CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — There’s been no shortage of praise for Chef Sujan Sarkar’s River North restaurant Indienne since its 2022 opening. It earned a Michelin star in 2023 — Chicago’s first Indian restaurant to do so — and in June, Sarkar could win a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes Region.
Add those to multiple local and national “Best New Restaurant” honors, as well as the global recognition Indienne received for its wine list, and some people might start to wonder how many more awards one place could possibly win in such a short period of time. Some people, but not Sarkar.
“My coworkers, my publicist, everyone says, ‘You are never excited,’” Sarkar said after listening to a rundown of these accolades.
While the 46-year-old from Kalyani, India, described the Beard nomination as special, he said he cares much more about whether Indienne is full on a nightly basis.
“I see the people who are coming here and how they’re joyful after eating, how we’re proud, and how they are also thinking [of] this as part of Chicago,” he said.
When Indienne opened in 2022, Sarkar said Indian cuisine still hadn’t broken into the “mainstream of American fine dining” despite its growing popularity. Too often, he said, it was seen as a to-go or casual meal rather than something to be “enjoyed as a sophisticated dining experience.”
Sarkar, though, promised to take a different approach, one that tied in decades of experiences from all over the globe and dates all the way back to his time growing up in Kalyani.
For Sarkar, his relationship with cooking and hospitality started with his mother and his aunt. His brother, Pujan — with whom Sujan is opening a restaurant in San Francisco later this month — told WBBM that Sujan was breaking norms at a young age.
“When our friends or relatives would come over, I’d always see Sujan help mom make tea or get food out from the kitchen and try to serve them,” Pujan said. “That, for me, seemed normal, but when I'd to go to some friend’s house … I’d see only the mom doing that. No one’s brother [was] making tea or bringing out cookies.”
Sujan put it this way: “When you come from an Indian household, you will see your mom, your aunt, just cooking and feeding you. That’s kind of their life agenda: They want to feed you.”
At the time, his dream was actually to be a fashion designer. When Sarkar didn’t get into India’s top design college, though, he decided to pursue cooking in London. It turned out to be an important decision. He went on to spend most of his career in London and learned to cook modern European and French cuisine.
That’s where Sarkar said he started to gain a new perspective on Indian food.
“It was always in the back of my mind: ‘Why don’t I use my learning and understanding of other cuisine and implement those things into Indian food and see where this goes,” he said.
Instead of rushing his plans for what eventually became Indienne, Sarkar returned to India, where he worked at restaurants all over the country for more than three years. During that time, he made a point to learn from the local chefs and food historians that he befriended over the years.
“Indian food is very complex, but it’s not complicated,” he said. “So, anything that’s complex, you have to spend time to learn it and soak it in. It’s not just recipe driven.”
At Indienne, all of this experience shows up — down to the colors of the walls, booths and plates, where Sarkar’s passion for design led him to theme the restaurant in subtle pinks and greens that pay homage to Holi, the Hindu Festival of Colors. Even the name “Indienne” refers to a textile design with roots in India.
Sarkar’s cooking style, meanwhile, is exemplified on their early 2024 menu with the blackberry pani puri and the mushroom galouti, both of which pair classic Indian dishes with French techniques that emphasize simple, high quality ingredients.
“My food, there is not much of a reference point,” he said. “The cuisine we do … is my interpretation of how we see Indian food.”
Now, more than one-and-a-half years after Indienne’s opening, Sarkar said he’s found that he doesn’t really have to explain what they do anymore.
“They understand,” he said. “That’s the beauty of good food and hospitality: When people like it, they will come back.”
As for what could be next after this summer’s James Beard Awards, Sarkar said his current challenge is learning to “step back a little bit and let his team step forward.”
The James Beard Awards will take place on June 10 in Chicago.
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