Just by chance today saw the new Kormasutra at Mühlegasse 5 accross from the Urania Bridge. I was in the restaurant some 10 years ago when it was in Witikon. Pleasant restaurant and good cuisine. Intend to try it at the new location. In their old location now is "Crown of India" ( www.crown-of-india.ch ). No idea how that one is. Possibly the same, but owners eager to avoid the appearance of a "chain". Also realized when checking things up that there now on Sihlfeldstrasse just accross from Lochergut is a Sher-E-Punjab Indian Restaurant ( www.punjab.ch ). Also in that case, no idea yet whether it is useful or not
At the Korma Sutra, the chef's a Brit. The curry, therefore, is excellent.
Jokes aside, he possibly realizes that you cannot compromise. You either have an Indian restaurant, or your place degenerates into a "Fish&Chips/Cervelats&Röschti/SchnitzelPommesFrites" place, in other words simply a SCHNIPO place.
There is a Lebanese in Glattbrugg who some years ago opened a Lebanese restaurant, which was quite good, but his Italian wife lead the place to gradually drop the Lebanese cuisine and wines and change to Italian cuisine. While his Lebanese cuisine was really good, their performance in Italian cuisine was/is below average. They now try to become a steak-house. Which proves my impression that the "Italian" way in their case did not succeed.
I'm not joking. When I visited the Korma Sutra, the chef was a Brit.
You know it's possible to be British and be able to cook curry, right? One would hope so, given the number of curry houses in the United Kingdom.
Any cook can do cooking with other cuisines, under the condition that the cook is ready fully to accept and embrace and represent the chosen cuisine.
The other way round, many "real" Indian, particularily if in a place with few Indian customers, may feel tempted to make compromises with local tastes and local notions in the hope (often wrong hope) to get more customers.
"Other cuisines"?
What do you mean?
New? I'm sure it's been there for at least a couple of years.
DB on your recommendation I shall give it a go.
If an Italian is working in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, US-American, Mexican, Brazilian, Argentinian, Greek, Turkish, Arab, Persian, Indian (etc) cuisines it is "other". If a Turk celebrates Italian cuisine this also is "other".
I think I got past that location in late 2010 and it was not yet there, at least did not see it, and it is in a well visible location.
Your answer doesn't make sense. "Indian" restaurants serve food taken or adapted from the many cooking traditions of India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Quite a lot of British people are very good at preparing such foods. Some of them open restaurants.
There is nothing "other" about the food they make for "Indian" restaurants, given that the overwhelming majority of them became familiar with such food in their mothers' kitchens.
I understand what you're saying, and agree with you. I think there is a crossed wire here.
Authentic Indian cuisine (the stuff you get in the average eating place in India) is often not very palatable. Or certainly wasn't when I travelled a lot there (more than 20 years ago). Often a bit thin and greasy. The Indian cuisine that has evolved in the UK over the last 40 years, through the Indian / Bangladeshi immigrant community, is actually more British than Indian -- or at least, rooted in Indian tradition, but with thicker sauces, higher quality ingredients, and presented in a more appealing style.
So presumably the British chef in question is either from an British Indian immigrant family, or someone who has learnt how to cook the style of Indian food we like in Europe.
An Indian restaurant selling truly authentic Indian food would probably not do very well here!
As soon as you accept that "Indian" in its cultural and culinary sense means the Indian Subcontinent combined, we are nearer to my idea. Indian cuisine indeed is cuisine of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and SriLanka. Somebody from this area having an Italian restaurant and cooking Italian cuisine IS doing "another" cuisine. Speak with the owner of the Italian restaurant Albisgarten on Albisstrasse in Wollishofen. He and his wife worked in an Italian restaurant for years and when starting their own restaurant saw their chance with the Italian cuisine.
Or look at the many restaurant-owners/managers from former Yugoslavia who for apparent reasons in the 1990ies changed the "identity" of their restaurant, many of them to Italian cuisine
Amazingly, the owners of one of the best Italian restaurants all around
the Ristorante Pippone in Zch.-Affoltern
http://www.restaurant-pippone.ch/kontakt.html
apparently are not of Italian origin, but excel
while the Italian wife of that Lebanese I recently mentioned was/is NOT superb with "HER" cuisine.
What on earth are you on about? Where do you get the idea that the chef at the Korma Sutra was doing some kind of "other" cuisine? He works in a curry house, making curry. He makes it very well.
I'm struggling to understand your point here.
The question is what you regard as "we" in your sentence "we like here". I have some full understanding for the point that many people in India cannot afford culinary delights. But look around in France. Many restaurants, and I speak about prestigious areas like Paris, Côte d'Azur, Provence and Normandie, are serving food which is of a very low quality really. Or why is the Vodka you can get in Alexandria/Egypt so much better than what you get in Moscow ?
In short, the Chef D.B. mentioned possibly very simply is a good cook who is able to learn how to cook "another" cuisine. Every really good cook can learn the required skills to excel in all cuisines on earth.
Again with this "other" cuisine nonsense...?
Where do you get the notion that the chef isn't cooking his own cuisine, that he grew up with?
Nothing. He is an Englishmen but is not doing English cuisine but Indian cuisine. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong about this.
What I however AM on about is that there are Indian Chefs in Continental Europe who try to "compromise" with what they perceive as "local tastes". And who do not realize that their potential guests by average are NOT the general average.
Sorry, here you twist the topic a bit, but are right, as he possibly DID grow up with Indian cuisine. But it was YOU who emphasized his British citizenship (or origin).
And THIS record shows that
http://zh.powernet.ch/webservices/ne...0&lang=1&sort=
he apparently went bankrupt some years ago
---
Philip Anandaraj
Unternehmensinhaber Aar de Grevenhorst
Hang on... you think this chef is a bloke called Dave from Newcastle under Lyme, don't you?
I'm really, really hoping that you are aware of the existence of several hundred thousand British people for whom Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani cuisine is their own cuisine. Please tell me you are.
I can't believe I'm having this conversation in the year 2012...
Yes, because I'm biased towards my compatriots.
... and he's an excellent chef.
I am aware of several millions British people who regard the cuisine from "Greater India" as their own cuisine. But not only are there some other 10s of millions of Brits who do not feel thelike, there also are several 100s million people on the Indian subcontinent who will not accept that their cuisine is "British cuisine". This in spite of the apparent fact that a good part of all gastronomy folk in Britain of Paki-Indian-etc origin have obtained British citizenship.
The woman of the "Chef" of the oldest Indian restaurant in Zürich (Raja Bongo Restaurant) is of Swiss origin, but is doing more of the cooking than her husband. Indian cuisine already in the late 1970ies became a heavy part of her life.
Many Swiss regard Spaghetti, Salami, Tagliatelle etc as "their" cuisine, but not even Italians with Swiss citizenship would ever describe Italian cuisine as "Swiss cuisine". There are uncountable Swiss native German speakers and French speakers successfully active in Italian cuisine, but it for them still is, in a way not THEIR but ANOTHER cuisine, in spite of Swiss Cuisine having taken over Spaghetti and Salami etc long ago. True, the TICINO is a kind of "Knautschzone"/"gears-synchronisation-tool" between Italy and Switzerland which makes it easier