Srinagar: A young Kashmiri woman completed a degree in Engineering, then worked in a multinational company, then gave up her high-paying job to start the “first authentic Kashmiri food restaurant” in Bangalore.
Married into a non-Kashmiri family, Azmat Ali from Srinagar says she always wanted to do something tied to “Kashmiri culture”.
“I moved to Bangalore about 3 years ago. I started working in a design firm, but all the time I kept wanting to do something else, something more familiar to my Kashmiri culture,” she told Kashmir Reader.
“One day, along with friends, I went out to eat Kashmiri food (in Bangalore). But our search for authentic Kashmiri food was futile, as none of the places serving Kashmiri food were even remotely authentic. And the taste was actually very bad,” Azmat recalled.
“In the city we found all types of food, like Hyderabadi, Chinese, but Kashmir’s food was not available,” she added.
Azmat had found her business idea. She started the first Kashmiri authentic food restaurant in Bangalore, by the name of Sarposh Restaurant & Tea Room.
“I along with my husband we decided to experiment. We introduced our food to the local people of Bangalore, as well as through food festivals and events. We operated as a cloud kitchen for about a year, after which we finally opened our flagship restaurant in Indira Nagar in Bangalore in 2020. For the first few months we weren’t able to operate due to the pandemic, but now things have started looking a little better as people are going out to eat,” she said.
“Sarposh is the only place in Bangalore which serves authentic Wazwan, Kashmiri breads and brews. Even the raw material like saffron and walnuts come directly from Kashmir,” she said.
Azmat describes her restaurant as an “experience centre”, as everything has been designed in Kashmiri style.
“We’ve designed our restaurant as an experience centre, where you walk in and learn about Kashmir and its culture. The idea is to be able to take control of our narrative and tell our story in our own words. We feel it is extremely important to do this because Kashmiri food is an extremely underrated cuisine – especially because the people who are generally in the business aren’t doing justice to the food and the ingredients. They’re busy chasing commercial targets and in the process spoiling the name of our food. It’s amusing to watch people come in and realise what an actual Kashmiri Pulao or Rogan Josh tastes like, because everything else they’ve had before is either an appropriation or a really bad quality version,” she said.
“I strongly feel we must only do something if we can do it right – otherwise we’ll just end up doing more harm than good. We’ve definitely taken on a huge challenge here to ensure authenticity, purity and excellence in everything we do, but it’s something we hope to stick to at all times. Our moral compass will keep guiding us to put quality and authenticity above all else,” she said.
“When we first introduced wazwan, people were aware about it but they did not know how actually it tasted. All our food is cooked in traditional copper cauldrons and utensils while tchot (flat bread) gets cooked in a Kashmiri tandoor. Our entire team is from Kashmir, from professional waza families,” she informed.
Azamat said that no artificial flavouring or colouring is used in her kitchen. “There are no added preservatives. All the non-perishable food is brought in from Kashmir,” she said.
Apart from wazwan, she has introduced in her menu Kehwa, Harrisa, Wazan Haakh, Palak, Badam Korma, etc, she said.
“In future we will introduce many more things which belong to our Kashir,” she said.
Azmat says she made it a point not to compromise on the quality and authenticity of the food. The hard work was finally recognised and her restaurant has been nominated for the Times Food Award, in the Best Restaurant category.

NAZIMA SIDIQ