Think Hyderabadi biryani and the first thing that comes to mind is Paradise Restaurant. Launched in 1953 in Secunderabad, as a café in a theatre, the restaurant soon became synonymous with the Hyderabadi delicacy. Trips to the city meant a hearty meal at the restaurant or parcels for loved ones back home. Want to recommend the best biryani place to a tourist? Paradise, of course.
I distinctly remember the first time I went to the restaurant. I was still a school kid and it was a family dinner at the then newly-renovated Persis Gold. Everyone was enthusiastically ordering plates and plates of biryani. But I was more fascinated by the man twirling rumali rotis behind a glass wall. I just didn’t get the fuss about Hyderabadi biryani.
In fact, I didn’t get the fuss about it until much later. It happened when I ate at the same restaurant some years later with a bunch of friends, digging into layers of fragrant rice cooked to perfection on dum.
It parted to reveal in its depths meat so tender it almost melted in the mouth; all coated in a medley of aromatic spices and soaked in the goodness of ghee. As we dug into the fragrant biryani with our hands (there’s really no posh way to eat it), I fell in love with the Hyderabadi delicacy, particularly the one served by Paradise. The blend of spices was perfect and so was the tangy mirchi ka salan that usually accompanies it.
That’s when I realised that making the perfect biryani was an art and Paradise became a go-to place.
Be it a New Year’s party at home, an office lunch or a treat for friends, Paradise was everyone’s first choice. Even when I moved to another city for higher studies, visits home meant a trip to Paradise to get biryani packed for friends back in the hostel.
Of course, over the years, I discovered more authentic versions of biryani, being dished out by other restaurants in the city. And Paradise slipped lower on my preferred list of restaurants for biryani.
After we moved to Chennai last year, we hunted high and low for Hyderabadi biryani at restaurants in the city. One of our first attempts led us to a plate of what seemed like tomato rice with meat. At another place, the biryani resembled Schezwan fried rice with a few measly pieces of fried chicken. Except a couple of places in Anna Nagar and Porur that served authentic Hyderabadi biryani, we had little or no options. Although we found solace in the more popular style of biryani here, to us, it still didn’t feel like the ‘real deal’. Sure, it was flavourful and fragrant and the jeeraga samba rice was a novel experience, but it just wasn’t the rich Nawabi experience we were used to.
Despite the city’s fascination with biryani and the several types available here, Hyderabadi biryani was still a rare find. That is, until Paradise announced its grand launch at Perungudi recently. Although it was a good two hours away from my part of the town, a trip simply had to be made. After all, it brought back so many memories — of banter-filled family dinners, of stolen dates over kebabs and digging into haleem from Paradise at tuition classes. It was after all, the taste of home.
So, braving the afternoon heat and Saturday traffic, we drove to Perungudi with nothing but biryani on our minds. To our dismay, the restaurant was teeming with people, biryani lovers like us I’m sure, and there was a long waiting period. Fortunately, we landed a table soon enough and placed our order — a plate of chicken biryani, one mutton biryani and chicken 65; oh, and make that biryani double masala. As we eagerly waited for our order to arrive, I struck a conversation with Vijay Bakshi, the corporate chef, who assured me that they stuck to the original recipe. “There’s no modification here. After all, we have to serve the authentic experience,” he smiled, even as a happy customer stopped to click a selfie with him.
According to Chef Bakshi, who is in Chennai to train the staff in the art of making the perfect Hyderabadi biryani, “Making biryani is like making wine. Everything has to be perfect. There has to be just the right amount of cardamom and clove. Even an extra pinch of salt can alter the taste. In fact, freshers are not allowed to make biryani. They can only assist the senior chefs.”
Just as the waiter brought piping hot plates of biryani to the table with a generous portion of chicken 65, Chef Bakshi said that they ground the masala for marination freshly every morning. “Even the meat has to be of a certain type to get the right tenderness. A good biryani is all about good flavour, tender meat and well-cooked rice,” he said.
As a huge portion of the biryani was heaped onto my plate with a side of chicken 65, there was no more talk. All my focus was on rediscovering familiar flavours. The biryani was spiced just right, the meat tender and the rice fragrant.
And just like that, I was back at that table in Secunderabad, surrounded by friends and plates of biryani — I was home.
