To turn 85 is a privilege. It means you have lived a decade beyond your golden anniversary. This year, two Delhi institutions meet this milestone. One is a novel. We already celebrated Ahmad Ali’s Twilight in Delhi earlier this week. The other is a restaurant. The year of founding—1940—is embossed on the glass door.
Kwality restaurant at Regal Cinema building is one of the longest surviving landmarks of Connaught Place (CP). This is a rare accomplishment considering that at least three other landmarks of Regal Cinema building have become history: A Godin & Co. piano shop, Gaylord restaurant and People’s Tree boutique. Even the Regal Cinema hasn’t screened a movie since 2017. But Kwality, so much a part of CP’s rich past, is continuing to be a part of CP’s vibrant present.
Co-founded by Wagah-born Peshori Lal Lamba, who arrived in the capital from pre-partition Lahore, the restaurant originated as a place for hand-churned ice-creams. It went on to specialise in continental and Indian cuisines. A pivotal event occurred in the year of our independence. Brought from Shimla, a cook called Lalaji started to make a fairly classic dish in the restaurant. Today, it commands a cult status.
Channa bhathura. is among Delhi’s most common dishes. But the same channa bhathura becomes an occasion, a kind of theatre, when indulged at this restaurant. Some of the excitement must be credited to the visual drama that is stirred up as the poker-faced bearer brings the dish to the table. The diners instantly gasp. The bhathura is monumental (prepared by any of these three chefs—Mishrli Lal, Panchu Verma, Nazir Khan). On tearing off the first tukda, the hot air within the bhathura escapes, and the crispy dome slowly collapses. The attention then drifts to the accompanying channa, garnished with aloo chunks thoroughly soaked in tasty flavours.
While the restaurant already had fine-dining trappings of chandeliers and soft lights, the fixtures underwent an overhaul some years ago, fortifying the vintage persona. The interiors were plumed with hardbound books, and with many photos from Delhi’s black-and-white past, including of maharajas, elephants, polo players, etc. It feels particularly nostalgic during the evenings, when the restaurant’s suited pianist—either Tony or Rehman—plays faintly familiar tunes in the back-area, beyond the bar.
This late afternoon, the restaurant is filled with the lunchtime’s last diners. A bunch of foreign tourists are lounged around a long table, looking contented and sleepy, a state that comes only after a satisfactory meal. One of them is still alert, clicking photos of the Kwality special pudding (the dessert was introduced in 1960). Steps away, beside the swirly staircase to the mezzanine floor, staffer Jeetendra is solemnly folding the white napkins for the evening.
The rush hours dimmed, manager Moolchand graciously agrees to pose with the channa bhathura, as the turbaned doorman Ved Mani Shukla peers in from outside the glass door. See photo.
PS: Peshori Lal Lamba co-founded the restaurant with brother-in-law Iqbal Ghai.
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