What is the sign of a good restaurant? Is it the awards nailed to walls? Is it the reels and photographs taken by influencers going ‘viral’ on social media? Is it the fastest-finger-first reservation process? Is it a queue outside? To me, the sign of a good restaurant is undoubtedly a queue. It’s not the kind of queue that saw people line up outside the first Starbucks, or the Apple store. It’s a queue of people without phones in their hands, obsessively recording everything: hardworking, tired folk just seeking a good, satiating meal. In Ahmedabad, I found this queue, outside New Irani Restaurant, and as expected, was rewarded with a good meal.
As someone who writes extensively on food, I tend to be very picky about my meals. My family, who accompanied me on this particular holiday, doesn’t look at food from a writer’s perspective — they just want a good meal. And a good meal(s) was had at New Irani Restaurant. We ate there five times during the four days we spent in Ahmedabad. Additionally, I visited the place another three times during short layovers.
Why then does this restaurant get so much of my love? Simply put: it offered the best dining experience across Gujarat.
Before my trip across Gujarat for work, I did my research: bookmarking places, taking the advice of friends in the know, reading up blogs and travel stories. I expected great things from the state known for its innovative street fare, and fusion items. Remember the thepla quesadilla and the Mexican dabeli?
Sadly, my experience didn’t match my expectations. The food was mostly substandard, and unworthy of mention or memory. This restaurant was an exception.
New Irani Restaurant (NIR) occupies prime location in the old part of the city: steps away from Bhadra Fort and Lal Darwaza. It is surrounded by attar shops, stores selling phone cases, and other notable eateries – mention must be made of samosas and kebabs at Bera Samosa House, and the shawarma at Magic Chicken.
I first read about it in a news article and visited it under the mistaken impression that it was an Irani Café, of the kinds I have eaten at and loved in Bombay. I wasn’t entirely mistaken.
Behram Irani, an Iranian baker migrated to Ahmedabad and started the café, then called Irani Café, in 1946. Even though it was a crumbling space, it attracted all kinds of people, even freedom fighters. It was bought over by former mill worker Yakubhbhai in 1954 and is now run by his family. Back then, the restaurant had the simple aim of serving mill workers, students, and those without means, some healthy and delicious meals. MF Hussain, too, was a frequent visitor.
Today’s New Irani Restaurant has a look that doesn’t conform to any one community: with replicas of Venetian windows, sage and royal blue tones, painted tiles inset in the tables, and Urdu calligraphy. There are two seating zones, one demarcated for ‘families’ and usually featuring women out for tea, or couples on dates. An expansive kitchen shows off huge cauldrons of simmering chai, and curries. Stacked around the place are blue crates containing their second most precious commodity: buns. The most precious: maska sits in a steel container behind the counter at the entrance.
The bestseller here is the bun maska. Now, this is no ordinary bread-butter combo: it is a symphony of sweet, fluffy bun marrying creamy, almost-cheese-like butter. The layers are thick — don’t bother counting calories here — and generous. The bun-maska process is an enthralling production line: one man deftly slices buns in half, another slathers them generously with thick layers of butter, a third adds them to plates to serve customers, while another wraps them in paper for takeaways.
Besides the simple bun maska, there are versions with jam and Nutella too. New Irani’s menu is just two pages long and everything is worth ordering (I tried everything except the four vegetarian options). Of note are their mutton dishes: kheema, korma, chanp and paya. The curries may look the same, fiery red and fringed with oil but each taste unique, a different permutation of spices, and chillies. The Dal Gosht is creamy and aromatic, perfect for eating with rice or a stack of rotis. The rotis here disappear quite quickly as the curries are all mop-worthy. Their fish fry is exactly what it says: a whole fish that is deep fried till golden! Their egg kheema is doused in chicken curry, because why not? There’s the option of adding mutton or chicken gravy to any of the rice dishes. Their Sulemani tea is ideal for non-milk-drinkers like me, while their regular tea is just like what you would find in an Irani café: milky, thick and creamy.
The beauty of these meals? They were filling, delicious and — if I compare their prices to restaurants in Goa — fairly cheap. The most expensive item on the menu was butter chicken for Rs 290!
There’s no fanfare here. You share tables with others. You don’t linger over cups of chai. You don’t talk to the owners (who are quite shy). You pay only with cash. And you always take something back: either a precious sealed container of homemade butter, or memories of kheema-soaked meals.
