Kabab platter (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Lucknow’s cuisine offers a variety of kababs using different cuts of meat, with different spices and cooking techniques. Kakori kababs use fine minced meat, marinated with spices, patted into cylindrical shapes on skewers and roasted over a charcoal brazier. In texture they are very fine and melt in the mouth. Seekh kababs are also roasted on skewers, cylindrical in shape but more chunky and more chewy in texture. Boti kababs are tiny pieces of mutton, marinated and cooked in an open pan.
Shami kababs use fine minced meat, boiled with Bengal gram and spices, then ground, shaped into patties and shallow fried. Ghutwa/Majlisi kababs are made from coarsely pounded mince, marinated and cooked in an open pan till they are almost pasty in appearance. Pasanda kababs use fine slivers of steak, marinated and threaded through skewers and roasted over a charcoal brazier. Galawat kababs are made from finely chopped mince, tenderized and marinated, smoked with live charcoal, shaped into patties and shallow fried. Paired with different flatbreads, kababs can be a complete meal by themselves.
Lucknow Bioscope Kabab BannerLucknow Bioscope
1. Sakhawat's Restaurant
‘Sakhawat’ means ‘munificence.’ Haji Wahid Ali started his food business in a narrow lane behind the Awadh Gymkhana Club. Here, a kindly begum sahiba (a polite form of address for a lady) gave him space in her garage to set up a stall from where he started selling kababs and biryani. He named the shop Sakhawat, after his son Sakhawat Ali.
In 1975, Sakhawat Ali converted this space into a restaurant. Sakhawat Ali’s son, Faizan Sakhawat is a graduate with a degree in law, but prefers to work for the family business.
Boti Kabab (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Here, food is cooked traditionally, using a sil-batta to grind the herbs and spices, copper vessels, and a coal-fired clay oven, ensuring the same authentic taste as was in his grandfather’s time. The shop stays open from 3.00 pm to 10.00 pm. The menu varies daily, with dishes like seekh kababs on Wednesdays and nargisi koftas on Sundays. These dishes are loved by many, including the film-star Rajinikanth.The shami kababs, bater [quail] when in season, paratha rolls with a variety of meat fillings, biryani and pasande remain perennial favourites.
Sakhawat (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Worker photograph of Sakhawat (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Faizan has learnt the importance of hard work from his father. Once, when he was a little boy, Sakhawat Ali was catering for a wedding for a rich family. Faizan tagged along with him and stood where the food was being prepared. All the workers were hard at work. Little Faizan, awed by the glitter, stood by gawking. Suddenly, his father’s ‘munificience’ manifested itself as a blow from a heavy spatula and a dour injunction, “Are you here for the wedding? Get to work !’’
2. Tunday Kababi
When we met Mohammad Abu Bakar, he told us, “My maternal grandfather, Haji Murad Ali established this outlet in 1897. Mine is the fourth generation. After my grandfather, his son Haji Raees took over, and now I am in charge. As a boy, my grandfather was crazy about kite-flying. One day, he tripped over a kite string and fell. He broke his arm, and it never joined back properly. His friends, merciless as children are, started calling him Tunday (one-armed).
My grandfather was so good-natured that he did not mind and happily adopted this nickname. When he started this outlet, it was not usual to put up signboards. Everyone started calling it Tunday, the kabab maker. This is the name that is now famous worldwide.”
Mughlai paratha with Kabab (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Abu Bakar’s grandfather used to narrate a story about his own father, who was the major-domo and chef for the Nawab of Bhopal’s kitchens. The nawab was very fond of red meat, but with advancing age, he lost his teeth. He refused to wear false teeth, but still craved to eat meat. He consulted his chef, and the two experimented with tenderized mincemeat, made into patties. This was how galawati kabab was born.
“Much has changed since my grandfather’s time”, recalls Abu Bakar, “I used to sell 4 kababs for 4 annas when I started my business, they now cost Rs. 20. The taste is the same as it always was. The women of the house have always prepared the mix of mincemeat, tenderizer, herbs and spices. We only sell kababs made with buffalo mince paired with parathas, and even today, we serve them in palash (flame-of-the-forest) leaf platters.”
Kabab being prepared. (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
His cousin Mohammad Usman runs the much more visible and accessible outlets known as Grandson of Tunday Kababi in Nazirabad and the Tunday Tower in Kapoorthala. These outlets serve not only buffalo beef galawati kababs, but also mutton galawati kababs, mutton qorma, boti kabab, chicken and vegetarian versions of the mutton dishes.
3. Naushijaan
Tanu Tandon, at the billing counter, informs us that the restaurant was started in 1999 by Shamim Shamsi as a side-business or a hobby. Tanu recalled that the evening the restaurant was inaugurated, Shamim had invited a much-loved qawwali singer, Hyder Baksh to perform for the gathering. Shamim himself recited a humorous nazm dedicated to Naushijaan—“Here seekh kababs turn lazily over a bed of glowing coal/The town’s kababis burn up with jealousy as sleepless they roll…”
Majlisi Kabab from Naushijaan (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
From day one, the restaurant has specialized in traditional Awadhi cuisine, featuring galawati and kakori kababs, qorma, and handi biryani prepared in a clay pot. Unique dishes include majlisi kabab, mutton pasande cooked in two different styles, and murgh musallam served twice a week.
Baba ka Dhaba (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Bread varieties range from roomali and tandoori and the delicious sheermaal.It is only the matchless taaftaan (a bread) of Awadh that is not yet available, and Tanu says he will try to fulfill this demand.
Shermaal (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
He adds, “We have always tried to measure up to the love that Lucknow has showered on us. But Shamim’s father had this advice for us, if you don’t have something, don’t try to sell it; just don’t try to pass off suboptimal food!”
4. Siraj
About 10 years ago, Mohammad Urooj started this business and named it Siraj Hotel in the memory of his late grandfather. Their paratha roll with a filling of galawat kababs or masala chicken and mutton biryani made with parboiled rice, are highly appreciated. A half-portion of chicken pulao was priced at Rs.60 and now costs Rs. 140.
Mohoomad Urooj (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Urooj says, “Lucknow people have always been interested in food. Those with a discerning taste make it a point to come to us. This is just the beginning, we have been in business for a mere 10 years. It takes time to build goodwill, but people are getting to know us now. They appreciate our standards of cleanliness and the delicious dishes."
5. Charminar
Mohammad Asif is a graduate and has been managing the restaurant for the past six years along with his brother Yusuf. He tells us that this business was set up by his grandfather Ashraf Ansari who had moved to Lucknow from Bijnore at the time of Partition. He spent the first 13 years selling tea and snacks at the Charbagh railway station and later in Sadar Bazaar.
Charminar Hotel (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
He then set up this restaurant in 1960. After him, Asif’s father Abdul Aziz took over and managed the restaurant for 40 years. Asif is very busy at the counter, and can spare time only for snatches of conversation. In the five minutes we spent with him, we counted 11 bills being settled. The aroma of qorma, stew, roasted chicken, galawati, shami, boti kababs and biryani wafted across.
Ambiance photo of Charminar Hotel. (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Every table was occupied, and there were people waiting outside for their turn. A crowd of delivery boys surrounded us as they waited for the home delivery orders to be packed.
“I came to know that our family has such a famous and reputed restaurant when I was 10 years old. After I graduated people used to tell me to get them a job in our establishment. I would then think, why shouldn’t I work in the family business instead?” When he was asked for some anecdote, he laughed and said “Some other time—I don’t even have time to breathe right now—and you had ordered six kababs, hadn’t you?”
6. Baba ka Dhaba
Shiv Kumar Verma is from Ganeshganj in Gonda District. He lost his father when he was very young. His mother and he came to Lucknow in 1983. Shiv Kumar began scrounging for coal by the railway tracks which he sold for a pittance. He moved on to selling sev, and pakori from a basket, then graduated to a food- stand in Alambagh and added matar and khasta to the food items on sale.
Paratha being prepared (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
After 10 years of hard work, he was able to buy a handcart for Rs. 225, on which he began to stock the same wares. he says. This went on till 1995, when he joined a political party and came to be known as Baba.
Rumali roti (2022)Lucknow Bioscope
Important political leaders of his party helped him acquire a shop, where he started Baba’s Dhaba. A talented employee advised him to include vegetarian kabab rolls in the menu. He says,“They sold so well, that fights used to break out at the shop among customers!” Vegetarian versions of meat based dishes have become very popular. So the menu now includes mushroom keema, vegetarian biryani, paneer keema and gobhi keema of a kind that is not to be had anywhere else.’
Curation: Ansaf, Noor Khan, Saman Habib
Graphic: Stuti Mishra
Photography: Anshubhi Singh, Ayan Bose, Isha, Karan Kashyap, Tasveer Hasan
Text and Translation: Amit Misra, Divya Joshi, Wasim Ahmed
Special Thanks to: Amir Jamal, Madhavi Kuckreja
