Bengali in Kolkata

Bengali food stayed at home far longer than most Indian cuisines. Until the 1980s there were almost no Bengali restaurants in Kolkata, because nobody would pay for food their own kitchen cooked better. The restaurant Bengali kitchen is therefore recent, and it is consciously trying to serve what a good household would.

The structure of a meal matters here more than individual dishes: bitter first, then dal, then vegetables, then fish, then meat, then chutney and sweet. Fish runs through all of it, and in the monsoon the argument about hilsa — Padma or Ganga, and how to cook it — becomes a civic event.

Name	Where	What it is known for
6 Ballygunge Place2003	6 Ballygunge Place, Ballygunge	In a 1920s Bengali house; the restaurant that made Bengali food a dining-out cuisine. The buffet is the way most people eat here.
Kewpie’s Kitchen1991	Elgin Lane, Bhowanipore	Run by the Dasgupta family out of their own home; thali service, and the closest a restaurant gets to a Bengali household table.
Bhojohori Manna2003	Ekdalia Road, Hindustan Park and city-wide	Named after a Bengali nonsense rhyme; plain rooms, home-style cooking, fair prices.
Oh! Calcutta1996	Forum Mall, Elgin Road	The polished end of Bengali cooking; kosha mangsho, daab chingri, smoked hilsa.
Koshe Kosha	Hindustan Park and Salt Lake	Mutton-forward Bengali; the name is the dish.
Tero Parbon1998	Hindustan Park, Gariahat	Named for the thirteen festivals; seasonal and ritual Bengali dishes.
Saptapadi	Southern Avenue	Bengali and Anglo-Bengali on one menu.
Bijoli Grill1963	Deshapriya Park and city-wide	Started as a caterer and still caters most of South Kolkata’s weddings.
Sholoana Bangaliana	Bhowanipore	Bengali home cooking, unfussy.
6 Ballygunge Place Bhaat-e	Lake Market	The thali format from the same group.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Suruchi1960s	Elliot Road	Run by the All Bengal Women’s Union as a training kitchen; the profits fund the home. Plain Bengali food and a reason to eat it.
Aaheli1994	Peerless Inn, Esplanade	Hotel Bengali cooking; one of the first serious attempts at it.
Swadhin Bharat Hindu Hotel1912	College Street	A pice hotel — the old cheap eating houses for students and workers. Rice, dal, fish, on a bench.
Chittaranjan Hotel	College Street area	Another surviving pice hotel.
Mitra Cafe1920	Shobhabazar and Chittaranjan Avenue	Brain chop, fish kabiraji and the old cabin menu.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Mitra Cafe1920	Shobhabazar	The North Kolkata original; kabiraji cutlet, brain chop, fish fry.
Allen Kitchen1880s	Jatindra Mohan Avenue, Shyambazar	Famous for one thing: the prawn cutlet. A counter, not a restaurant.
Golbari1930s	Shyambazar More	Kosha mangsho, dark and slow-cooked, from a corner shop that sells little else.
Adi Haridas Modakc.1780	Shyambazar More	Kochuri and chholar dal in the morning; among the oldest food shops in the city.
Bagbazar and Hatibagan home kitchens	Bagbazar, Hatibagan	The bonedi bari tradition; much of the best Bengali food here is still domestic.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Bhojohori Manna	Salt Lake and New Town	The suburban outlets.
6 Ballygunge Place	Salt Lake City Centre	The Salt Lake branch.
Salt Lake Bengali kitchens	Salt Lake, New Town	Serving the IT population; newer and more polished.

Name	Where	What it is known for
Howrah Bengali eating houses	Howrah, Shibpur	Plain rice-and-fish kitchens for the station and the mills.

What to order

• Shorshe ilish in the monsoon — hilsa in mustard, steamed, with rice
• Kosha mangsho, slow-cooked mutton, with luchi
• Chingri malai curry — prawns in coconut milk
• Bhetki paturi, steamed in banana leaf
• Shukto first and chutney last — the order of a Bengali meal is not decoration
• Posto — poppy seed — in any form, which is a Bengali obsession

Other kinds of eating

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