About two and a half decades ago a wave of high’ish end traditional Bengali restaurants opened in Calcutta/Kolkata. This was a significant development for a number of reasons. For one thing it was a marker of how regional Indian food was beginning to be marketed to wealthy Indians as they looked for more ways to spend the greater disposable income they had in the era of the liberalization of the economy. Rather than foreign or Mughlai or Chinese food, it was now regional food that began to become a viable market proposition. For another, it was also a sign of transformations in the domestic sphere for Bengalis in the middle class and above: more and more younger women were in the workplace, the grip of the joint family was loosening. Among the effects were breaks in the transmission of traditional cooking and recipes in the patriarchal household. The new restaurants increasingly became the places where the Bengali leisure class went to eat dishes that a generation prior would have been made at home, either on special occasions or more regularly.

Restaurants like Kewpie’s, Bhojohori Manna and Oh! Calcutta led this new wave in the city (though the true pioneer was probably Aaheli at the Peerless Hotel)—and Oh! Calcutta eventually opened branches elsewhere in the country and aboard as well (many years ago, I reviewed a meal at their Nehru Place location in Delhi). 6 Ballygunge Place, which began as a catering outfit, was a slightly later entrant in the game but have since become the standard bearer. Thus the recent opening of their first-ever branch in Delhi was a significant event. When my nephews proposed eating their last month, I readily agreed. Here’s how it went.

The restaurant is located in a swanky office building (I think) called the Eldeco Centre in Malviya Nagar in South Delhi. Delhi does have a significant Bengali population, and the iconic centre of this population, Chittaranjan Park, is not that far away on the Outer Ring Road. 6 Ballygunge Place’s appeal, however, is not just to this crowd—it would probably not be a viable proposition in the long run if it were—but also to non-Bengalis in Delhi looking to eat Bengali food in the register of the exotic. (To be fair, many of the dishes on 6 Ballygunge Place’s menu register as exotic for young urban Bengalis as well.) The staff have all been brought from Kolkata and speak in Bengali to non-Bengali customers down. Indeed, when I called to make reservations the person answering the phone did so in Bengali even though I had spoken in English. The manager told me that North Indians don’t have as much difficulty with this as I assumed and seemed to enjoy it. That may be true but if the tables next to us were representative, this form of communication breaks down soon enough and the staff have to break out their Hindi.

The dining room is swanky and shiny, though I found much of the decor to be over the top. We were there very early for lunch by Delhi standards and so were among the first tables seated. By the time we left, they had begun to fill up. The menu is voluminous and contains dishes from across Bengali foodways as graphed on various axes. It includes dishes that would once have been made regularly in homes, dishes from the wedding banquet repertoire, and iconic snacks; it includes dishes from the Bengali Hindu and Muslim repertoires, as well as from the Ghoti (West Bengali) and Bangal (East Bengali) repertoires. And there are some colonial-era dishes as well. Most of the savoury dishes are prepared in a traditional manner. The sweets, however, are mostly passed through a mod filter, as you’ll see below.

What did we order? Rather a lot. We started with the Fish Fry made with bhetki. The fish is both marinated in kashundi (the Bengali mustard paste) before being crumbed and fried and served along with it. This was rather good but even better was the Posto Narkel Bora—coconut and poppy seed fritters. Excellent on their own, even better mashed into rice with ghee, as suggested by our server. A very proper Chholar Dal led the procession of heavier dishes; representing the vegetarian end of things along with it were Mochar Ghonto (shredded and sauteed banana blossom) and Jhur Jhure Alu Bhaja (shredded potato fried to a crisp). All were very good as well, with the mochar ghonto my favourite.

You can’t have enough fish/seafood if you’re Bengali and we got the Ilish Paturi (hilsa, somehow boneless, roasted in mustard-coconut paste in gourd leaves) and the Daab Chingri, which features prawns cooked in a green coconut. Since we get kosha mangsho at home, we passed on that in favour of Mutton Rezala. All three were excellent. Along with rice we had a range of breads as well. We ate the rezala with parathas and the chholar dal and ghonto with luuchis (unaccountably not pictured below). And I couldn’t resist getting one each of their Karaishutir Kochuri (a puffy bread whose inside is smeared with mashed green peas) and their Radhaballavi (a larger puffy bread whose inside is smeared with mashed dal).

My nephews were very suspicious of the mod-looking desserts but I talked them into an order each of the Bhapa Doi Brulee and the Baked Sandesh. Despite the mod/fusiony elements these checked all the boxes.

For a look at the restaurant, the menu and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down for thoughts on service, to see how much it all cost and to see what’s coming next on the food front.

Service was very good. The staff described the dishes well and were present whenever needed. We did, of course, have to tell them to set the food down so we could serve ourselves (my nephews, I am happy to say, dislike as much as I do the usual expensive Indian restaurant practice of servers putting food on your plates). Cost? All of the above, plus some cold drinks, tax and included service charge came to just over Rs. 7000 or about $82. That’s not a cheap meal for three in Delhi by any means, but you could also easily spend a lot more. But the quality of the food is very good. If you’re in Delhi and don’t have access to this kind of food, by all means check out 6 Ballygunge Place even though it’s a Bengali restaurant. I’ll probably be back with the family when we’re next in Delhi together.

Alright, I hope to have one more Delhi report up this weekend. Next week’s Twin Cities report will feature a return to a restaurant I reported on just a couple of weeks ago: we’re about to leave for a friend’s birthday lunch at Grand Szechuan.