Kolkata’s 6 Ballygunge Place hosts first-ever pop-up in Chennai

When a Bengali invitations you dwelling for a meal, it’s by no means nearly meals, however about storytelling, reminiscence, and a deep, inherited love for the kitchen. Few eating places seize that sentiment with finesse and depth, and 6 Ballygunge Place, a Kolkata establishment, is among the many pioneers which have made it potential. For over 20 years, it has served extra than simply meals; it has served tradition. This week, it’s serving a slice of that tradition in Chennai.

At a pop-up hosted by Park Hyatt Chennai’s Park Brasserie, the restaurant is introducing its meticulously researched, time-honoured Bengali dishes to a brand new viewers.

At the helm of this pop-up is Chef Sushanta Sengupta, who co-founded 6 Ballygunge Place in 2003 with the imaginative and prescient of bringing Bengali delicacies out of the house and into the world of positive eating. “From the inception of our restaurant, we always felt like Bengalis will never eat Bengali food outside their home. But times are changing culturally partly because these dishes are not getting made at home anymore. The generation before us who were involved in the kitchen, are slowly giving up, and the new generation is not able to keep up,” he says.

At Park Brasserie, the workforce serves a rigorously curated menu that stays true to their Kolkata flagship. “We haven’t changed anything,” the chef says. “It’s a pop-up, so we wanted people in Chennai to experience our food exactly the way we serve it back home.”

The first course is a basket of luchi, served with a flavourful bhaja masala aloo dum, and an unassuming cholar dal, which is nice and savoury in equal measure. A uncooked inexperienced chilli and a slice of Gondhoraj lemon provides oomph to every chew. The desk is then laden with steaming rice, and bhortas — a til badamer bhorta made with sesame and peanuts, and a chingri (prawn) bhorta, each slicked with a pungent mustard oil, and greatest eaten along with your palms. “These bhortas are very rustic and not all Bengali homes make it, but we picked it up from some districts. It is like a Bengali version of podi that you mix with rice and ghee in the South,” says chef Sushanta.

The major course continues with a silken chingri malai curry, made with coconut milk, (a nod, the chef says, to Southeast Asian affect on Bengal’s shoreline). It is paired with basanti pulao, and kosha mangsho, a slow-cooked mutton in a thick, darkish gravy. Vegetarian choices embody delicate chanar kalia, chenna (ricotta) dumplings in an analogous coconut milk curry and mochar paturi, banana flower, mustard and coconut, wrapped in banana leaf and grilled.

The meal closes on a candy notice, as all Bengali meals should. The indrani, mini rosogollahs served in a thick creamy rabri, is topped with crunchy chopped nuts. Also attempt the festive nolen gur ice cream, infused with Bengal’s beloved winter jaggery.

At a time when regional delicacies is more and more discovering satisfaction of place on India’s fine-dining map, 6 Ballygunge Place’s go to to Chennai looks like a second of culinary diplomacy — a cultural bridge laid gently, course by course.

Park Brasserie at Park Hyatt Chennai is internet hosting the pop-up by 6 Ballygunge Place from July 16 to twenty. A meal for 2 prices ₹1,350. For reservations name 8939871440.