Meet the chef redefining Indian cuisine in Vancouver with his new restaurant | Daily Hive

Chef Tushar Tondvalka (Marco Ovies/Dished)

“I was always in my grandmother’s kitchen, helping her make the fire and cook food,” said Chef Tushar Tondvalkar when we stopped by Kavita ahead of its opening. “Food was always important for me and my whole family.”

Tondvalkar’s new restaurant, which is preparing to open its doors on Oct. 16, is an ode not only to his mother and grandmother (the restaurant being named after his mother), but also to the food he grew up eating.

This appreciation for family even goes right down to Kavita’s tasting menu, which is playfully called an amma-kase (a take on the Japanese omakase, with “amma” meaning mother in many South Asian languages). And while the focus is on his upbringing and his own mom, the restaurant is designed to honour all mothers.

“[My mother’s] name, Kavita, means poetry, and I think the food which we serve is also telling a story about some of the communities from back home, or some street vendors, or my friends’ moms whenever I go back home,” he said. “I’m always bugging my friend’s mom to like ‘Hey, can you teach me some of your staple dishes at home?’ because in India, every state and every province has a different cuisine, and the cuisine changes every hundred kilometres or even less.”

However, while chatting with Tondvalkar, he mentioned that there is a significant gap between the Indian food he grew up with and the food available in Vancouver.

“I think Indian food that we find in Indian restaurants here, we don’t eat that Indian food in India,” he said. “I want to cook the food that I like eating, all my cooks like eating at home, and all the communities eat at home.”

“How can you justify Indian food by just North Indian or just South Indian?” he said.

Tondvalkar and his team (Marco Ovies/Dished)

One of these regional dishes that we had the pleasure of trying during our visit was Prawn Rechardo.

“Prawn Rechardo is a dish from Portuguese-colonized India,” Tondvalkar explained. “Before the Portuguese ruled India, we didn’t have chillies, tomatoes, and vinegar, so the Portuguese brought all those, and it created this Portuguese-Indian community dish.”

This dish is fiery, sweet, sour, and spicy, due to the paste made from Kashmiri red chillis alongside whole spices, coconut vinegar from Goa, and jaggery. Tondvalker sautees prawns in this combination of flavours, and tops it with kachumber (diced onion, tomato, and cucumber), along with some fried curry leaves for crunch.

Prawn Rechardo (Marco Ovies/Dished)

Another dish we had the pleasure of trying was Kavita’s Kori Rotti, a dish that Tondvalkar enjoyed as a child.

“This is something I grew up eating at my friend’s home every other Sunday, called Kori Rotti. It’s chicken cooked with desiccated coconut with some chicken sauce and a thin slice of roti on top.”

Traditionally, he explained that the roti is served underneath the chicken, but Tondvalkar explained he chose to make it thin, crispy, and leave it on top so guests can uncover the chicken as they eat and have the option to enjoy the meal however they like, whether that be drowning the roti in sauce, piling the chicken onto the roti and eating it like a chip, or even eating them separately. However you decide to eat it, based on our experience, we have a feeling you’ll enjoy it.

Marco Ovies/Dished

Tondvalkar is not just inspired by the food at home, but also the seasonal calendar and festivals in India.

He explained that there are very specific foods that people in Indian eat for particular festivals, and that Kavita’s menu will reflect those dishes throughout the year with its ever-changing menu.

“We have one dish here with whole goat leg braised with bulgur, lentils, and rice, and it’s called Halim. It’s usually a Muslim community in India that makes the dish when they fast. All day they fast, and in the evening when they break their fast, they eat that big pot of Halim as a nice, healthy, warm meal,” Tondvalkar said.

Another example he gave was Ganesha’s festival, a time when, most likely, Kavita will be serving an entirely vegetarian menu. During the festival, it’s the rainy season in India, and Hindu communities refrain from eating meat and opt for more vegetables. This also coincides with the mating season of birds, fish, and other animals, which provides them with the opportunity to reproduce.

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And if that wasn’t seasonal enough for you, he also added that he plans to use seasonal, local B.C. produce to inform his menu as well.

“I like to forage myself a lot,” said Tondvalkar. “I’ve always thought about how I can incorporate those locally foraged ingredients with Indian food and how it can do justice to the taste, as well as at the same time not disrespecting any culture or dishes.”

Marco Ovies/Dished

But, with all these different elements at play, Tondvalkar said that at the end of the day, he wants to give guests something nostalgic, whether that be from their travels in India or something they might have never tried before but heard about on social media.

“I want to bridge that gap and give the experience of what we eat back home to Vancouver,” he said.

Kavita officially opens its doors on Oct. 16, and reservations are available online now.

Kavita

Address: 250 W 3rd Ave., Vancouver

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