I have grown up hearing stories about Grand Hotel (now The Oberoi Grand) from my grandmother, whose Goan husband served as a steward in the princely hotel from roughly 1960-1977, minus a few years at Skyroom. My grandfather could speak many languages and men of his fashion were much in demand with the number of foreigners staying at the hotel. According to my grandmother, the late M.S. Oberoi saw him at the Oberoi Maidens Hotel, Delhi, and personally offered him stewardship at the then flourishing Grand Hotel in Calcutta where he joined the team at Prince’s on a monthly stipend of Rs 150.

Prince’s 

In the 1950s, there were three places the genteel partied at — Prince’s, Firpo’s and Maxim’s at the Great Eastern. The revelries peaked during Christmas and New Year, as it still happens today. Ellis Joshua, who started as a waiter of kitchen order tickets at the Grand in the early ’40s, and rose to become manager, had planned out thematic ‘Nites’ on Saturdays. Bachi J. Karkaria in To A Grand Design wrote: “Prince’s. Nothing has been ever able to take its place. Calcutta’s most scintillating nightclub, whether it was the only-on-a-Saturday rendezvous of its early years or the ‘Tonite and every Nite’ hot spot it became after 1946.... The men, always in a suit... and the women never needing a dress regulation to put their glad rags on”.

Then came the Sixties. The iron merchants of Burrabazar wanted to be seen at Prince’s. They were afraid to enter because though they had the money, they didn’t have the right dress. “So in conjunction with the dhobis at the bhatikhana, to whom was paid 25p or 50p, they would scandalously borrow the clothes of a gentleman who was to check out two days later,” reveals a retired hotel source, on stern conditions of anonymity. 
And finally, came the Swingin’ Seventies, where the sensational cabaret dancer Miss Shefali stood out among the Lucys and the Rosys at Prince’s.

The Pink Elephant and Garden Cafe

In the early ’80s, Prince’s gave way to The Pink Elephant though it can hardly be called its successor as the lineage was entirely different. A few years before that, around 1976-77, Garden Cafe opened where La Terrasse now stands. It had 96 covers and was possibly the first restaurant to have a live counter. “There was a kith and kin relationship between The Pink Elephant and Garden Cafe at that time. The late-night crowd after drinking all night at The Pink Elephant would come to Garden Cafe, where they would witness the sunrise,” says Malay Ghosh (inset), who joined Oberoi in 1977 as a trainee. 

The hotel was the first to introduce Bose speakers in the nightclub. And a DJ no longer meant a dinner jacket but a disco jockey. The entrance fee was around Rs 150 in the early ’80s. “But only superpowers could help you get entry when Patrick Swayze was there dancing after a day of shooting for City of Joy,” chuckles Amitava Sarkar (inset), assistant manager, airport and concierge. 

This was also around the time old-timers remember a jyotishee sitting behind one of the pillars in the lobby. “In those days, we were the British Airways associate hotel. Whenever the jyotishee would see a captain passing, he would say under his breath, ‘Be careful with the flight’. Immediately he’d have the attention of the captain, who after a session would thrust into his hand sometimes a $20 bill and sometimes, a £100 bill,” narrates Ghosh with mischievous eyes. 

La Brasserie

Garden Cafe gave way to all-day dining La Brasserie around 1982-83. A slightly more formal approach was adapted and the bufferland at either end of Garden Cafe, with bird cages and real dancing birds in them, was done away with. One end now houses an emergency staircase. “We were possibly moving from an era of a typical flourishing Anglo-Indian concept of fun and frolic to a slightly more formalised restaurant. I still remember as a trainee in 1988, the word coffee shop was not used at all,” says chef Saurav Banerjee, now the executive chef of the hotel.

La Terrasse

Then, in 1998, came La Terrasse, which took the place of La Brasserie under the then general manager Dominique Nordmann with Chef ‘Willi’ playing an instrumental role. “I arrived in Calcutta in 1996, the year Gharana opened. Dominique Nordmann hired me out of Singapore. At that time, the hotel was suffering, it had lost a lot of business to Taj Bengal (opened in 1989). At La Terrasse, we renovated the kitchen and put everything on wheels so the working stations could be moved around and it was easy to clean. It was quite innovative at the time. I was there for three years and I’m still in contact with some of my cooks. I had a bit of a temper, and I was a bit of a Gordon Ramsay but I think I was still liked by most. I must ask chef Saurav to send me a last cuppa coffee,” laughs chef R.C. Willson over the phone from Chennai, where after being involved in the opening of The Park he now runs his own restaurant consultancy. 

Chowringhee Bar

This is where Pam Crain would sing Don’t Cry For Me Argentina. Where Carlton Kitto sang There’s A Small Hotel and more for 11 years at a stretch and before that at Grand’s Scherezade, which opened in the mid-50s. “Chowringhee Bar was and is the only jazz bar in Calcutta, perhaps India. There was Pam Crain, Don Saigal... foreigners would flock here for the live music. They’d say, ‘Jazz is dying out in the States and we’re shocked to hear this in Calcutta’. I’m thankful to Mr Oberoi for giving me the opportunity,” said Kitto. 

And now the new...

Fast forward to the present, and general manager Varun Chhibber (inset) is the lens through which Mr (P.R.S.) Oberoi sees changes in the hotel. “We want to bring in the next level of experience of F&B in the city. People are still asking us, ‘Why are you closing down La Terrasse? Why are you doing something new to Chowringhee Bar?’ But I think change is good. The greatest Roger Federer gets replaced by a better player and this better player is also not permanent. Mr Oberoi believes that change is the only constant. Some of our other hotels already run iconic modern restaurants. And this is an extension of that,” says Varun. 

In a few months, expect a “modern restaurant, clean lines, experience-driven and not theme-driven”. Everything right down to the chairs will be new. “We believe it will be the drawing room of Calcutta,” adds Varun. Till then, you can dine at Baan Thai (6.30am to midnight) and the 20-seater The Verandah (11am to 7pm), on the ground floor overlooking the pool.

You can have the last meal at La Terrasse on Sunday. Meanwhile, I’m going to hunt down that lone silver spoon with the initials ‘G.H.’ inscribed, espied many years ago, and have a ‘grand’ meal with it. 

La Terrasse & Chowringhee Bar pictures: Rashbehari Das