Darya Ganj: Rejuvenation to the Aroma of 50’s

To give proper recognition to his grandson Raghav Jaggi and his childhood friend, businessman Amit Bagga, a North Indian cuisine restaurant designed with the notion of honouring the culinary heritage of Late Kundan Lal Jaggi and the perseverance and ingenuity of the Punjabi immigrants is about to open its doors in New Delhi.

The most well-known dishes of Tandoori cuisine were created in the Darya Ganj neighbourhood of Delhi, where Kundan Lal Jaggi was one of the establishment’s founders. He was one of the most creative pioneers of Tandoori cuisine and is frequently credited with popularising it on a global scale.

Darya Ganj restraint now has its branches in Aerocity as well as Connaught Place, the culinary legacy of Daryaganj Restaurant will go back decades to the era of Indian independence, when Kundan Lal Jaggi, a refugee from Peshawar came to Delhi with nothing but the skills to make the best Tandoori Food and started an iconic restaurant in the lanes of Daryaganj.

He was the Inventor of the legendary Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani, arguably the most selling dishes in any Indian restaurant set up in India and the world.

Growing up admiring the legacy of his grandfather, Raghav who was a young boy at that time, was in awe of the iconic dishes that his grandfather had invented. Years later, he decided to carry forward this legacy and dedicate the brand “Daryaganj” to his grandfather.

The Daryaganj Restaurant is reenacting the Daryaganj experience by presenting a set dinner of several courses especially designed to highlight the development of Tandoori cuisine. All dishes were created by Kundan Lal Jaggi.

Feroze Gandhi and his sons Rajiv and Sanjay, as well as the late Homi Jahangir Bhabha, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Dr. Zakir Hussain, Raj Kapoor, and even Mohan Singh Oberoi, the founder of Oberoi Hotels, have all dined here. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, also used to get catering services from here.

“Daryaganj brand is conceived as to celebrate the legacy of my grandfather by blending old world flavours and closely guarded recipes with the most talented and creative team to truly create a best in class dining experience reminiscent of a bygone era,” said Raghav Jaggi, Founder and Promoter.

Gurpreet Singh Gehdu, a Delhi-born Indian chef who has taken on the responsibility of being the brand chef at brand Daryaganj, will recreate the taste and flavour of the 1950s with the help of the late Kundan Lal Jaggi and his family who have provided invaluable insights on the secret recipes of that era.

The menu will clearly identify the dishes that were created in the 1950s as the originals, such as “The Original Butter Chicken” and “The Original Dal Makhani,” and all time-honored recipes have been recreated to be as close to how they were served then as possible.

Amit Bagga is a hard-core hands-on restaurateur who pays attention to every detail in his restaurants to ensure that all five senses of a customer are positively evoked and they have a memorable experience. Amit comes from a family that was in the automobile business and diversified into the restaurant business ten years ago.

The food at the Daryaganj restaurant celebrates robust Indian flavours from the post-independence era and brings them to life with the use of local, seasonal ingredients. The restaurant’s design honours pioneer inventiveness and evokes nostalgia for the “Daryaganj days” in addition to the great food.

The goal is to bring back lost tastes, the unheralded tastes of nostalgia.