Inside an inventive Indian restaurant

Explosive flavours from an innovative Indian restaurant

HARNEET BAWEJA and Devina Seth’s restaurant, Gunpowder, is separated from Brick Lane in east London by one road. The food served by their ‘homestyle Indian kitchen’, however, is many miles removed from that available along the meandering row of curry houses. Spicy venison doughnuts; cheese toasties oozing with a fresh mint and coriander chutney and flecks of coconut flesh; glazed and glossy pork ribs made with naga chillies (one of the world’s hottest varieties) and fried until crispy. It’s the food of the couple’s families – both grew up in Kolkata, with street-food stalls providing snacks of pani puri after school and grandmothers perfecting slow-cooked saag mutton and comforting khichri (rice and lentils) – and of their head chef’s regional cuisine from Mumbai.

The tiny restaurant is named after the south Indian spice mix of chillies, curry leaves, cardamom and dried dal, and a recipe for this explosive staple (to be stirred into rice or used as a dry dip) stars in their new book of the same name, Gunpowder (Kyle Books, £25). The pages pay homage to their child- hood favourites, and Baweja’s mother’s baked paneer cheesecake, made with a cardamom biscuit crust, has gone straight to the top of my list of things to make. The toasties, too, hot and fiery. The team’s modern touches are evident in an unexpected cherry and almond cake, made with ghee instead of butter, and gingery deep-fried chicken wings, but tales throughout of treasured dishes passed on from fathers, brothers and mothers weave a story of family cooking that has been fiercely preserved.