Twenty five years in, I am still discovering Kolkata and its food: Shaun Kenworthy

It’s strange to realise this year marks twenty five years of me living in Calcutta. Stranger still, when I arrived in Delhi in October 2000, it was meant to be just one year, a break from London’s long working hours to rest before heading back, perhaps even to New York. But then the twin towers fell just a month before my contract ended, bringing global metros to a halt. India, and Kolkata, had other plans.

City of flavours

My earliest discovery of Kolkata’s food wasn’t in restaurants, but in its markets. It felt like culinary theatre –fishmongers shouting over gleaming prawns, hilsa and bhetki, butchers behind marble counters, spice merchants guarding mountains of cardamom, mace and cloves, and baskets overflowing with greens I couldn’t identify. There were unfamiliar fruits, gourds of every kind, and sweet shops glowing like jewellery counters. I wandered, asking around, until vendors saw a curious chef, not a confused foreigner, and began explaining seasons and dishes.

Winters in Bengal are unmatched, markets bursting with cauliflowers, black chillies, purple carrots, turnips and giant red radish. Then comes nolen gur, inspiring sweets savoured as if the season might vanish overnight. The streets are unforgettable. Double egg chicken rolls at Nizam’s, dripping with kasundi and chilli sauce. Phuchka vendors work with speed, ghugni simmering in battered pots, and jhalmuri tossed with mustard oil, onions and green chillies. Kebabs smoke over charcoal, cones of chanachur and peanuts appear, and tea stalls serve chai in earthen cups just when you needed it. In Kolkata – it is never just food, but performance and survival, and I fell completely under its spell.

The people who made it home

Somewhere along the way, as the city knows well, I married Pinky – a gorgeous, argumentative, stubborn, creative, food loving Bong. As anyone here will tell you, that is the point of no return.

What truly made me fall in love with the city wasn’t just food, but the people –the humour, the endless conversations, the arguments, and that irrepressible joie de vivre, no less French than the French themselves.

Kolkata is a city that doesn’t reveal itself all at once, or at all if you don’t go looking. It unfolds slowly. A ferry across the Hooghly, Kumartuli’s artisans, a meal at a pice hotel, a night on Park Street, breakfast at Tiretti Bazaar, the roar at Eden Gardens when India is winning a match against Pakistan, a chai behind Writers’ Building, an early walk around Rabindra Sarobar, and so on... Calcutta won’t come looking for you; you’ll need to go looking for it. Twenty five years later, I’m still discovering.

Park Street tales

Then there is Park Street, the grand theatre of Calcutta dining. For decades, it has been the city’s stage, where food, music, romance and mischief merge. Trincas, Mocambo, The Blue Fox, Moulin Rouge, Peter Cat and Olypub still hum with stories from another era – jazz bands, cabaret nights, sizzling steaks and cocktails that have seen better days but still taste great. At Trincas, the band plays as plates make their rounds. Mocambo serves dishes frozen in time. Peter Cat is known for its chelo kebab, while Olypub, rougher but loved, for beer, whisky and tenderloin steaks. And then there is Flurys. On a winter morning, it feels like a time capsule – pastries and fruitcakes behind glass counters, and by Christmas, enough to make anyone fall a little in love with the city.

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