Hailed as ‘ustaad’ (maestro) by the culinary world, chef Imtiaz Qureshi’s family simply knew him as the perfectionist who did not need to sample the dish to taste for salt, “and yet, he would always get it right”, his son Ashfaque Qureshi reminisces.
His father’s contribution to Indian gastronomy — many knew him as the ‘Grand Master Chef of ITC Hotels’ — won him a Padma Shri in 2016.
“He was one of the hardest-working people I’ve known,” Ashfaque shares, recalling his fondest memories of his father reaching home from work early in the morning when he and his six siblings were prepping to leave for school.
“But he always brought us back something to eat, typically something sweet: shahi tukda(bread pudding), kulfi(frozen dairy dessert). Things like these leave an imprint in your mind,” he adds.
Beyond the tidbits, the siblings came to appreciate the passion with which their father would speak about food. “For him, food had to be told as a story; he had to get into the details about the history of the dish. We knew him as a storyteller who became a chef,” Ashfaque smiles.
And even after his passing in February 2024, at the age of 93, his legacy is sustained by his family through the many restaurants the chef pioneered, each of which champions the dum pukht — the slow cooking techniques of the royals, and the Awadhi cuisine native to Lucknow.
The search for ‘chef Imtiaz ke kebabs’
“When I came to Delhi with my first job, my only objective was: Chef Qureshi ka kebab khaana hai (I have to eat Chef Qureshi’s kebabs). Salaries weren’t much at the time. I saved a big chunk of my salary from Taj Palace, and went next door to have a kebabat [ITC] Maurya,” chef Ranveer Brar recounted in an interview in CN Traveller.
Chef Imtiaz Qureshi was often called the Grand Master Chef of ITC Hotels. Photograph: (ITC Hotels Ltd)
Such was the allure of his food that his guest list was always star-studded. It included Queen Elizabeth II — who tasted chef Imtiaz’s kakori kebabs (finely minced meat seasoned with saffron and cardamon, covered with a thin glossy layer dotted with the charred barbeque marks) during her visit to India in 1983 — as well as Indian dignitaries like former president A P J Abdul Kalam and former prime ministers Lal Bahadur Shastri and Jawaharlal Nehru.
One anecdote Ashfaque enjoys retelling is that of a dinner his father curated for Nehru while the latter was being hosted by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Chandra Bhanu Gupta. Chef Imtiaz, renowned for his mutton delicacies, had to think on his feet, inventing innovative ways of crafting vegetarian dishes that tasted like meat.
In an interview with the Times of India, the chef recounted, “So, there was lauki qalia (flavourful curry made with bottle gourd) instead of fish qalia, jackfruit musallaminstead of murg musallam(whole chicken marinated in ginger garlic paste, stuffed with boiled eggs and seasoned with spices), lotus stem kebab(minced meat skewered on vertical rotisserie) in place of shammi kebab.”
Shahi tukda (L) and smoky tandoori paranthas are some of the most icnonic dishes at any of the outlets managed by the Qureshis. Photograph: (House of Qureshis)
Needless to say, the dinner went down in the archives as an iconic one.
Chef Imtiaz was a firm believer in channelling food for good; during the 1940s, at the age of 16, the chef reportedly cooked for 10,000 soldiers, and then during the 1962 Indo-China War, he fed soldiers in Lucknow.
As Ashfaque says, food was deeply personal to his father. “The way he saw it, food should be an engagement of all the senses. He used to tell us that we need to speak to the dish; have a conversation with it, such that our eyes, nose, tongue, and even the sixth sense would be inclined towards the food. He insisted that one’s soul and the dish should walk in the same line.”
So naturally, conversations in the home — “more like debates”, as Ashfaque puts it — were always around food. “There was an openness in the family when it came to matters of food; if something was wrong, it had to be called out.”
Culinary custodians of the dum pukht
If you were to set foot into a Mughal-era kitchen, you’d be greeted by a sight of heavy handis(vessels) within which meat, rice, and aroma melted together. This dum pukhtstyle of cooking is described by food historian Rana Safvi as being adept at “gently coaxing out the maximum flavour from ingredients and spices, with the result being a delicious cuisine which has now become deservedly mainstream with items going beyond traditional meat to vegetarian dishes too.”
At Bukhara, the menu features delicacies that are an ode to the Awadhi cuisine. Photograph: ((L): Ares Ko (R): Jani Vehkalahti)
Through the Bukhara restaurant started in 1978 in the ITC Maurya in Delhi, chef Imtiaz wanted to resuscitate this time-tested style of cooking. Through its menu, Bukhara ventured into the archives of Indian gastronomy and into the Mughal era.
As Ashfaque elaborates, “After 1947, once India got independence, there were only a handful of Indian restaurants in the country; the society was inclined towards Western food. Bukhara was my father’s way of undoing what the British had done; here, he encouraged eating with the hand, a concept that felt inconceivable back then, but today is thought of as iconic.”
The menu was decked with tandoors(dishes cooked in a traditional clay oven), naans(Indian flatbreads), biryanis(rice and meat cooked in spices), and the dal bukhara (an iconic Indian dish consisting of whole black lentils slow-cooked with tomatoes, butter, and cream), among others.
Today, not just Bukhara, but several other restaurants started by chef Imtiaz and his sons, including five outlets in Delhi, one in Gurgaon, and six in the NCR region, reflect these food sensibilities. The brands have also made inroads in foreign shores with their four international outlets at Doha, Kuala Lumpur and Muscat.
Biryani gosht (L) and Lucknowi biryani (R), Photograph: (House of Qureshis)
But their success owes to more than just the family’s knowledge of seasoning and flavours. “The thing about the Qureshi family is that they’ve always had a twin job; we’re chefs but also meat merchants, involved in the processing and retailing of meat. This in-depth knowledge about meat means we understand the protein and the body parts of the lamb.” Craft and comprehension blend to lend finesse to the dish.
Another lesson that Ashfaque and his siblings have picked up along the way is that of their father’s appetite for risk. “He always told us to never attach ourselves to the result. I’ve firsthand seen how he’s created something amazing, simply by daring to be bold; sometimes it would turn out fantastic, other times, it wouldn’t, and he would accept it.”
Perhaps this intrepidity comes from having to take the reins early on in life.
Born to a family that would cook for the nawabs(rulers), chef Imtiaz began working at an early age. At nine, he was working at his brother-in-law’s catering service. By 15, he was cooking korma(rich, aromatic curry made with yoghurt), gilauti kebabs, and shahi tukda for 10,000 people at a time, before he started working at Lucknow’s Krishna Hotel, where he nurtured his love for cooking into a profession.
And the rest is (a delicious) history.
