Former Raja chef Ahana Dutt wants to show Sydneysiders there’s more to Indian cooking than butter chicken when Kolkata Social opens in Newtown.
Chef Ahana Dutt was awarded a Good Food Guide hat at Potts Point’s short-lived Raja Indian restaurant following a six-year stint in the kitchen at Surry Hills fine diner and former Restaurant of the Year Firedoor. Now, Dutt will tick the box on her dream of championing Bengali cuisine when Kolkata Social opens in Newtown on Wednesday, March 26.
Underrepresented across Sydney restaurant menus, the food of Dutt’s Kolkata youth isn’t the only first for the chef. “I’m used to working in kitchens where I’m the only woman,” she said.
Dutt has carefully shaped a rare, nearly all-female team at Kolkata Social. The new venue, which is on the southern end of King Street, has only one man in the kitchen. She loves talent spotting and training staff, and handing down Bengali recipes – as her mother did with her – isn’t a chore.
A decent chunk of Kolkata Social’s recipes trace back to the Dutt family archive. If you look carefully, there’s even a mural honouring Dutt’s mum on the restaurant’s wall. The chef wants to show Sydneysiders there’s more to India than butter chicken, and reveal the nuances of “mustard green heat” of Bengali food.
“People ask why there’s wasabi in my food – there’s no wasabi,” she said.
Part of that food education is to offer alternatives to predictable Indian staples such as naan bread. At Kolkata Social you’ll find radhabollobhi, the chewy fried flatbread with a lentil filling and crisp edges. In Kolkata, barramundi, known as bhetki or Asian seabass, is popular. Dutt has included a smoked version, fried in mustard oil and served with yoghurt, cardamom and green chillies.
Dutt wants to add a little flex to dishes, with the kitchen team already working on a fried eggplant dish pimped up with toppings of local crab or whitebait. The cake on the dessert menu is a Dutt family recipe, served with saffron cream and fruit.
Kolkata Social is the latest venue from Shaun Christie-David’s Plate it Forward, the social enterprise hospitality group he launched in 2019 with the launch of Colombo Social in Enmore. That early leg-up for asylum seekers has broadened its brief to include anyone who faces barriers to employment.
When Dutt left Raja, Christie-David pounced to bring her on board as an adviser and trainer. She’s been working across Plate it Forward venues for the past six months. “She trains with a calmness,” Christie-David said.
Dutt has added to a hospitality group already strongly represented by women, who make up more than 80 per cent of its workforce.
“We have seen the all-women kitchen teams at Kabul Social and Kyiv Social transform and grow under the care and dedication of Ahana,” Christie-David said.
Plate it Forward has had a couple of misses along the journey, with its Mexican joint Coyoacan Social in South Eveleigh failing to fire, and Christie-David keen to reboot its Anything But Humble bakery concept. On top of its restaurant portfolio, Plate it Forward pumps out 3000 meals a week for its charity partners.
Christie-David is committed to nurturing talent. It’s either fate or chance that made him stumble on the empty King Street shopfront where Dutt will put a spotlight on Bengali food.
“I was walking home from Colombo Social,” Christie David said. “I usually take a different route, but something said ‘go the other way’.”
Open dinner Wed-Fri; lunch and dinner Sat-Sun
528-528A King Street, Newtown, instagram.com/kolkatasocial_
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