Qureshi Cover Story
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10 COVER STORY twitter.com/HTBrunch Meet the Qureshis: India’s first family of Jamavar. Aijaz’s younger brother Javed works with his uncle Shau- Indian cuisine, whose recipe for success kat at Sofitel Mumbai’s Jyran. borrows as much from tradition as it CHOICE CUTS does from good old-fashioned ingenuity The story of the Qureshis’ rise to fame begins with Imtiaz Qureshi. by Antoine Lewis Born on 2 Feb 1929, a few weeks after Martin Luther King and the first publication of Tintin and Popeye, the fifth son of Murad Ali and Sakina Qureshi grew up in a family of nine boys and two girls. His ancestors were butchers and NE OF THE STORIES mous chefs in India. But the fame cooks to Awadhi nobility for over that Imtiaz Qureshi loves to tell is is restricted to an individual. The 200 years; his maternal grandfa- about how he tricked Jawaharlal Qureshis, on the other hand, are ther had worked for the Raja of Nehru. not all famous individually, but Mehmoodabad and his paternal The chief minister of their surname has become a pass- grandfather and father with the Uttar Pradesh, CB Gupta, had port to success in the hospitality Raja of Jahangirabad. It’s not invited Prime Minister Nehru, industry. More than 30 members clear what position they held, but Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur from the same Qureshi family it is most likely that they were Shastri and Zakir Husain for a work at five-star hotels, restau- butchers who also cooked for private dinner in the early ’60s. rants, catering companies or run feasts and festivals. Nehru accepted reluctantly, restaurants in India and abroad. Imtiaz, like his brothers, and only on the condition Mohin, Imtiaz’s nephew, is a began young, helping out at the that the food be pure chef at Punjab Grill. His cousin Il- butchery when he was only 10-15 vegetarian. Gupta called yas works for restaurateur Marut years old. Their day began at 4am, for Imtiaz, then a young cook Sikka’s Indus Culinary Team. when freshly slaughtered carcass- with Lucknow’s famous caterer Ilyas’s younger brother Ghulam es would come to their father. The Krishna Hotel, to take care of the is the master chef of Chingari boys would help him break down meal. Imtiaz protested. He knew at the Le Meridien, Pune, while the animal into different cuts of nothing about vegetables. But his other brother Meraj Ul Haque meat. By 7.30am, when custom- Gupta convinced him to take on looks after The Great Kabab ers arrived, they’d get ready for the order and the worried chef Factory at Radisson Blu Plaza. school. Much was learned outside spent the next month furiously Aijaz, the elder son of Imtiaz’s the classroom, working odd jobs figuring out how to make it work. brother Ahmed Ali, worked at with caterers – how mango and On the appointed day, dinner ITC Maratha and is at The Leela’s tamarind firewood left a lingering was served and soon after aroma in the food, how to an angry Gupta called for cook for 100 to 10,000 people, Imtiaz. A very annoyed what the elite liked. Nehru was peering over his By the time they were glasses at the food. “I asked in their thirties, they could for a vegetarian meal,” cook kilos of biryani, the PM said. “But here I kebabs, sheermal, nihari can see murgh mussalam, and kormas in their sleep. shammi kebabs and fish.” The brothers were well- Imtiaz replied: “Sir, known in Lucknow, some the fish is actually bottle ran meat shops and catering gourd, the chicken is raw outfits. But it was not until jackfruit and the legs, long the ’70s when the ITC (then brinjals. Even the shammi ‘A consistent ‘Give us only the Welcomgroup Sheraton) kebab has been made with product is the water to cook in Agra hired young Imtiaz lotus stem. Everything is to help develop their Indian vegetarian, only dis- only way the with and we’ll cuisine, that they turned guised.” The thrilled guests cuisine can go even make that more than local heroes. had a good laugh. Zakir Hu- Imitaz signed on, taking TOP CHEF international’ flavourful’ sain complimented Imtiaz on the formal surname Imtiaz Ishtiaque Qureshi, Ahmed Ali Qureshi, saying he had never eaten Qureshi (the community Qureshi lords Kakori House ITC Maratha it over Awadhi anything as tasty. of Qussabs, who practise cuisine at ITC There’s no dearth of fa- halal slaughter had recently Photos: LABONY KAUSHAL MAY 4, 2014 11 WHo’S WHO IN THE QURESHI FAMILY Murad Ali and Sakina Qureshi Mumtaz Imtiaz Ali Ahmed Ali Shaukat Ali Fida Hafeez Hafeez Grand master Banquet chef, Nazeer Niaz Retired Master chef, Naimun Alimun Husein Khaliq Basheer ITC Maratha, chef, ITC master chef, Jyran, Sofitel, Hotels Mumbai Dum Pukht Mumbai Shahid Kaleem Ghulam Sandi Saleem Irshad Mohammed Rashid Laddan Ilyas Mohammed Rais Ishtiaque Zubair Aijaz Shareef Master chef Owns Kakori Master chef, Kitchen (Brother in law ITC Maurya, House, Dum Pukht, ITC executive, of Rais) Delhi (manages Sonar Bangla, Jamavar, The Master chef, Dum Kaleem Kebab Hut) Kolkata Leela, Mumbai Pukht, ITC Maratha, Mumbai Who invented Rafid Ashfaque Ahmed Ghulam DUM PUKHT? Master chef, Co-owner, Chingari, Grande The ITC’s iconic restaurant Le Meridien, Cuisines Dum Pukht takes its name Mohin Pune from a technique of Awadhi Indian chef, Javed Javed cuisine. When it was launched adopted the name, which de- Punjab Grill, Dum Pukht, Demi chef in 1988, chefs Imtiaz Qureshi Delhi Irfan ITC Sonar rives from the Qurraish tribe de Partie and Maj SS Habib Reh- Co-owner, Bangla, Grande Jyran, Sofitel man cleverly conjured up a of the Prophet Muhammad), Kolkata Cuisines Mumbai backstory out of many local and forging the first of many legends to add mystique. Qureshi links to Indian dining. Naem Here’s what the restaurant’s Other brothers soon fol- Imran Meraj Ul web page says: ‘When Nawab lowed. Shaukat worked at ITC Works with Ghulam Haque (married to Asaf-ud-daulah found his in Agra and Chennai, Mumbai’s Ishtiaque at Radisson Blu Kebab Hut daughter Aisha), Searock Sheraton, the Holiday Inn Plaza, Delhi Master chef, Dum and other places before briefly con- Pukht, ITC sulting for Punjab Grill. Mumtaz Maurya, Delhi worked with Kwality group in Ehsan Lucknow, ran the local Gymkhana Works with Grande Club and introduced many of Cuisines the now-famous kebabs at Kebab Korner (at what is now InterCon- tinental, Marine Drive) before he joined the ITC. gir in Aminabad does delicate The brothers became estab- galoutis and kulchas that rival a CONSTRUCTION OF MYTH lished names after they helped puff pastry in flakiness. Perhaps Awadh’s Bada Imambara is launch ITC’s iconic restaurant the family’s fame rests on two the source of several legends Dum Pukht in 1988. Suddenly, simpler reasons. kingdom in the grip of famine, everyone wanted a piece of that ga- The first is that uniquely he initiated a food-for-work louti. The Qureshi sons and neph- Indian character that has been programme, employing thou- ews (some of whom had worked debated extensively in the run sands in the construction of the exquisite Bada Imambara. under the brothers) were swiftly up to the elections: family. When Large cauldrons were filled picked up by other brands. India’s Imtiaz joined the ITC, he did not with rice, meat, vegetables appetite was truly whetted. come alone, he brought his broth- and spices and sealed to ers and nephew Rais, sowing the make a simple, one-dish KEY INGREDIENTS seeds of dynastic succession in a meal available to workers ‘Any chef can make day and night. Then, one day, Several Indian regions have commercial kitchen. Three of his the Nawab caught a whiff of produced chefs who are masters 10kgs of biryani. five sons were employed by the the aromas emanating from of their respective cuisines. So But no one made a hotel before they decided to forge the cauldron and the royal what accounts for the Qureshis their destinies elsewhere. Imtiaz’s kitchen was ordered to serve connection to Indian restaurants? 200gms for a single son-in-law Ghulam is master chef the dish.’ The family attributes it to their person till I did it of Dum Pukht at Delhi’s ITC Mau- Yale professor Holly Schaf- intimate knowledge of the cuts of rya, other relatives are in charge fer in her essay Dum Pukht: A Pseudo-Historical Cuisine goat. “Anyone can cut mutton,” at Dum Pukht’ of other Dum Pukht outposts or argues that this is more says Mumtaz. “But only a Qureshi Imtiaz Qureshi manage the Indian section of hotel fable than fact. But none of knows which cut has to go into banquet kitchens. Even the young- it detracts from the beauty which preparation.” Of course, it’s er generation, many of whom who of the food or the success of also about knowing what spices to grew up outside Lucknow and the restaurant. If the price for keeping a cuisine alive is an use when and how that sets them Then again, it’s not that the didn’t start off at the butchery, still over romanticised tale, it’s a apart. As Ahmed Ali says with a Qureshis are the only masters of gained an edge by working under price worth paying. benign smile, “Give us only water Awadhi cuisine. Rahim ki Nihari the senior Qureshi brothers. to cook with and we’ll even make in Lucknow’s Chowk serves some Blood ties, however, can take that flavourful.” of the best nihari and paya; Alam- you only so far and no company MAY 4, 2014 12 COVER STORY US TOO Other successes from Sadar Vakil Ahmed, master chef of The Great Kabab Factory (TGKF), worked un- der Imtiaz.