On a steamy, muggy Delhi day, servers at Gulati, an Indian eatery near the picturesque Agrasen ki Baoli stepwell, were straining to handle a sudden surge of patrons, the majority of whom were there for the restaurant’s renowned butter chicken.
Not long after I arrived, three chefs who were not on duty yet were still wearing their chefs’ whites snatched up a table and placed an order for plates of butter chicken. This was the same dish being devoured by a group of office workers nearby, as well as some German tourists who had come straight to Gulati’s most famous dish without even looking at the menu.
Strangely, for a dish that is mostly enjoyed at parties and restaurants (butter chicken is a staple of Indian wedding menus), it has deep connections to a momentous occasion that split India, and two of the country’s most venerable restaurants are currently engaged in a legal dispute over it.
A brief overview of history. A guy by the name of Mokha Singh owned and operated the Moti Mahal restaurant in Peshawar, Pakistan, prior to the violent division of India in 1947. Following the partition, Singh relocated to Delhi and established a restaurant there with three workers from Peshawar, namely Kundan Lal Gujral, his cousin Kundan Lal Jaggi, and Thakur Das Mago. Here, in a dining establishment in a suburb of Delhi.
