Finding Neverland In 2025: How Kolkata's Culinary Icons Are Finding A Home In Dubai

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

There's something magical about autumns.

In Dubai, it is the time of year when the city finally begins to exhale. The sun softens, evenings are cooler and the desert air hints at a certain mellowness. In Bengal, it gets equally beautiful, if not more – a canvas of porcelain skies, crisp breezes and five days of Durga Puja when Calcutta, as most romantics still call it, transforms into one sprawling street carnival.

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And appetite, for most of us far away from home, is the easiest thing to export. So this September in Dubai, as Bengalis, and anyone with a remote Calcutta connection, gear up for Durga Puja, food from the streets of the City of Joy is once again the true anchor of celebration.

Azad Hind Dhaba: cult dining, now in Dubai

At the centre of this season's buzz is Azad Hind Dhaba, the legendary eatery from Calcutta's Ballygunge Circular Road that has finally arrived in Dubai. Known back home as a democratic dining dhaba or the gathering point for students, journalists, taxi drivers and film stars at odd hours, Azad Hind – named after colonial India's wartime army led by Subhas Chandra Bose – has been immortalised in countless midnight stories.

“The culinary landscape of Kolkata has always been rich, layered, and diverse, yet often overlooked on the global stage,” says Sahil Sharma, the third generation owner, who with his wife Suzan, brought the legacy restaurant to Dubai earlier this year.“It was only a matter of time before a wider audience discovered its depth, and that's what inspired us to bring this legacy to Dubai.”

But back in 2007, when I first arrived in Dubai and was still fumbling my way through a new city, finding streetfood from Calcutta was a fantasy, like finding Neverland. The Dubai skyline was then still a promise, far from the prophecy foretold with the Burj Khalifa just a skeletal ambition against the blur of today's backdrop and the Dubai Metro just another line on a planner's map. And the culinary landscape a montage of glorious Levantine grills and burgeoning global chains sans the soul food of Kolkata tang of a phuchka's tamarind water, the comforting chaos of a dhaba's dal, the sacred ritual of a mutton roll from a Park Street stall – was a phantom limb. You felt it, but it wasn't there.

Today at Azad Hind, as thousands of Calcuttans count down to the start of Durga Puja festivities, that phantom has finally found a vibrant, beating heart. The air is thick with the sizzle of kebabs and the familiar lilt of Bangla, a soundscape that would have been unimaginable seventeen years ago. Here, Sahil and his wife Suzan are not just restaurateurs; they are curators of memory, serving a third-generation legacy on a plate.

“For us, Azad Hind is more than a restaurant; it is a translocation. The legendary Kolkata Kathi rolls, wrapped in a warm, flaky paratha, are not just food; they are a ticket to a bustling evening on Park Street,” says Sugoto Sanyal, a long-time Dubai resident and a Calcutta nostalgic at heart.

Meanwhile, for 34-year-old Emirati Shamma Mohammed, it has been a whole new road to a fascinating discovery.“To be honest, I'd heard of Hyderabad and Mumbai, but never Kolkata, let alone its food,” says the Jumeirah resident.“I tried the kathi rolls and was blown away with the Paratha and meat. I realised I'd been eating wraps the wrong way all this time. We were so happy to discover this hidden gem and today Kathi rolls are our family favourite, sometimes even over shawarma.”

And add to the rolls, their hearty dhaba-style mutton and famous smoky, charcoal-kissed kebabs that, says co-woner Suzan, are direct descendants of a culinary tradition built on true, unpretentious flavours.“Every dish here is both a memory and a tribute to the city's soul,” she says, her eyes scanning the dining room with a matriarch's pride.

But as the autumn light fades and the sun, no longer the fierce hammer of summer, casts a golden glow on the sleek facades of Jumeirah, the purpose of this place deepens. For the Bengali diaspora, Durga Pujo, inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage, is the ultimate nostalgia trip, an emotion far exceeding religion. It is the sound of the dhak, the smell of shiuli flowers, and the communal joy of pandal-hopping, fuelled by ultimately street food.

This Pujo, Azad Hind has built its own pandal. Reimagined through design, it's an oasis where Alpana motifs – traditional floor art – swirl beneath tables, and the menu transforms into a greatest hits of the festival: the tangy crunch of jhalmuri, the burst of flavour from a phuchka, the universal comfort of a steaming momo, and the iconic Bengali fish fry.

“It's never only about the food,” Sahil explains.“It's about the spirit. For anyone longing for the spirit of a Durga Puja pandal, we've tried to create one right here.”

Passed from the Mughals to Kolkata, now plated in Dubai

Azad Hind Dhaba's cultural flowering is not a solitary bloom. Dubai's map is now dotted with outposts of Kolkata's other beloved names. A short drive away, the biryanis of Arsalan and Aminia simmer in giant cauldrons, their aromatic steam carrying whispers of the same kitchens that have fed millions in the lanes near Kolkata's Nakhoda Masjid and elsewhere. This is the true essence of Kolkata, now reflected in the multicultural prism of Dubai.

“When I first came to Dubai in the early 2000s, if you craved a proper Kolkata biryani or roll, you had to make do with substitutes,” says Mainak Maity, a long-time Dubai resident and former restaurateur who once ran the much popular Calcutta Fastfood.“Today, to see Arsalan, Aminia, and Azad Hind here feels surreal. It's not just food – it's memory on a plate. For many of us, it's like finding a second Kolkata in the middle of Dubai.”

And what is that essence? It is Calcutta, the city that was, and always will be, a grand, chaotic, and beautiful contradiction. It is the city where the iconic Nahoum's Bakery in New Market – a Jewish institution run for decades by a Muslim family, and loved fervently by its Hindu majority – is not an anomaly but the norm.

It is a city where the rich plum cake of Christmas at Flurys, the sewaiyan of Eid, and the bhog of Durga Pujo are all threads in the same vibrant fabric.

So when Calcuttans gather in Dubai this Puja season – over biryani, over rolls, over sweets – it will not just be about taste. It will be about reclaiming a little corner of Calcutta in the desert, about keeping alive the habit of belonging everywhere and to everyone.

The phantom limb no longer aches; it's reaching out for another egg roll.

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