She is tiny. She wears high heels while cooking. She is single. She is just a girl. She is no chef. She won't be able to do it.
These are just some of the many remarks that Jodhpur Park girl Shrimoyee Chakraborty had been subjected to when she was planning to start her food pop-ups in London a year ago.
And what did she do? The 26-year-old picked up the ladle to prove the naysayers wrong, silly!
Shrimoyee did more than a dozen pop-ups back to back, "all sold out", and then managed to get four investors on board to fund Calcutta Street, her first standalone restaurant in London - at 118 Brick Lane, to be precise.
"I was scared initially. But then I decided to give it a try and it was a success! Unless you do it, you never know what it really is," Shrimoyee told Metro during a walk through the streets of north Calcutta on Wednesday afternoon, her eager eyes looking for decor inspirations for the restaurant that is set to open in April.
Cooking had happened to Shrimoyee when she got into Mumbai's Sophia College after completing her plus-two at Ashok Hall Girls' Higher Secondary School. Her experiments in the kitchen led her to start a blog that soon attracted many followers.
When she set up base in London after finishing her master's in Global Business Analysis at the Manchester Business School, Shrimoyee was shocked to find "so-called Bengali curry houses" with items such as Chicken Madras and Chicken Vindaloo on the menu. "That was not what I had grown up eating in Calcutta. And that's when I decided to offer real Calcutta food to Londoners," recounted the would-be restaurateur, who did her first Bengali food pop-up at a bar in London's Camden in March last year.
Shrimoyee immediately started getting offers from different restaurants in London, including the popular Bonnie Gull, to do more pop-ups. "I kind of learnt the tricks of the trade on the job. Finally, I wrote down a business plan one day, showed it to a friend in a private equity firm and he agreed to be a partner!" she said in between bargaining for a wooden plate at a Chitpore store.
So, what's on the Calcutta Street menu? "Everything I grew up eating. From Luchi-Aloor Dom to Deemer Jhol, phuchka to egg rolls, and Musurir Dal to Kalojeere Diye Maachher Jhol with dhonepata (coriander) in it," Shrimoyee reeled off. The menu lists 21 dishes and promises something for everyone -from fast bites for office workers to elaborate dishes for that leisurely dinner.
Shrimoyee has been exploring her hometown with her team of designers, Ed Francis and Alexander Mulligan, and buying everything from petoler kolshi (brass pitchers) to ruti belni (rolling pins).
Asked how she wanted her restaurant to look, the Satyajit Ray fan said: "It should look like a Charulata set with some quirky London elements. It must have a wall full of books... Bengali books... and artworks."
And since she hasn't forgotten the snide remarks that had greeted her last year, Shrim, as she is fondly called by friends and family, also hopes to strike a blow for women in the food business.
"Women are no less than men and it doesn't matter where you come from. In fact, as a token of solidarity, I would like to have a female-dominated kitchen and hence intend to recruit more women chefs," she signed off.
What Bengali speciality would you like to see on theCalcutta Street menu in London? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
