Breaking Stereotypes: From the homes of Punjab to the restaurant menu

Mint

2 days ago

It's sad but true that what passes for Punjabi cuisine in many of the restaurants in the National Capital Region (NCR) is a bit of a cliche. You know what to expect even before opening the menu card—some sort of tandoori kebab, dal makhani, garlic naan, a sweet shahi chicken gravy enriched with a paste of nuts. The list is somewhat incongruous with the image that the landscape of Punjab conjures up: lush fields, a wide variety of seasonal produce, community kitchens and slow-cooked meals. There is a disconnect between what is peddled under the monolith of 'Punjabi food" and what is actually cooked in homes across the state.
One wonders what led to dishes such as dal makhani, tandoori chicken and butter chicken becoming synonymous with Punjabi cuisine in Delhi. Historian-academic Pushpesh Pant offers the sociological and psychological reasons behind this. 'Partition impoverished people. It made them refugees who didn't have access to individual kitchens. Later, when they became a little more affluent and put roots down in Delhi, they started to enrich and embellish their food," he explains. Some became proprietors of dhabas and what they created was not a mirror image of the dishes from their hometowns but a repertoire to inform people that they were not always impoverished. And those dishes caught on.
Over time, instead of supervising the cooking themselves, they got cooks from Nepal, Garhwal and Kumaon to the kitchens. 'They would add large amounts of ghee and later on dalda and palm oil so that they didn't need to watch over the frying of the onions closely. To disguise the grease, they started adding a paste of badaam-pista and called it a shahi gravy," he explains. Later, those who couldn't afford the dry fruit, substituted it with peanuts. But neither were these homestyle recipes nor did they offer any nuance on the various regions of Punjab.
After the Partition, people who fled their hometowns and made their way to Delhi or Mukteshwar, where Pant is from, came to be bracketed under the umbrella term of refugees, bared of their identities and cultural markers of the regions of Multan, Sindh and Lahore that they hailed from. 'Where is the food from regional parts of Punjab, which people used to eat? Is it possible to retain the original recipes after 75 years? In such a scenario, it remains to be seen how culinary practices from homes make their way to the mainstream dining scene," he says.
In the past year, however, there have been renewed endeavours to showcase familial recipes backed by strong storytelling about the rich history of the region. The initial effort was made in 2018-19 when Reetika Gill started Curry Singh Kitchens as a small-covers restaurant in Gurugram. The trained chef—and daughter of Manjit Gill, one of the most well-respected Indian chefs—served dishes like bharwa tinda, a thin and light homestyle chicken curry and radish greens besides the usual staples. These were dishes that she had grown up with. 'Her alu vadiyan are to die for. Unfortunately, the space for Curry Singh Kitchen had been taken on a lease and was no longer commercially viable after the pandemic. Now you have to visit her home to taste some of these dishes. But her restaurant offered that rare glimpse of Punjab ke gharo ka khana," says Pant.
In 2025, that conversation has been taken up once again by a niche set of restaurants such as Ikk Panjab by Rajan and Deepika Sethi of Bright Hospitality, and Kikli—the latest addition to the Capital's dining scene—helmed by chef Amninder Sandhu. Recently, chef Sherry Mehta curated a menu as part of the pop-up, 'Undivided Punjab", at Ishaara in Mumbai. The showcasing of memories from Punjab could be viewed within the larger trend of chefs putting familial recipes on the restaurant table. But for Sandhu, Kikli is not about following any sort of market swing but rather a personal passion project to document knowledge from across Punjab—be it through oral histories or royal records. 'That is the legacy that I want to leave behind," she says.
The restaurant, which opened in late July, is set within a restored heritage site in Connaught Place. The ethos of the menu is carried forth in the interiors designed by Ariane Ginwala—mud work and phulkari motifs in the upholstery and a mix of wooden and brass elements run through the space. The idea had been on Sandhu's mind since 2017 while doing pop-ups in Mumbai. This yearning to showcase the warmth of Punjab gained strength while she launched Bawri Goa in 2023 to serve regional heirloom recipes and embarked on other pop-ups in recent years.
Born in a Sikh family, Sandhu grew up in Jorhat, Assam. The spirit of Punjab stayed alive within her through the stories and recipes of her mother and grandmother. 'When they would make vadi, for instance, they would put a little blade of grass on it to ward off the evil eye. This is not common knowledge in Punjab even now," she says. In a way, Kikli is an ode to the wisdom and strength of the women of her family.
It was during a research trip to different cities of rural Punjab that she picked up on oral histories around food and complex techniques practised within homes even today. Sandhu deepened her travels by speaking to craftspersons about utensils and equipment such as the handmade sarblohdeghs (iron vessels) for slow cooking lentils and the earthen kundas (cooking pot). Some of these have made their way into the Kikli kitchen. She grinds her chutneys such as the imli and tomato one, for instance, in a danda kunda (a stone mortar with wooden pestle). She built a hara inspired by a 120-year-old one at a farmhouse in Dyalpura Bhai Ka, Punjab. Traditionally used for slow cooking lentils and saag over pathiya, or cow dung cakes, this piece of equipment also works as a smoking chamber.
The menu steers clear of stereotypical dishes to showcase recipes from different regions like alu vadiyan, pathiya sekiya kukkad, a chicken preparation from Granthgarh village, pani de hath ki roti or rotis made only with water, chibar or wild cucumber, and mungre (rat-tail radish) cooked in kundas. The dal is cooked overnight over a pathiya. This is then tempered with a dollop of white butter or ghee—just the way people have it at home. 'We are not mad to add cream and butter to everyday dishes. Most of the people that I spoke to during my travels were happy eating just dal and roti as long as the produce was organic. The speed at which wheat is ground to make the flour for the roti is important. For Punjabis, the produce, the utensils and the techniques are paramount," she says.
Sandhu has tied up with local farmers to curate her seasonal offerings—the restaurant will have two menus every year, one for summer and the other for winter. The organic produce lends an authentic touch to creations such as chapparwale koftey, or bottle gourd koftas with alu bukhara. Sandhu envisions Kikli as a community space where people can share oral testimonies and heritage. 'The restaurant is only the beginning. I will continue travelling back to Punjab, adding to my research and documentation," she says.
Ikk Panjab too brings to the table the spirit of pre-Partition Punjab. The restaurants in Connaught Place, Gurugram and Chandigarh have personal roots in Sethi wishing to honour his father. It has been designed as an old Punjabi home with vintage photos and memorabilia to etch a portrait of a well-travelled person, rooted in the ethos of the state. The menu features a mix of well-known and oft-overlooked dishes such as atta chicken from Kotkapura in which the poultry is wrapped in dough and baked for hours. Then there is Ferozpuri macchi, which brings fresh catch from Punjab's rivers to the forefront. Instead of heavy lababdar and kadhai preparations, paneer is featured as a simple bhurji as cooked by families today.
Deepika Sethi mentions the linkages between some of the home-cooked dishes and folk culture. The masur dal, which goes into the khatti masar preparation, is an intrinsic part of folklore and songs. 'It is important to bring to the fore the stories of food we have grown up with. It breaks the myth created by older restaurants and dhabas," she adds. One of the signature dishes is matthi chhole, which is an heirloom winter recipe of the Sethis. Rajan's grandmother would use leftover chickpeas or any thick dal to top the matthi. The making of the matthi was also significant as it heralded the change in season. Ikk Panjab has also been created as a community space, where gatherings are held on a regular basis to spotlight literature, music and craft from Punjab. 'At a time when popular culture doesn't truly represent the depth of Punjab, spaces such as these become important," says Sethi.