A peek into the Delhi restaurant Rahul Gandhi visited to eat chhole bhature

Pianist M Rahman says, “She (Priyanka) requested two songs: Mera joota hai japani and Kisi ki muskurahaton pe to be played. She has a very good taste in music.”

Featured in an episode in the latest season of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives, Kwality opened in 1940 as a snack bar for American soldiers who stopped over in Delhi during World War II. Started by P L Lamba and his brother-in-law I K Ghei, the name was a wordplay on the word ‘quality’, a gimmick they thought would draw attention.

As the outlet found success, the entrepreneurial duo opened one more restaurant in Connaught Place, followed by Mumbai, before expanding globally by granting franchise rights to operators in New York, London, Hong Kong and Trinidad, among others.

Today, Divij Lamba, 36, part of the third generation of the family, owns and manages the restaurant along with his brother Dhruv, 42. “The original” is a phrase used by Divij to describe the restaurant, adding that they have “stood the test of time…when other restaurants have mongrelised. Kwality radiates tradition.”

On the decor, Divij says, “The tea cups are designed like the ones used in Rashtrapati Bhavan and the cobblestone flooring seeks to emulate European streets.”

Kwality was also behind the iconic eponymous ice cream brand. It established ice cream factories all over the country in the 1950s and collaborated with British giant Unilever to launch Kwality Walls, which the family exited in 2006.

Cut to 2024 though, the family now owns the Delhi restaurant, another restaurant in Mumbai, a bakery brand with two outlets in Delhi, and an outdoor catering business. The pandemic was the final nail in the coffin of the massive eatery business, with the family selling their stake in the London restaurant.

But Kwality still maintains its position as a destination for Delhi’s high-flying elites: it counts among its patrons German chancellor Olaf Scholz, former President Ram Nath Kovind’s wife, and former finance minister Arun Jaitley. Priyanka’s husband Robert Vadra is a regular, visiting about once every two months.

“Celebrity guests are not bothered and given space. That’s why they prefer to come to Kwality,” says Sunil Lamba, the 75-year-old proprietor.

An iconic photograph of two celebrity guests continues to grace the restaurant’s walls – Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi having Kwality ice cream.