These Restaurateurs Want Everyone in America Eating Indian Food

Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya, of the restaurants Adda and Dhamaka in New York City, have big plans for fast-casual Indian food.

Ten years ago, Roni Mazumdar cautiously added a Bengali dish from his childhood — a beet, carrot, potato and pea cutlet called vegetable chop — to the menu of his restaurant, Masalawala, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “No one would buy it,” Mr. Mazumdar said. “I remember the batches that would go bad, and after two weeks, we were like, ‘Why are we wasting? We might as well do chicken tikka masala.’” When he and the chef Chintan Pandya opened Rahi in Greenwich Village in 2017, Mr. Mazumdar thought they needed to go contemporary, serving truffle khichdi and smoked salmon chaat. The place was less about showcasing Indian food and more about following culinary trends, Mr. Mazumdar said.