Passage To India
Visit any city in Canada and you’ll notice there’s a United Nations of restaurant choices available. Thai, Italian, Ethiopian or Jamaican — the adventurous Canadian can eat their way around the globe with just their wallet, and healthy appetite, in tow.
Indeed, cultural diversity defines Canada like no other country. Differences are embraced, especially by the nation’s top toques, whether they’re Canadian born or born-again as new residents of this vast land. And while some chefs trumpet Canadiana by featuring Musk-Ox from northern Alberta and suckling pig from eastern Quebec, in many ways our national cuisine is about celebrating the harmony between cultures that exists here. It’s about bringing the rich flavours of a faraway land and combining them with the best product from around the corner to create something unique — which husband-and-wife team Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala do every day at Vij’s, in Vancouver.
Regarded as one of the world’s best Indian restaurants, Vij’s is a reflection of contemporary Canada. It’s familiar and exotic, modest but proud, simple yet sublime. Perhaps not as Canadian as Tim Hortons, but over the past 14 years Vij’s has helped put Canada on the culinary map.
“How much of Canada is in me? Every part of it,” says Vij over the phone from Vancouver. Just back from doing restaurant reconnaissance in Las Vegas, he’s full of fire when asked how he incorporates Canada into the essence of his Indian eatery. “Other than spices, I don’t believe in bringing in product from India, like fish for instance, just for the sake of saying I can. I use as much seasonal and local seafood, meats and produce as possible. To me, that’s what Canadian cuisine is about. It’s mixing cultures, but still keeping individual nuances.”
Raised in a fairly affluent household in Bombay, Vij was never asked to learn how to cook, as servants helped his mother and grandmother when needed. But he still found himself in the kitchen time and time again. “When I was young my mom used to have ‘pretty parties,’ and I always wanted to make sandwiches and tea for the ladies,” he says. “Traditionally, it’s the women in India who learn to cook, but here I was making sandwiches by myself.”
That allure of the kitchen eventually led him to Salzberg, Austria, where he studied hotel management and earned his chef’s papers. But when he arrived at the Banff Springs hotel in 1989, the Indian-born, Austrian schooled, French-trained chef left the kitchen to learn how the front-of-house worked. “I wanted to learn about the service aspect of things. It was very important to me,” he says, knowing it would be essential when he opened his own business.
Interestingly, while working at Vancouver’s Raincity Grill and later Bishop’s, Vij’s father was pushing him to do just that. A businessman back in India, he thought his son should open his own restaurant and not bother working for anyone else. “I told him I would, but not before I got the right experiences first,” he says.
That moment came when his boss and mentor, John Bishop, convinced him to give it a go. Incidentally, Vij’s father had just arrived in town and together they looked at downtown Vancouver properties, finding a small, non-descript place on west Broadway. In September 1994, the first Vij’s restaurant opened and with it came different challenges, including working alongside his new wife.
“Our families have known each other going back three generations,” says Meeru Dhalwala, who runs the kitchen at Vij’s (Vikram manages the floor and all operations). Their maternal grandparents were very close, she adds, but similar to what happens with many family friends in India, people moved away and the families grew apart — “at least until they got the big news that we were getting married,” she says.
It didn’t take long for Dhalwala to make her mark at Vij’s. Newly married and without a work permit, she took a look at her husband’s humble restaurant — “It was really dinky, just a little hole in the wall” — and decided she could help. “I remember sitting in the back closet with an electric burner, spending and hour and a half fiddling with the Chai. That’s how it all began.”
Even though Dhalwala had no culinary training, she kept experimenting and creating new dishes, and when the new Vij’s reopened on Granville Street in an upscale part of town, she began to do it full time. “The most difficult part was giving up control,” Vij says. “From ’94 to ’96, I was running the show by myself. But when we went from a 20-seat to a 50-seat restaurant, I had to give up control of my kitchen to my wife.”
Any chef will tell you a decision like that comes with a little bit of apprehension. “Not a little bit, quite a bit,” Vij corrects, adding they would come home and have major discussions. “After I gave over the reins, I said, ‘You can do this, but you can’t do this.’ As a strong-minded woman, she objected.”
“I told him ‘It’s my kitchen and my menu now,’” says Dhalwala. “I would come up with new items, and we’d get into arguments, some real doozers in front of staff. Egos would get hurt. So I told him, ‘Either you give up control and let me do it, or just do it yourself!’”
There were other challenges, such as educating the kitchen staff, who were all from India and weren’t trained to work in a restaurant. “They were home cooks, and teaching them to do things the French way — serving meat that’s rare, not cooking the hell out of the lamb and fish — was a challenge,” says Vij. Most of the women in the kitchen were also vegetarians, so it was hard for them to make beef or lamb curry. Add to that the fact that a majority of the customers on Granville Street expected a traditional Indian menu with butter chicken, chicken tikka masalas and samosas, and you have a difficult adjustment.
“I elevated the food, the standards, and the ambiance of an Indian restaurant,” Vij says. “I would take 20 minutes to prep the appetizers. It was more than an eating place, it was an ambiance place. We didn’t take reservations, everything was a little different. It’s still Indian food, and you can taste it, but it’s not a greasy spoon kind of place.”
From the moment Vij’s opened, Vancouver’s foodies took note. The restaurant still doesn’t take reservations and is constantly busy, even on Monday nights, as guests eagerly wait for a taste of the garam masala sautéed portobello mushrooms in porcini cream curry ($11), beef shortribs in cinnamon and red wine curry with warm greens ($26) and wine marinated lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream curry on spinach potatoes ($26).
“When people say [our cooking] is fusion, it’s really not. It’s taking techniques from the Western world — whether it’s grilling à la minute or braising — and using them with Indian spices or the curries we’re totally comfortable with.”
The duo has also been integral in Vancouver’s charge toward sustainability, using local product as much as possible. “Ten years ago, most restaurants cooking with chicken used the cheapest ones they could get,” says Vij. “We use organic certified free-range chicken, and I’ve been sourcing local and seasonal stuff for eight years.”
Today, Vikram and Meeru have two children; they run Rangoli, a successful 30-seat takeout space next to Vij’s. They’ve also launched their own branded packaged curries sold in Vancouver-area markets and recently published a new cookbook. That’s a lot to be proud of. But as an Indian-Canadian, Vij says showcasing the cuisine of the country that gave him so much love and passion is the most rewarding part of his career.
“I was able to be a good ambassador of India. Vij’s has contributed to raising the profile of Indian cuisine and culture in Canada. People take it seriously now.”