Forbes: How Indian food went upscale in America, an interview with Tamarind’s Avtar Walia in Tribeca
Avtar Walia has seen the evolution of Indian restaurants over forty years from storefronts to posh dining rooms serving regional cuisine.
The first Indian restaurant I ever ate at was on New York’s Lower East Side, at a dismal subterranean place where the brown-gray food all looked and tasted the same. Years later when I visited India in the 1980s I was astounded by the variety of food cultures, none of them represented in restaurants in the U.S. Their décor was much the same––low lighting, paisley fabrics, bronze sculptures and Air India posters. The food was cheap, the beer was imported, maybe you took a doggy bag home.
Since then not only have Indian restaurants in the U.S. proliferated into every shopping center and small town but the owners, who come from many different regions, began to educate the public as to their cuisines while expanding the rooms and hiring professionals to decorate them.
One of the most successful of these modern restaurateurs is Avtar Walia, owner of Tamarind in TriBeCa, who over four decades has seen and contributed to Indian cuisine becoming one of the most popular in the U.S. Tamarind seats 225 people, with a sweep of long L-shaped white marble bar, then winding to a dining room of wood walls and floor, linen-topped tables and good flatware, a cache of wine behind glass and large chandeliers that diffuse light over the tables. Dinner plates are warmed before serving. Walia is always on premises, well-tailored and a very cordial raconteur, and his demeanor has been instilled in his service staff.