E-Paper
‘Home-Tables’ -- Dine The Royal Way: Heritage properties offering fine dine with a dash of history & heritage in Lucknow
The food served to the guests is prepared using age-old traditional inherited recipes that have been passed on through generations.
LUCKNOW Wouldn’t it be delightful to relish a royal meal while basking in the glory of a city’s rich cultural heritage? This fine dine concept -- called ‘Home-Tables’ -- is already popular in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Jaipur.
Now, the idea of ‘home-tables’ is gaining steam in the City of Nawabs as well, and rightfully so! Lucknow’s rich heritage has much to offer to history and culture aficionados and therefore, owners of several legacy structures have opened doors to coteries with shared interest in heritage buildings of the city.
According to Adity Chakravarty, a Lucknow-based blogger and heritage expert, the concept of home-tables is already popular in some cities in form of pop-ups and home dining due to the presence of old heritage properties. “Lucknow is home to many such heritage properties. People also take a huge interest in them. So, it is heartening to see that owners of a few heritage buildings in Lucknow have started offering fine dining,” said Chakravarty, who has been a part of several such home tables and pop-ups.
Such meals are mostly organised by the owner of such properties, usually on weekends, in small batches of 10-15 people at a time. The food served to the guests is prepared using age-old traditional inherited recipes that have been passed on through generations. These dishes are often cooked by the host themselves or by their khansamas (a traditional cook) who have been working for these families for generations.
In the lap of their century-old heritage properties, family members often help in serving the meal and interact with the visitors in conversations on numerous subjects, usually on their ancestry and history. To further sweeten the deal, these royal dining experiences are sometimes accompanied by a musical extravaganza of Qawwali, Sufi, and Kathak performances.
Owners of one such heritage property, Alisha Imam and Zeeshan Imam, have recently started breakfast in their 150-year-old ‘House of Bhatwamau’ named after Bhatwamau in Barabanki, a place 60 km away from Lucknow. Their house is situated right behind the Safed Baradari and is a part of Lakhi Gate (western gate of Qaisarbagh) maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.
A portion of an adjoining building belongs to the Imam family, the erstwhile Taluqdars of Bhatwamau, and thus, they enjoy exclusive access to the roof of the gate where under the quadrant arches of the gate, guests are served a traditional Lucknowi breakfast.
The couple, along with two of his other family members Abbas Imam and Zainab Imam, has hosted eight such successful breakfasts over the last two months. “The menu on offer is mostly Awadhi with food items like Galouti Kebab, Nihari, Biryani, and Kullhad chai, among others,” said Alisha Imam. “Apart from food, we also try to engage the guest in quality conversations on our roots, legacy of the house, and various other topics. Our guests take a lot of interest in these conversations,” said Alisha while adding that mostly, the crowd includes those who are bored with fine dining and want to try ‘something new in an old setup’.
Alisha pointed out that even the foreign guests are taking an interest in it. She has already hosted a guest from France. “The table is usually organised on weekends. Guests pre-book seats and only limited numbers are invited at one time to make it a quality affair,” said Alisha.
Similarly, Raja Amresh Kumar Singh, the owner of Khajurgaon Palace in Lucknow’s Naka Hindola bazaar, which goes back to the late 18th century, is also hosting home-tours accompanied by dinning and Avadhi cultural evenings for foreign delegates. He is the descendent of Rana Shankar Baksh Singh, then ruler of Khajurgaon, a village in Raebareli district of U.P.
Singh, along with his wife Rani Abha Singh and son Rajkumar Shivraj Singh, live in this palace. “We’ve been organising home-tables since 2019. Meals are often accompanied by Kathak and Qawwali performances,” said Rajkumar Shivraj Singh.
“The cultural events are organised in the pink-themed darbar hall of the house that is constructed by amalgamating Avadhi, British and Turkish architecture. To signify that this building was constructed during the reign of Queen Victoria, the window grills of the house adorn a crest of her crown. The hall has now been converted into a drawing room which gives enough space to accommodate 30-40 people at a time,” said Singh.
Similarly, filmmaker Muzzafar Ali’s Kotwara House in the Qaisar Bagh area also hosts heritage trails with an occasional cup of hot tea or coffee. Ali started a tour package for his house that history lovers can visit by paying a certain amount.
‘Goal is to preserve & promote, not earn profit’
Owners of heritage structures say that home-tables is not a very profitable business but they continue to organise such meals to preserve and promote the rich heritage. “We can’t make it too commercial as that will leave no difference between us and the fine-dine restaurants. We only cater to those who are interested in experiencing heritage,” said Singh.
In a similar vein, Alisha and Zeeshan said, “We’re doing this not to earn profit but to preserve, propagate and promote our rich heritage.” Adding to this, Chakravarty said, “The idea of home-tables is crucial as it will make people aware of our heritage.”
