Through the glass front of Graam Bangla restaurant I watch elderly Bangladeshi men shuffling towards the large wooden doors of Brick Lane Mosque in east London ahead of the sunset prayer. The shiny minaret is a silver cylinder of Islamic geometry lit in glowing pinks, reds and yellows. It might be the coolest one in Britain. It’s a modern addition to a building that dates from the 18th century and began life as a Protestant chapel, before becoming a synagogue then, finally, a mosque. All these men were born in Bangladesh. They are the generation whose culinary labour put Brick Lane on the curry map.
“Brother.” Chef Atikur, three-time winner of the Bangladeshi chef of the year award, appears, beaming. “Making chicken tikka masala is in my brain,” he says, tapping his head, “making maasor jool [fish curry] is in my heart.” The hand moves to his chest. “And making kala bhuna [beef curry] is in my blood.” His large frame shakes with laughter. Graam Bangla means “Bangladeshi village”, and almost every diner around us has some connection to one. Even the young white woman in funky red glasses is holding the hand of a Bangladeshi.
Spread at Graam BanglaOla O. Smit
Street food in the window of SonargaonOla O. Smit
Everything about the place is an ode to the villages of Sylhet, a region in the country’s northeast: the bamboo lattice above the main counter; the corrugated tin decorating the walls; the framed photos of Sylheti villagers; and the naive mural of a shimmering river winding its way into the horizon, a love letter to our ancestral home. “When you eat my food, you will taste your motherland. To go to Bangladesh it costs more than £800. I will take you there for a tenner,” says Atikur.
I start with a platter of bhortas, or satnis: portions of mashed spiced vegetables mixed with onions, garlic, coriander and chilli. There’s a potato bhorta, a butternut squash one, a roasted aubergine and tomato version, and even a kind made with boiled egg. But the signature dish, which I’ve come for, is made with shutki: dried fermented fish with an intense smell and powerful flavour. “That’s the one with naga in it,” says Atikur, pointing out the fiercest shutki satni of all. It is a fiery concoction of thinly sliced shallots and shredded coriander mixed with crushed dried fish and specks of red naga, the Bengali name for Scotch bonnet chillies. I inhale. The fragrance of naga and the fishy pungency of shutki transport me to the lush green hills of my birthplace in Sylhet, where my tiny nani, my maternal grandmother, sits in the yard outside our mud-built home. She is perched on a wooden khat, a little stool, crushing naga on a stone grinder. The aroma is so intense she has to do this through one teary eye, keeping the other closed.
Amar Gaon’s exteriorOla O. Smit
Dishes at Graam BanglaOla O. Smit
Graam Bangla is part of a new wave of restaurants quietly reclaiming Brick Lane’s curry narrative. Atikur describes the dishes he offers as “our recipes, our pride. We spent too long making things for other people. It’s time to save our heritage,” he tells me. There’s no menu and the food is authentic. “Sylheti flavours are intense, spicy and wholesome. You can taste the land. They say when a Sylheti cooks even dal, the aroma of the garnish carries to the next village.”
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