Hot kathi rolls at Nizam’s on display

Nizam’s is set to serve its signature kathi rolls again along and a slew of other mouth-watering dishes from the second or third week of this month, after a three-year closure for non-payment of rent to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC).

And in its new incarnation — Nizam’s is coming up as a registered brand following a collaboration with Howrah-based software company Algologix Limited — the central Calcutta culinary address with 400 covers will stay open till 2 am.

“I am happy that Nizam’s is going to resume business soon. Its rolls evoke a sense of nostalgia in all of us,” said mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya. Among those known to have favoured the kathi rolls are Ritwik Ghatak, Jyoti Basu, Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Kapil Dev.

“We will use the same giant tawa used by Reza and Nizamuddin sahib around 75 years ago. Once 185 kg-heavy, it now weighs only 80 kg, thanks to prolonged use and wear and tear,” said Nizam’s collaborator Lekhraj Kapoor.

After it is reopened, Nizam’s will be the first non-vegetarian eatery in Calcutta to use ghee made from cow milk as the medium of cooking, Kapoor added. The change in the medium will translate into a price hike for food items, ranging from Rs 2 to Rs 5. There are also plans to add a new dish, Prawn Biryani, and have a separate dress code for waiters at the beef counter.

Nizam’s is also ready to spread its wings. “We want to open outlets in Shyambazar (near the five-point crossing), Gol Park, Behala (near the tram depot) and on Picnic Garden Road in Ballygunge Place (East),” Kapoor said.

The landmark eatery was started in 1932 by Hasan Reza, a group D employee with the civic body. To please his English bosses, who had a strong dislike for food that left oil in their hands, he introduced paratha and kebab rolled together in a fine piece of paper. Thus was born the kathi roll.

eased with his innovation, the bosses allotted Reza, then operating from a small stall, a bigger room under a CMC building to the east of the civic headquarters. The outlet was named Nizam’s after Reza’s son Sheikh Nizamuddin. The present “actual owner” of the eatery is Nizamuddin’s son Irshad Alam.

During the Trinamul Congress-BJP regime in the CMC, mayor Subrata Mukherjee had slapped a closure notice on the food stop following non-payment of rent amounting to Rs 15 lakh and snapped its water lines. After the change of power in the civic body, mayor Bhattacharyya and municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay allowed the management to clear its dues in instalments, paving the way for the re-opening.