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Journalism of Courage
Walk me through your growing up years and culinary philosophy.
I grew up in Mumbai in a regular middle-class Gujarati family. The food cooked at home was very simple. We didn’t own a dining table and would eat together on the floor. I loved street food like sevpuri and bhelpuri. Sundays were special as the whole family would go out to eat prasadam at the Iskcon temple in Juhu.
I come from a strictly vegetarian household. When I was 12 or 13, I tasted chicken by mistake courtesy my school friend, whose mother had sent chicken fried rice in his tiffin. Not aware that I am vegetarian, he offered it to me. When I realised I had eaten chicken, I panicked. I called mom and dad and told them what had happened. They were cool about it and said I could eat meat outside if I wished. From then on, I started exploring non-vegetarian food.
Dhamaka has been a huge learning curve for me and my partner Roni Mazumdar. When we opened this restaurant in 2021, we knew we were taking huge risks. We figured we could always reinvent If we failed. But the day the fear to conform set in, we would end up doing the same standard 10 dishes that every Indian restaurant sells in New York. Our vision was to showcase the forgotten side of India. I strongly believe regional Indian food needs to get the right platform on the world stage.
You created a dhamaka yourself by bagging the James Beard award for Best Chef (New York State) in 2022. What was that moment like?
Winning the award was obviously special. So far, it’s been only given to chefs cooking modern American or European food or practitioners of molecular gastronomy. I never knew it was meant for a brown-skinned guy cooking ethnic Indian food.
This win is a huge responsibility. I’m the 33 rd chef in New York State to get this award. If I screw up at this point, it might take another 40 years for an ethnic chef to win again. We can’t be just the recipients of the award. We have to inspire.
You took a lot of audacious steps — doing away with favourites like butter chicken, not toning down spice levels for a Western audience. Were you apprehensive that some of these might backfire?
Dhamaka breaks all the norms and turns every existing notion about what an Indian restaurant should be on its head. We serve food on stainless steel plates, and the main courses, like pulao, are served in the pots in which they are cooked.
When we started, the team would constantly question me: Why serve food in stainless steel plates when we can buy good china? But I wanted things to be down to earth. I go to a restaurant to have a phenomenal meal and great conversations. I don’t want to go somewhere where I have to mentally prepare myself hours before I go. What shall I wear? Will I be judged?
The service is very casual, too. Our head server, who gets a lot of praise from diners, is from Bangladesh and speaks just passable English. He had gone to other Indian restaurants for a job and was told that with his skills, he could only be a runner, not a server. Then he came to us. He had a phenomenal personality, very accessible, fun and warm. I immediately hired him.
How does it feel to be back in India? Can you share some highlights from the exclusive dinners you curated at JW Marriott New Delhi Aerocity and JW Marriott Mumbai Juhu as part of Masters of Marriott Bonvoy with Culinary Culture?
I cooked in India after 15 years. All credit goes to Masters of Marriott Bonvoy and Culinary Culture to come up with a groundbreaking programme that successfully showcases the biggest names in the culinary world.
We brought a lot of rustic dishes to India. As a kid, I hated eating eggplant. The only form I could eat was when my mother made ringan no oro, or Gujarati baingan bharta, seasoned with green garlic. She would serve it with a bowl of yoghurt, some jaggery and bajreki roti. We created oro for our Indian diners, among other dishes. For non-vegetarians, we served items like methi gosht cooked in a clay pot and smoked.
In a global context, the perception of Indian cuisine has been marred by cliches and misconceptions. Do you see the narrative changing?
We tend to blame Westerners for reducing Indian food to a handful of dishes. But we are to blame. If we want to change their idea of Indian food, we have to make them experience authentic regional dishes. Dhamaka features dishes from Meghalaya, Orissa and Bihar on the menu. Which restaurant in India offers these? If Indian restaurants in India start doing more regional food, it will help the growth of Indian food abroad as well.
Recently, this old gentleman was speaking with my business partner. He said, I have lived in this country for 25 years. After eating your food, for the first time I feel that I can fight for this food. Until now I couldn’t do so because the Indian food served here just wasn’t exciting.
What kind of feedback do you get from your non-Indian diners?
It’s funny, but the only people who complain about the spice level are Indians. New Yorkers love it when people are proud of their own culture and try to do justice to it. Indians, on the other hand, often come with a sense of entitlement that they can walk into an Indian restaurant and demand whatever they want.
As Indians we aren’t used to the idea of eating raw food. But when we go to a Japanese restaurant, we don’t tell the chef to cook the sushi for us, right? Sadly, we take our own cuisine and culture for granted.
If you were to launch Dhamaka in India, would you do anything differently?
I’m not sure whether Dhamaka as a concept would work in India. Socio-economic factors play a huge role in the success of a restaurant. For Indians, a restaurant is a luxury, whereas in the West, it’s more like a commodity. People don’t think a lot before eating out overseas.
Whereas here, eating out is an occasion.
Sona Bahadur is an independent food journalist and author based in Mumbai. She is the former editor of BBC Good Food Magazine India
