The residents of Kolkata woke up to a usual Saturday on 9 September 2023. But while the rest of the city carried out their weekend amidst the Durga Pujo planning, two friends, Anindya Sundar Basu and Dolon Dutta Chowdhury, couldn’t have had a more different day.
The two, who have been “best friends” for ten years now, were getting their fill of the famous mishti delicacy at one of the City of Joy’s oldest sweet shops.
After relishing rounds of the sweetened milk delight at ‘Nalin Chandra Das and Sons’ — a mithai shop in existence since 1841 in Kolkata’s Notun Bajar area — Dolon declared this was the best dessert she’d ever tasted, with Anindya heavily in agreement. This wasn’t just an outing for the friend duo. It is their way of life.
As they explain, the intent behind visiting these legendary eateries is to amplify stories about Kolkata’s culinary heritage and those working to preserve it. These tales have found a space in ‘Kolkata Classics’, a digital story bank that documents the city’s unseen side on Instagram.
“Food is an integral part of any Bengali’s life,” says Dolon, a banker who took to lifestyle blogging in 2012. A passion for history and culture influenced this decision.
When Dolon met Anindya, a businessman-turned-photographer, the two bonded over the city’s food landscape. Anindya had been documenting food and recipes along with his wife, Madhushree, for their blog ‘Pikture Nama’ for years. Meeting Dolon was almost fated.
He points to how digital archives are nothing more than a modern form of what cavemen would once do. “They would document their life in the form of drawings on the cave walls. They never thought that centuries later these drawings would give us a snapshot of their socio-economic condition. Maybe someday in the future, something similar will happen with the stories we leave behind on the internet.”
In every story that goes up on Kolkata Classics, the hero element is always the establishment. “We try to talk about these places that are over 150 years old, the people running them, the challenges they encounter and the rich history behind their survival,” notes Anindya.
Here’s a glimpse at five of these legacy eateries.
1. Parbati Hotel
The restaurant’s story is a picture of resilience in the face of adversity. When Joydeb Kundu started the place over a century ago, he did it with the simple idea of serving homestyle Bengali meals at a reasonable price. Soon, the place amassed a great following with its fish curries.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic posed tough times on the restaurant’s legacy as Sailendranath Kundu, Joydeb’s son, and the one who was spearheading the operations, passed away. Plans for shutting down the business were on the cards when Sailendranath’s wife stepped in.
Today, the restaurant continues to draw love from the city it once served.
2. Potlar Dokan
“The place never had a formal name,” says Anindya. The original name ‘Potlar’ stemmed from ‘Potla’ who was one of the seven sons of Shashi Bhushan Sen, a cashier in Calcutta Tramways, and the owner of the restaurant. For Anindya and Dolon, the main pull here is the kochuri (a Bengali-style kachori) and telebhaja (fritters).
3. Paramount
A hot afternoon in Kolkata has only one antidote, as Anindya and Dolon will testify. This is the sherbet at Paramount, located on Bankim Chatterjee Street in the city. Standing tall since 1918, the restaurant provides its guests with an opportunity to take a walk back in time through the years that have shaped its history. As the late founder’s son, Mrigendra Majumdar, recalled in an article to Outlook, “My father had ingrained in us the ‘mantra’ of using quality ingredients, and that is what has stood us in good stead all these years.”
As Anindya and Dolon also discovered on their rendezvous here, the recipe for the daab sharbat was handed down by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray, a celebrated chemist and historian.
4. Bnete Da’s tea shop
In response to what her favourite memory while chronicling these stories for Kolkata Classics is, Dolon says it would be the time spent at Bnete Da’s tea shop. “It’s a streetside tea shop and though it is one of the oldest in the city, not many people would give it a second glance. It was started around 1920, around the same time that drinking tea became popular in India.”
As the current owner of the shop narrated to the duo, everyone right from Rajiv Gandhi to Sachin Dev Burman had once stopped by for a cuppa.
5. Swadhin Bharat Hindu Hotel
An interesting story that is often told when the Swadhin Bharat Hindu Hotel is spoken about is that of how the founder, Mangobindo Panda, welcomed freedom fighters here during the independence struggle.
“One time, there was a group of freedom fighters inside the hotel conducting a meeting and there was a sudden raid by the police. Mangobindo stood at the doorway, refusing to budge. He was hit repeatedly but he did not move an inch and ultimately the men were forced to retreat,” writes Anindya.
Edited by Padmashree Pande
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