours of India and Australia pop-up organised by Conosh, a community of food lovers who brought this association to Mumbai at Rivea, Taj Santacruz. Showcasing an Aussie chef’s Indian culinary adventure, Helly Raichura — chef at Enter Via Laundry, Melbourne, took us all by surprise as we indulged in a seven-course exceptional meal with surprising Australian ingredients.

We talk to Helly about her journey, inspiration, Australia, and more…

You come to India every year to research new dishes and add them to your menu. How's this year looking for you?

It is amazing to come in and eat a lot of different foods. This time around I landed in Kerala and started my journey from Coonoor. I have been lucky to meet all these amazing people from the food industry who are very passionate about their produce or otherwise are just brilliant cooks. I've just been very lucky to meet people from within food entrepreneurship, food history and sciences and women teaching cookery from home. I'm kind of sensory overload and information overload, but I cannot complain.

You had also started your career as a home chef. What was your journey like?

I think it's a bit of a cliche, but it started from childhood. Ever since I saw my ba (mother) making beautiful melon seed laddus which she used to dry herself and use little eyebrow-plucking tweezers to pick out these little seeds from the melon and then make a little sweet out of it. That level of detail I had already seen and then when I grew up, in my mid-twenties I saw that a lot of other people do that as well, and they made a career out of it. But at the time of the era, in India, women were more respected if they were in a corporate job and doing a 9 to 5 job, a boss lady kind of a scene was more respected. So, I kind of went on to that lane and worked in corporate for a few years, but at the end of the day, my calling was coming back into the kitchen. After having my first child, I started doing a bit of baking from home and then I got an opportunity to go and work at one of the Michelin-star Indian restaurants. And then I came back to Australia and worked at a very brilliant restaurant in Melbourne under a very amazing chef, Sean Quay, where I learned a lot about native Australian ingredients. What I cook now is a different mix of me searching and researching all the regional food and also trying to incorporate all these beautiful native Australian ingredients.

Then you started your restaurant Enter Via Laundry. What’s the story behind the name of your restaurant?

In Australia, we do all our work ourselves. I was cleaning our backyard and it was massive. I told Vishal (husband) that this backyard is so massive that every time we invite our friends and family they have to come in through the backyard and I have to clean it up every time which I didn't want to. I'm not a gardener of any sort, so isn't it just better if they entered via the laundry which was a little opening through which the dining room was accessible. For me, it has always been just kind of submitting to my curiosity and cooking something that I'm excited about and I think Enter via Laundry is still the same and hence you just get the name same.

Your focus is Indian cuisine with a twist of Australia. How is it working out?

It does really well. I do have a lot of our own community people coming in and it is very reassuring when a Bengali comes in and says, “I love the shukto that you've made. It reminds me of my grandma”. You know how it is very territorial for a Gujarati to make a shukto with a little bit of bush tomato in it for the bitterness instead of something else, say karela, that is usually used for that bit of bitterness and creaminess? But when you get that reaffirmation from another Bengali living in Melbourne, it's just a different type of joy. We have that audience that is missing traditional food and I make sure that there is at least one course in the entire menu which is not altered. But then there's also non-Indian Australian people who actually travel to India a lot or have a cousin who they had visited who is now just living in Haridwar. So, we get a lot of these people who are curious about India and love the culture of India. And for them, they understand it. And they love it because they think that, okay, of course, we love the quintessential tradition, but this is something else.

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Which Indian cuisine do you think would be the most popular worldwide and which one do you want to explore more?

The sad answer? What will really work outside is the dhaba-style food. Because everyone loves dhaba-style food! The food of the mountains like Meghalaya and Nagaland, is something which I want to explore next. I was in Darjeeling and there is so much produce that is extremely different from what you get in Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat or Kerala and it has a great, great potential for a chef.

India has adopted Chinese and Italian, which is now Desi Chinese and Desi Italian. Do you think in the coming years, India will have Desi Australian food too?

 Australia does not have a cuisine of its own. I'm sorry. Australia, like many other colonized countries, is the land of the Wando people and the native people there. The food there is very rustic and the amazing thing is that their value system is similar to ours, where they worship the mountains, fire, water and nature. They pass on their tradition verbally, they have rituals and dances to call upon rains and things like that, which is fabulous but the thing is that this community now is so small, they are known as the First Nation people, that it is hard to pass that cuisine on. I think a lot of Melbourne chefs are doing their best to preserve that. Those native ingredients are something that we identify as Australian, There are some favorites like pies and Pavlova and some Vegemite but Bolognese is what is eaten a lot, and Pad Thai is eaten a lot in Australia.

What was the one dish that you cooked that made you think, ‘Why did I even cook this?’

There was this show called Intimate Escapes. A white woman going around Michelin star restaurants and eating these fabulous meals. I saw an Italian episode where a guy made a risotto and I thought, “Okay, rice and stock and some cheese. I have all these things”. I went in and made a risotto with Basmati rice and I put whole cheese in it. Oh my god, it was a disaster! Of course, you can't replace your lemon zest with a lemon! My mum said, “Beta aaje nai khavaye (Won’t be able to eat today). We will have to order pav bhaji today”. Literally, that’s what we did.

One most memorable dish you have come up with.

I love making paperbark undhiyu. It's a very simple dish and it's a perfect match for Gujarat, which is where I come from, and native Australia. I take the tubers that are in season and marinate them with coriander, ginger and chilli paste, a little turmeric and a lot of oil. Then I take an earthen pot, line it up with the bark of a tree called paperbark. Now in Gujarat, they call it vanaspati, there is no particular name, it is used for layering down undhiyu. I went outside the street and took the paperbark, the native Australians cook fish in that, so I thought why not undhiyu? I lined it up, put the vegetables in it and sealed it. Then I also make chutney. Usually, we make kothani chutney with undhiyu. I made it with Davidson’s Plum chutney so it’s another very citrusy plum that adds beautiful blood or red colour to it. And I think that’s my favourite dish. It’s simple but it just speaks of my type of food.

Three restaurants you would advise Indians to try in Australia.

If you are going out on a date, you don't want to spend a fortune but have the best time, go to Lagoon Dining. If you want to spend a fortune, and impress your business clients, go to Gimlet. if you want to take your family out because you are very tired and you love Chinese food, go to Lu Yang Dumpling House.

Do you think, in future, you will open a restaurant here in India?

I always say that after a certain while, I will come back to India and stay somewhere in Mumbai or Delhi. Everything is just so amazing. Maybe after some flyovers are done! There is a possibility for sure that I would just keep travelling back to Australia or somewhere else, bring all these beautiful ingredients, come back and cook something Indian or maybe not Indian who knows. I give myself enough fluidity to change my creative path and I'm not scared of that. Anything could happen.

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