When the crisp golden masala dosa, encircled by various accoutrements, arrived, it didn’t look like it was made in Berlin, about 7,000 km from home. It might have been made by my mother who, somehow hidden in the confines of the kitchen, dispatched it with the short-haired blonde who gently placed it on my table. The sambhar’s tanginess awakened my long-hibernating taste buds (I have been living on store-bought gnocchi and ready-to-eat couscous). The green chilli chutney seared through my tongue, and the coconut chutney, albeit made with frozen coconut, brought back memories of sunny mornings and clanks of steel spatulas on dosa pans in my mom’s kitchen. However, I am at Chutnify, a restaurant specialising in dosas, in Berlin’s hip Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood.
In this wonderfully-grungy, instantly-affable capital city of Germany, Indian food simply means a variety of ingredients (vegetables and/or meat) in greasy orange gravy. The piquant flavours of Indian spices are usually doused in cream, “sahne”, to tame them for the German palate. Native Germans familiar with Indian food and homesick Indians complain about this homogenously bland version of Indian cooking.
In this market of culinary misrepresentation, one woman saw opportunity. Aparna Aurora, a fashion design entrepreneur-turned-restaurateur with Indian roots, started Chutnify two years ago, branding her cuisine ‘South Indian street food’. Between serving masala dosas and tandoori chicken dosas, Chutnify has received unanimous admiration from German and English media in Berlin. It might seem that, finally, the dosa has found a place in Berlin.
“I felt there were no good Indian restaurants, and definitely, no South Indian ones in Berlin,” Aurora says on one leisurely Saturday afternoon at her restaurant. Behind her, a cupboard is lined with glass jars half-filled with kabuli chana, musty green coriander and brick-red chilli powder. A baby-faced man from a beedi packet is painted on a side wall, beside which a German couple sits, nursing drinks over thalis. There is other paraphernalia to complete the kitschy Indian ambience: a pack of neem toothpaste, a can of coconut oil, a bottle of sanitiser and an auto meter. She has tapped into the cool vibe Berlin is known for and given it an Indian touch.
Perhaps, the hardest part in serving dosas is the fermentation of the batter. Even in tropical South India, on a rainy day, the batter can lie flat, refusing to rise. “I did a year of research. Dosa batter here changes because the weather changes every day. My home was like a lab and I made dosas every day before we opened the restaurant. It took us a long time but I think we have perfected it now,” she says. As a South Indian with a good eye and taste for dosa, I can tell her creations are close to perfect. The underlying tang and additional fluffiness that comes with the fermentation of batter is missing, but it is the best one can do with unpredictable Berlin weather and a limited availability of ingredients. The menu is a curious mix of South and North Indian dishes: chicken curry rice rubbing shoulders with masala dosa and pepper pork. However, Aurora says dosas are the bestsellers. The frequency with which plates of masala dosas shimmy out of the kitchen seems to prove her point. For variety, there are also keema dosas, seasonal pumpkin dosas and chana dosa.
The name Chutnify is derived from Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children , where he refers to flavouring of prose with Indian English in his feted book. “We wanted to chutnify Berlin,” says Aurora. “Chutnify’s clientele is a complete mix: A lot of Germans visit us after reading the reviews, because we have been covered by the German media. A lot of South Indians are happy that we exist.” In less than two years of its opening, Chutnify has received an enthusiastic response, prompting Aurora to open a second branch in the Neukölln area of Berlin. There are also talks about opening a Chutnify in Madrid.
But through it all, Aurora has one goal: to serve dosas and serve them as best as she can.
My home was like a lab and I made dosas every day before we opened the restaurant. It took us a long time but I think we have perfected it now
Aparna Aurora
