From intimate dining rooms in Delhi NCR to cosy flats in London, a new generation of home chefs is changing the narrative around Bengali food. Moving beyond stereotypes of fish curry and mishti doi, they are presenting layered, seasonal and personal menus. These supper clubs are not just about food, but about memory, migration and making Bengali cuisine accessible to wider audiences.
Toonika Guha
For Toonika Guha, Bengali food has always been intertwined with family and culture. Raised in Kolkata and later moving to Delhi for college at Lady Shri Ram College, she carried her love for Bengali flavours with her. Today, while working full-time in marketing at Duolingo, she runs a popular supper club in Gurgaon that introduces diners to contemporary interpretations of Bengali cuisine.
“I’ve always wanted to promote Bengali culture outside Kolkata. In Delhi, you get takeaways, but very few places give you a proper experience,” she said.
Her menus are seasonal and constantly evolving, but rooted in memory. Dishes like peyaj posto served on a rice cracker or a reimagined dhokar dalna presented as a cake reflect her approach. “I’m not trying to change Bengali food. I want to present it in a way that more people feel comfortable trying it,” she explained.
With guests often seated at long communal tables, her supper clubs attract both Bengalis missing home flavours and non-Bengalis curious about new experiences. “The first supper club I hosted had no Bengalis at all. People came for the community feeling as much as the food,” she added.
Samita Gopal Halder
Samita Gopal Halder’s relationship with food spans four decades and countless kitchens across India. With roots in Barishal, Jhalokathi, Jessore and Dhaka, her cooking reflects the diversity of undivided Bengal. Much of her culinary knowledge comes from lived experience, cooking for her family during years of transferable postings linked to her husband’s work.
“I am not talking about fancy food. I am talking about household food. The food we actually eat every day,” she said.
During the pandemic, she cooked for people without charging, an act that eventually led others to push her towards taking her work seriously. Since then, she has worked across five-star hotels, top-end clubs, corporate spaces and private dining formats, often as a heritage consultant.
Her supper club menus focus on indigenous rice varieties, seasonal produce and lesser-known preparations. “Sixty percent of my clients are non-Bengalis. They trust me and give me full freedom with the menu,” she said. One dish that always features is her bhapa doi, often made with fruits like Himsagar mango or winter strawberries.
Sohini Banerjee
Born in Calcutta and brought up in the UK, Sohini Banerjee runs Smoke and Lime, a supper club she founded in 2018 with her husband Rijul. Hosted from their south London flat, her dinners reflect a life lived between cultures.
“I grew up in the UK, and I am as much British as I am Indian. My mother adapted her Bengali cooking to local produce, so my food was never meant to be fusion,” she said.
Sohini’s menus blend Bengali techniques with global influences while staying true to the soul of the cuisine. Central to her work is the idea of adda, creating warmth, conversation and connection around the table. This spring, she is bringing her philosophy back to the city of her birth with a two-day pop-up in Kolkata, using no-waste menus and market-sourced produce.