(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is Sixth Street, the long time home of New York's Curry Row.

Urban legend has it that there's one underground kitchen sending identical plates of chicken tikka masala to Indian restaurants up and down the block.

If that's true, the kitchen isn't as busy as it used to be.

The number of places serving hearty, inexpensive Indian grub has been declining for years.

But away from Sixth Street, a new generation of Indian chefs and entrepreneurs are finding new ways to present the pungent flavors of Indian cooking to American palettes.

In this week's episode of Lucky Chow, we'll visit some of these innovators and see how they're finally bringing one of the world's great cuisines the attention it deserves.

(upbeat music) (Indian music) - [Danielle] In the rapidly gentrifying Nomad district of Manhattan, I've come to Inday, a new fast casual restaurant whose slogan is, good karma served daily.

It was founded by Basu Ratnam, who left the world of finance to follow his vision of a lighter, healthier Indian cuisine served in a sleek modern space.

- Well Basu, this doesn't look like any Indian restaurant I've ever been to.

What was your inspiration behind opening this?

- You know, I grew up in a home, I think much like a lot of Asian American families, where food was at the center of our family's beat, and so I grew up around the dinner table, and my mom, you know, she cooked from a certain region that she came from in Calcutta, India.

My father was from a different region altogether in the south, and so she really fused a lot of Indian flavors together.

It was a mix of Indian spices with really sort of fresh seasonal vegetables, and that's what I grew up eating.

And I felt like that was sort of missing.

We tried to preserve a lot of the cultural richness of Indian food and Indian flavors.

We start with whole spices.

We toast them, we grind them in house.

We make all of our milk and yogurt from scratch.

We use very specific Indian spices that you wouldn't see like asaputita, black salt, caraway seeds, things that aren't necessarily in American vocabulary, and so we don't necessarily put it forth on our menu, because we just want people to try it with no bias.

And luckily people have been coming back for more.

- Who comes to Inday?

- You know, we were really nervous about how Indians were gonna embrace us.

Because our food is an interpretation of Indian.

But it's been sort of amazing and really heartwarming to see Indians, whether they're from the States, or born and raised here, or they're ex pats, born and raised in India and they're ex pats here, they've really embraced us.

Because it's flavors that they're familiar with, but it's cooked in a way that's light and seasonal that is familiar with them and how they grew up eating.

- Is this a lot of people's introduction to Indian food?

- It's certainly I think the first introduction to people eating Indian food for lunch.

We knew that we had our challenges cut out for us because most people think of Indian food and they think-- - [Danielle] Lunch buffet!

- Right, or you know, Sunday night dinner, where I'm vegging out, I don't have to eat again, I don't have to see anyone later.

The first choice to make is you can start with one of our three bases.

The bases are rice, which is long grain basmati rice.

Then we have something called not rice, which is shredded cauliflower, carrots, and it's roasted in the oven with tumeric and mustard seeds and a little bit of ginger, so it's this super healthy sort of low carb alternative.

So then you pick one of our six bowls.

So we have something called paradise chicken, we have coastal salmon, we have a really wonderful turkey tikka masala which is similar to chicken tikka masala that is so popular now.

And they all come with different side vegetables.

Lentils, grains, and then we have a lot of fun toppings, crunches and sauces.

And good karma served daily is our hospitality approach.

It's one thing we love about food, and I've always been drawn to, is just this passion for serving and passion for creating good experiences, and it's fundamental to how I was brought up and it's fundamental to how we think about how we serve people.

I think there's a great opportunity to create an Indian brand that Americans identify with.

India is one of the biggest economies in the world.

I think culturally it's been unbelievably influential.

Everything from yoga to Bollywood to a lot of our arts and such a rich tradition of food, yet there isn't a single Indian-American brand that Americans can name.

- People have been saying, India is gonna be the next big cuisine, for the last decade.

Why has it taken so long for it to finally arrive?

- Only until very recently, and I think we're proud to be part of this group, has there been people taking the best parts of Indian cuisine and the parts that are most traditional and also probably the most appealing and really tried to fit them into the way New Yorkers and Americans want to eat today.

For too long people that opened Indian restaurants weren't chefs and they weren't restaurateurs, they were business people.

And so they took a very small cross section of Indian cuisine and culture and tried to replicate it in a way that didn't necessarily feel inspiring or original.

And I think if you look at London as an analog, chicken tikka masala is the number one dish in the country.

- [Danielle] The national dish of Britain.

- Of the UK, exactly.

And it's because they had so much more of an immersive Indian culture, and I think they had more cultural touch points.

They were able to destigmatize Indian cuisine, and I don't think we've had that same immersion.

The immigrants that came over from India, for the most part, they were professionals, right.

They came and they clustered around New York, L.A., engineering hubs.

San Francisco, Cincinnati, Dallas.

And they either worked as professionals or they were professionals.

And I think other Asian cuisines were actually sending over chefs.

And therefore there was a lot more care and precision around the food than we had here.

And I think that's changing, because Indian Americans are seeing the opportunity to really elevate our culture and elevate our cuisine.

So my dad is South Indian.

And so they grow up eating dhosa.

Dhosa is made from fermented rice and fermented lentils that are soaked for a couple of days and whipped up into a batter.

It's a really popular street food, people eat it Saturday and Sunday mornings.

It's a really elaborate dish usually.

It comes in this long cylindrical cone, which is so beautiful, and there's a really nice theater to it.

But it's very unwieldy, it doesn't travel very well, it's hard to get right, and so we thought of another really popular sort of American breakfast food that has a nice analogy to it, which is a waffle.

So we took the same batter, which we make in house, and we tried it in a waffle press, and it actually worked out really well.

- [Danielle] That's so clever.

So this travels really well?

- [Basu] It travels really well, it holds up really well, it's crispy, it's crunchy, it's the same rich nutty flavor that you'd see in dhosa.

- I think I want to have this for breakfast every day.

- Please do!

People get it as a late afternoon snack before dinner.

And we try to top it off with interesting dishes.

For events, people sometimes put caviar on it.

We've put smoked salmon belly from Russ and Daughters.

We've put, you know, we do great vegetarian ones with coconut yogurt.

So it's a really versatile, fun dish.

We think of ourselves as creating a cuisine that is both incredibly nutritious, really healthful and balanced in its construction, but also really exciting and fun to eat.

We're trying to democratize Indian food in a certain respect, I mean, I think we're at a price point where people can come in all the time and it's not a special occasion restaurant, we're part of people's daily routine, whether they're office workers or they work out in the neighborhood or they're coming in because they live here and they're grabbing a quick dinner.

And we feel really lucky to be part of what's going on and we didn't time it this way, but it's gotten very popular and there's been so many amazing Indian restaurants that are opening in the last 12 to 18 months, and continue to open.

- [Danielle] Located in Greenwich Village near the campus of New York University, Soho Tiffin Junction is the brain child of JC Chirimar, whose CV lists Lehman Brothers and CitiBank.

His love of his culinary heritage is reflected in the restaurant's name.

A tiffin is a classic Indian boxed lunch, delivered to offices and homes in distinctive metal carriers.

At Tiffin Junction, your lunch comes in bowls, Chipotle style, and the menu includes other nontraditional items like chicken tenders and a popular curry burger.

JC is doing Indian food his way, and hoping a wide audience will share his tastes.

- I've always had this thing, that a lot of the Indian food in New York City is not something that I can go and eat that often, it's too rich.

So I always wanted to either finance an Indian restaurant or do it myself.

I wanted to make food that would be acceptable internationally, not just for the Indian market or the Indian community.

And there's a couple of Indian restaurants chains over here, so I was thinking I'll acquire one of them and then redo the branding on that, and then all of that turned out to be too complicated.

Because everything had some issue.

So then we decided the easiest thing is to start your own company and start your own brand.

So he's making the fried chicken.

- [Danielle] Fried chicken!

- So the difference over here is the flour.

It's a chickpea flour, not a white flour.

Which gives a completely different texture.

And that's what we use in India to make fritters always.

And we've added about 70 different spices to that to give it a little more flavor, and then the chicken is marinated in buttermilk, you bread it, and you get this beautiful looking crunch.

- [Danielle] I love it.

It is truly a fusion dish.

- [JC] It is, truly.

- Southern fried chicken, but not really.

Made with pakura-- - Pakura batter, basically, that's what it is.

- [Danielle] With your restaurant who are you trying to appeal to?

- There's a broad demographic out there, right.

Where people want flavorful food.

They want healthy ingredients.

I'm trying to appeal to that demographic.

And I'm trying to look at Indian food and say, what makes it unacceptable, and what are all the amazing flavors whereby it can become acceptable?

And the whole thing with Soho Tiffin has been to look at these classic flavors and present them in a format where people are like, okay, I can consume this more often.

So this over here is a roula, which is sliced up and gives you the chicken tikka masala curry burger.

- What is a roula?

- It's just like a log, it's a fancy word.

So this is, the chicken over here is curry marinated and then it is braised, so it's very juicy, and the spot that you see is just the gravy.

And the gravy has been reduced.

And the patty is formed out of that.

- So this is the million dollar secret.

The chicken tikka masala curry burger.

- Yes!

Somehow in America Indian food has lagged.

And I think that in the last two, three years, we're seeing a lot more interesting, like Indian Accent just opened up, Babu Ji opened up, so there's a lot of Indian restaurants that are presenting food now in sync with how food is presented in India.

Because now if you were to go to Delhi and Bombay, your view of Indian food would be seriously challenged.

The word traditional and authentic is a very tricky word in many ways, right?

So when I think of traditional or authentic, to me it is more about the ingredients and also the process of eating.

- So you call your restaurant a modern Indian kitchen.

What does that mean to you?

- So that was a way for me to signal to people that when they come here they shouldn't expect their image of traditional Indian cuisine.

So this is what, if I were to go and open up a version of this in Delhi, it would be very well accepted today.

So I want to say modern Indian, it is in sync with what is happening in Delhi.

- [Danielle] After watching the assembly line at Inday, I decided to be more hands on at Tiffin Junction.

The last time I took an order, I was a 19 year old bartender.

This is a lot healthier for the customer.

- [Danielle] What would you like as a protein?

- [JC] Your chickpea choices?

That is the chickpea masala.

- [Danielle] This one, the chickpea masala?

So just give that on it, or on the side?

- [JC] Right over here.

Right on the side.

- [Danielle] What's in this chicken?

- [JC] This is the chicken tikka masala.

So the chicken is marinated and grilled, just as it is in the chicken tikka masala.

- [Danielle] I'll give you a little extra.

- [JC] Now here comes the topping center.

Right over here, as you see, there are nine different toppings.

So this is the mild cucumber slaw.

He'll have mild, you can put it right over there.

- [Danielle] Okay, so you like your food spicy?

- [JC] And the last one, you can use the spoon over here.

- [Danielle] Okay, and what is in here?

- [JC] This is a julienne of seven vegetables, so it's got brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots.

It's very good.

- [Danielle] I'll give you some extra so you can eat your veggies.

- [JC] There you go.

See, that makes a healthy bowl, right?

You've got veggies, meat, everything, perfect.

Right, thank you, good job, Danielle!

- [Danielle] That'll be $10.50.

- [JC] All done!

Would you like a bag, sir?

- You can leave your tip there!

I'm teasing you, enjoy.

So this is the famous curry burger.

So you mentioned that you have different types of curry burgers.

Is this the chicken tikka masala burger?

- Right, that is the paneer burger over there.

You can see the paneer chunks right there.

- This is so unexpected, and I love the addition of the pickle.

I guess chutneys and pickles are such an essential part of Indian cuisine.

It makes sense to have, yeah.

So how do you make the pickles?

- The pickles, the onion pickles we make in house.

And the cucumber pickle we get the raw pickle and we respice it in house, basically.

So our core ethos is not to create food which is a spice challenge for people.

Our core ethos is let's create the flavors so we can truly enjoy all the dimensions.

- [Danielle] In San Francisco, I'm meeting a third entrepreneur who's making her mark in the culinary industry.

In her case after working in Silicon Valley.

Like Rasu and JR, Pawaan Kothari was driven by the desire to bring the cuisine of her Indian heritage to a wide American audience.

But she's focusing on one item.

The spicy black tea known as chai.

And her business is literally street level.

After starting out delivering home made chai by bicycle, she now has two chai carts on bustling Market Street near San Francisco's financial district.

As we talked, office workers, shoppers, and tourists cued up for a taste of the sweet beverage that's part of the social glue of India.

- So when I was growing up in India, chai was such a big part of my life.

And then when I got here, I realized, oh my god, I can't get good chai here anywhere!

Unless I made it at home.

- How many cups of chai do you serve a day?

- So between our two carts, we sell about 400 cups a day.

- 400 cups, that's great!

400 cups a day won't threaten Starbucks.

Not yet, anyway.

But Pawaan's chai is the product of a lifelong devotion.

What does chai mean to you?

- It's kind of funny, when I was in India, I grew up seeing my parents drink it every day, and so I never thought it was anything special.

It was the first thing I learned to make in the kitchen, my mom taught me how to make chai.

It was kind of part of life.

And then when I got here, I realized, oh my god, I can't get good chai anywhere here, unless I made it at home.

The way we make it, we use traditional techniques to make the chai, so we use loose black tea, we use freshly ground spices, we have different flavors.

So masala, which is the most popular flavor, I created a blend of six different spices that we grind together.

So then we boil the water, we add the spices, we add the tea and then we add the milk and boil everything together again.

And that's how chai is made in India as well.

- [Danille] If Pawaan has it her way, the chai wallah will be as familiar in America as the barista.

- We always keep sugar on the side for those people who want to make it sweeter, they definitely can add more sugar to it.

The thing is, people who don't want it as sweet, they can't take sugar out of it.

So we try to just add enough sugar that brings out the flavor of the spices, without overwhelming the spices.

- [Danielle] I know you have grand visions for the chai carts.

Can you tell us about your expansion plans?

- Now that I've proven there's a market for chai like we make it, I want to start a brick and mortar.

I get so many emails from people who come from out of town, from Seattle, from Boston, from New York, from Austin, saying, oh, do you have a plan for franchising?

I would love to have one in our city!

- When you were heading out to the US, did you ever think that you would end up running a chai cart?

- No, kind of still, people still don't believe I do this.

It's more fulfilling to me than any other job I've had.

The response from the customers is so overwhelming.

They would come and have my chai, and they would tell me, this chai has made my day.

And that just made me feel so fulfilled with what I was doing.

- [Danielle] Back in the East Village, not far from Curry Row, I've come to a nouveau Indian restaurant that's been one of the hottest tables in New York since it opened.

Jessi and Jennifer Singh created Babu Ji after helming a series of successful restaurants in Australia.

And brought to New York a focus on stellar ingredients, light and subtle preparations, and a spirit of playful experimentation.

That playfulness is reflected on the walls, where there's a large photo of a real babu ji, the guy who keeps an eye on everything that goes on in the village.

Or in this case, everything that happens in the dining room.

- What do you want people to know about Indian food, that Americans don't already grasp?

- We want to offer food that's been created with thoughtfulness and creativity.

You know, what Jessi does is he brings creativity to these dishes.

A lot of these dishes are rooted in traditional recipes, but he's elevated them, and I think he stretches, for instance, he'll stretch flavor profiles, texture profiles, he uses some raw fresh ingredients along with some curries that have been cooked for days.

So he's got different textures, pays a lot of attention to the presentation and color, I think it just looks beautiful, he brings a vibrancy to the food.

Indian food is so layered and beautiful.

- It's layers of spices, layers of flavors, layers of onion, tomatoes, ginger, garlic, to keep the balance.

Spices can easily overpower each other.

Ginger can overpower garlic.

The onion can kill all.

So the goal is to make a full flavorful dish.

So when a guest walks in, they are like, wow, I've never eaten Indian food like this before.

- Even though this seems like a modern interpretation of a classic Indian restaurant, you're saying it's traditional?

- It's simple, traditional Indian food.

- So when Jessi takes me to India, I see all of these things that he's grown up seeing, and he doesn't really even notice, and I think, wow, what's that all about?

Or, look at the beautiful way that you see advertisements on the walls of the buildings.

And for him you would never really notice that.

So it's this joint combination of our perspectives.

- I'm also curious how you fell into the kitchen in the first place.

- [Jessi] Just growing up in the kitchen, my mom.

- [Danielle] Did she shoo you out?

- [Jessi] Always!

They still today, if I go home, I'm always learning their recipes.

- [Danielle] The ambiance of Babu Ji, with Bollywood movies playing and Hindi sayings stenciled on the walls, reinforces the neighborly spirit that informs Jessi's cooking.

There's definitely seriousness beneath the colorful surface of Babu Ji.

The selection of craft beers and interesting wines and cocktails is unusual for an Indian restaurant.

So is the offering of a chef's tasting menu.

Jessi's ambitions, which already brought him from Melbourne to New York, have now carried him to San Francisco, where a second Babu Ji recently opened.

- And this dish represents whole Indian cuisine.

So pockets made of semolina flour, yogurt infused with cumin seeds, date, tamarin, mint, coriander, scallions, ginger, chile, lime, jalapeno.

It's crunchy, sweet, spicy, creamy, sour.

The whole combination of flavors in that dish, and it explodes.

That's what India is.

If you've ever been to New Delhi, you come out, and, boom, smell, color, millions of people, so much happening, you know.

It takes you back, like, whoa, what just happened.

- So what made you want to do something that was basically street food and bring it in here, because that's one of the things that I miss whenever I go to an Indian restaurant.

You never get two things.

One, the kind of foods that you actually have at your house, at home and with your family, and what you get on the street.

And there's this other sort of definition of Americanized Indian food, which is like, here's two chicken tandooris and a piece of bread.

- That's the whole reason, when we thought we should bring Babu Ji here, because Indian, as you know, street food back home is huge.

I mean, people eat throughout the day.

Many meals come out of street food.

For the office worker, like matata bura, could just be put in a bun, like a little pawpaw, and you're just eating like a little burger.

Or you just grab as it is with a cup of chai for breakfast.

Used in so many different settings.

And this is the food we eat now.

Like goga, baba, matata bura.

Then this dish is yogurt kaba, another dish from northern India.

Very Persian, Ottoman, Indian dish.

The Muslim ruler of Laknana Va, so the ruler's called the Va, so this is their cuisine, so they brought technique to hang yogurt, hung yogurt, they brought saffron, they brought beetroot in here.

But this dish I dedicated to the street food.

- [Jennifer] And it's the street food that's really vibrant.

For us, we wanted to have that for a lot of it, because a lot of people think of Indian food and they think of curry, it's slow cooked, layers, very earthy, complex kind of meal.

- Are there certain flavor profiles that extend throughout all of Indian cuisine?

- For me it's impossible to put a menu and say this is completely India, unless I will touch north, east, south, west, central, Indian, Chinese, Portuguese, right, Indian food has been influenced by so many people for thousands of years.

- The people, the language, the food, the traditions, change so frequently.

- Roughly every 100 years.

- Everything changes, so it's just so diverse.

Which makes it really exciting.

I mean, this is just a little tip of the iceberg.

- There is a cuisine in India called Indian Chinese, Indo-Chinese.

The noodles, the dumpling, the Manchurian chicken, vegetarian version, meat version.

Our main thing is really our true Indian hospitality, we want you to come and eat like babu ji.

Splurge, leave your worries behind, and let Babu Ji look after you.

- [Danielle] For years, Indian cuisine has been waiting to take its place in the American mainstream alongside other classic Asian cuisines like Chinese and Japanese.

But maybe that's about to change.

From a fragrant cart on the streets of San Francisco, to a sleek but casual joint in hipster Manhattan, a new wave of cooks and entrepreneurs are rethinking and refining their approach to the food of the world's second largest country.

Curry Row may be fading, but the future of Indian cuisine in America looks bright.

(upbeat music)