The future of Bengali food in Delhi?

In the film Mahalaya, one Bengali bureaucrat in North Block catches hold of another and ticks him off for giving the 4 am Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s radio rendition welcoming Goddess Durga a miss — and having done so, he had ‘lost’ his culture to Delhi.

I have had no such fall. In the lie-low month of Shradh observed by north Indians as a time to be temperate, I was open to the pleasures of the Dhakai Pora Mangsho (mutton, charcoal black in colour, with a distinctive burnt aroma) with Luchi (puffed bread), among other things, at 6 Ballygunge Place, incidentally the catering partner of the film.

For Bengalis, this is the season of letting go, eating big, and, in Aninda Palit’s case, of having opened the doors to a new restaurant, a Kolkata-famous restaurant of Bengali food, in Delhi.

Palit is one of the trio of partners, Swaminathan Ramani and Chef Sushanta Sengupta; the three were former colleagues at The Park hotel in Kolkata. 6 Ballygunge Place is the first retail outlet in India to register its address as a trademark.

The menu, the menu card, the terracotta-hued walls on which hangs oversized masks with eyes a la Jamini Roy, a mural based on Tagore’s famous song on the ‘golden deer’, and an artistic recreation of the Bengali alphabet—the identity curation has been done keeping in mind the territory. “When we chose Delhi to open a venture out of Kolkata we were aware we need to both stand out as a Bengali restaurant and be a sophisticated space for eating out in a city that takes fine dining seriously,” says Palit.

6 Ballygunge Place’s ‘natural home’ may have been in a Bengali-dominated area. Its address, however, is the glass-fronted Eldeco Centre at Malviya Nagar, where, unlike Chittaranjan Park known in Delhi as mini-Bengal, you are not always likely to hit a Bengali if you chuck a stone in any direction; here, the demographic is multi-ethnic.

It is bordered by upscale Saket—so perhaps in many other ways opening the restaurant here makes good business sense. Social media reels and word-of-mouth have anyway ensured that the news has spread. That night, the occupants of the 96-seater restaurant were, indeed, mostly Bengali, a few Sikh families with old Kolkata connections, Punjabi kitty-party members and quite a few mixed couples with one of the partners, a Bengali.

Mashi-pishi food

What kind of Bengali food will be its mainstay? “North Indian restaurants serve food like chicken tikka masala, while we serve food we eat at home, the traditional home-cooked food by mashi-pishi (aunts),” said Palit. The Chingri Machher Chiney Kebab (stuffed spiced and baked jumbo prawn) that was served on Noritake plates may not quite fit that description but it’s certainly a dish that mashi pishis may serve on days they would like to show that they have game.

In 2003, the trio tried the gamble in Kolkata, of being a Bengali food restaurant, and it paid off even though Kolkata had well-known stand-alone Bengali restaurants like Aheli and Kewpie’s as competition. “The one exception we have made for Delhi is that we have Mughlai food [Calcutta-style Mughlai dishes like Mutton Rezala and Chicken Chaap] on the menu as well,” adds Palit.

Palit and his team have arrived in Delhi with the preparation of a Trojan invasion, as it were. The first drips of intelligence about meal preferences of Bengalis in Delhi and Delhiites in general came, of course, from Chef Roy, a Delhiite—about the kind of fish they prefer, for instance. “Delhiites like pomfret, aar. They wouldn’t take to shutki (dried fish). They are also tepid about crabs,” added Palit. 6 Ballygunge Place’s hilsa is exported from Dhaka, he informed—on the menu are both steamed hilsa and the fish in mustard gravy.

In between the courses, especially if you are a sucker for nostalgia, you could sip the innovatively named cold beverages. “What you have in hand, we serve as Apu Durga (the brother-sister duo of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel that Satyajit Ray made famous as Pather Panchali) in our Kolkata restaurant but Delhi might not relate to it so it goes by the name of Sonar Bangla (a tamarind and spiced drink with a hint of orange),” said Palit with a smile.

Bengal and Bangladesh

What will be new for those who like eating Bengali food in a Delhi restaurant is the bhorta or a mash, a side-dish eaten before the serious business of eating the big-bang dishes, like a Daab Chingri or Kosha Mangsho, is begun. A bhorta followed by a Paturi are appetite-whetters. Vegetarians could try the sesame-seed-and-groundnut bhorta; non-vegetarians, do try the egg-and-liver bhorta.

The Bangladeshi imprint is also strong in the menu—another difference in 6 Ballygunge Place’s offering as compared to other Bengali restaurants in the city. Well-known Bangladeshi culinary expert Nayana Afroz has previously done Bata and Bhorta festival and a Pulao Payesh Parbon (food eaten in Bengali Muslim households at Iftar and at Seheri during Ramzan) for the Kolkata restaurant. Palit recommended the Boot Pulao (a non-veg dish made with Bengal gram) from the cuisine of the other Bengal. I ended the meal with Nolengurer ice-cream. Next stop–the Pujo buffet next week.

The elephant in the room, however, is will 6 Ballygunge now give Oh!Calcutta, Delhi’s marquee Bengali food restaurant, a run for its money? “Competition is always good and the market has a place for everyone,” Ramani had said in a phone conversation at the time of facilitating my appointment with Palit. “If you are good, you can sell ice to the Eskimo.”

6 Ballygunge Place’s Pujo Special evening buffet (Oct 9-13) is priced Rs 1,950 plus taxes. A la carte meal for two: Rs 2,500 (approx)