BOMBAY TIGER ROARS INTO KENSINGTON
Chef showcases bold and varied flavours of pan-indian cuisine
Calgary has no shortage of Indian restaurants and over the years the breadth of Indian offerings has only grown. We've got places serving dosa, chaat, thali, and kati rolls, as well as the ubiquitous butter chicken and tikka masala curries. But India is a big country full of bold flavours and chef Prasad Patil, the force behind the new Bombay Tiger restaurant in Kensington, couldn't quite find the taste of home he was looking for here in Calgary.
Patil grew up in Mumbai but is trained in classic French and Italian cuisine, so upon immigrating to Canada he set to working in European-focused restaurants like Q Haute Cuisine, the Living Room, and Sugo. Still, he yearned for the flavours of India and found himself longingly cooking Indian cuisine for himself at home. As a youngster in Mumbai, he was raised on cuisine from the entirety of the Indian subcontinent and couldn't find a local restaurant that served a true range of pan-indian food.
“I wanted to open a restaurant that didn't do the regular things everyone else was serving in Calgary,” he says. “In Mumbai, almost everyone is from somewhere else. It's so multicultural and you get such a variety of things to eat from north India, south India and the rest of the country.”
Patil shifted toward Indian food with Mumbai Local, a restaurant he successfully opened in Canmore in 2021. This past October, he expanded into Calgary with Bombay Tiger in the Kensington restaurant space most recently occupied by the short-lived Vegan Club. It's a small room, with just 32 seats (a back patio is coming this summer) but has a cool modern look that sets it apart from your typical Indo-canadian restaurant.
It's the food that will have guests coming to Bombay Tiger for repeat visits. Patil isn't kidding when he says he wants to offer Calgarians a different range of Indian cuisine. His showstopper dishes include a very limited edition — only three are made per day — Andaman prawn curry served in a whole young coconut shell ($28), as well as Rajasthani kachori, which are fried puffs stuffed with spiced potatoes, lemon salt and yellow chili peppers. Other highlights include coconut milk-soaked fried calamari ($19), bibbo (young tender cashew) masala ($21), flavour-packed Daryaganj chicken changezi curry ($18) and savoury goat Andhra biryani. The common denominator here is Patil's powerful command of flavour and nuance shining through with every dish.
Bombay Tiger's opening offering included a brunch menu, with items like dosa batter waffles and naan egg bennies, but Patil has put that program on hold for now and plans to relaunch toward the end of April when Kensington's spring foot traffic ramps up.
Bombay Tiger is located at 126 10th St. N.W. and is open daily for lunch and dinner. The restaurant can be contacted at 587-227-6777 or through bombaytiger.com.
In other local food news, Nupo (631 Confluence Way S.E.) has launched a new Tokyo-style 30-minute omakase lunch service and it is a blast for anyone with an appreciation for high-end sushi and the challenge of eating at a fairly quick pace. The 12 courses of nigiri sushi are different than Nupo's more traditional and leisurely evening omakase experience. Expect a little bit of fusion, some big flavours (think Vietnamese nuoc cham and Thai laab seasoning), and exquisite cuts of fish.
The service costs $75 per person, with the option to add more sushi, as well as drinks. Nupo is not messing around with the 30-minute timeline. The sushi is served piece by piece, starting shortly after guests sit down. Anyone late to their prepaid slot will find their sushi piling up at their seat, with instruction to eat up and vacate once the allotted half-hour is over. The restaurant is running the lunch as part of the YYC Food and Drink Experience but will be opening reservations for after the festival. For more information visit nupo.ca.
The Terroir Symposium hospitality conference is returning for its third year in Calgary, this time as a two-part series with sessions in the spring and fall. Tickets for the first portion, held May 25 and 26, are now on sale. The May event at SAIT will feature restaurateur Billy Wagner from Michelin Star restaurant Nobelhart & Schmutzig in Berlin, Toronto chocolatier Nadège Nourian, chef Avinash Shashidhara of Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai in London and many others. Tickets can be purchased at terroirsymposium.com. Finally, it's time to say farewell to the original Kensington location of Modern Steak, which will be closing its doors at the end of this month. After 10 years, the restaurant that grew out of the space that housed the much-beloved Muse before it is watching its lease come to an end, with the building slated to go up for sale.
Modern Steak fans will still be able to get their fix at the restaurant's Stephen Avenue and Southport locations.