A Decade-Long Gastronomic Ode To Burma

How does a Burmese restaurant—one that’s vegetarian and doesn’t serve alcohol—grow from one south Mumbai outlet with a 20-day waiting list to a Rs 100 crore business, with 11 thriving restaurants and a cloud kitchen in six cities (eight if you count NCR as three cities) in a decade? We are more acquainted with the popular cuisines of Myanmar’s (as Burma is now called) neighbours, China and Thailand. Even Goa’s legendary Burmese restaurant, Bomras, which is ranked number 2 on Conde Nast Traveller’s best restaurants of 2023 list, hedges its Burmese menu with pan Asian offerings.

Burma Burma co-founder Ankit Gupta occasionally can’t believe how cheerfully his clients embraced the tea salad he grew up eating. Coincidentally, I’m speaking to him exactly 10 years to the day he and his childhood buddy and co-founder Chirag Chhajer opened their first Kala Ghoda branch. Chhajer says their Hyderabad restaurant has the highest sales, surprising as Telangana is ground zero of India’s meat eaters. I tried to decode some success secrets. 

Every successful business usually has a dil ka connection and this one is no different. Like many business families, Gupta’s mother’s family immigrated to Burma in the 1910s under the British dispensation. By the time Japan attacked Burma in 1942, sentiment against the ‘kalas’ had grown. As the British retreated from the attack, half a million Indians exited Burma to return to their motherland. By the 1960s, the military junta had driven out most Indians. Gupta’s family returned in 1973. His mother was 22 and couldn’t speak Hindi or English. As a child, Gupta’s lunchbox often contained Burmese dishes his mother made. The first inkling Gupta had that we could appreciate Burmese cuisine was the feedback from his school friends—they loved his lunches. 

In 2010, when military rule was replaced by a military-backed civilian government, Burma opened its doors to outsiders, and Gupta, along with his friend and now head chef Ansab Khan, visited the country. It was a curious trip, he recalls. “SIM cards cost Rs 35,000 and nobody accepted dollar bills that were folded.” Still, Gupta, a trained hospitality professional whose father and grandfather ran the multi-cuisine Garden Treat restaurant and bar in Mumbai’s Santa Cruz for 40 years, loved the flavours of the country where his mother had spent two decades, and began thinking seriously about a restaurant. “I fell in love,” he says. “The food was beyond what my mother used to cook.” 

The team picked from a wide culinary canvas, going beyond the Burmese dish best known to Indians, khow suey (though you’ll find three varieties of it on the menu). The cuisine of Burma’s eight major ethnic groups is varied and also draws from its migrant communities and neighbours, such as India, China, Thailand and Laos. Salads made from fresh noodles or fermented tea leaves, tofu made from chickpeas, small samosas deep-fried in curries or dunked in salads, rice cooked with coconut milk, pickled and fermented foods—even after eliminating the traditional fermented fish paste and meats, the variety of Burmese food is impressive. “A standard Burmese buffet comprises over 40 dishes, including meats, vegetables and salads, all served with white rice,” according to this lovely piece in Goya magazine. 

Gupta loved the sour influences of gooseberries and tamarind. “The Burmese plum and mango candies are my favourites. They have 16-17 varieties of fresh noodles and that they use to make a salad, soup or main. During the day, vendors sit on low stools and sell falooda, coconut jelly and many other goodies. Our fridges are stacked with these different foods every day,” he says. “Most mohinga and khow suey shops, that open as early as 4 a.m., have vegetarian options.” 

While the first menu at Burma Burma stuck to favourites you would likely find in capital Yangon, in subsequent years, the team went deeper into the country, exploring regional cuisines such as the Shiitake Pokchoy Ramen from Kayan state, the mustard soup from Kachin and the China Town noodles from the Chinese Muslim Panthay community. They’ve tracked the modern interpretations of Burmese cuisine too. “These days, there are more greens in the tea leaf salad, avocado was introduced in the last 15 years,” says Gupta. It’s worth trying their community Thingyan Festival menu that celebrates the Burmese New Year, on offer until May 19 across their restaurants. The flavours and techniques used will make you a fan of this Burmese ‘thali’.

The company’s sourcing from Burma goes beyond ingredients and spices, to textiles, furniture, artefacts and lacquerware for their restaurants. Their prices are equivalent to quick service restaurants, but the ambience is less casual than the competition. Over the years, Burma Burma has expanded its offerings to include artisanal ice cream, bubble teas, an online store—all ideas that are guaranteed to add to your bill. The depth and width of the restaurant’s offerings has contributed to its success. 

It’s local, not central. Unlike many restaurant chains, this one has no central kitchen. Even the ingredients are sourced from the same vendors and transported to all the restaurants to ensure that the food tastes the same. “We are very conscious that people don’t compare food across our restaurants,” says Gupta. So, kitchen staff have access to a tablet that lists all recipes and how they should look and taste. “We debunked many preconceived notions in the restaurant industry—master one city before moving on to the next, have a central kitchen,” adds Chhajer. “We did the absolute opposite. Our first six restaurants were in six different states.” 

And then, there’s the traffic. Many cities have multiple restaurants and Chhajer says that is because of rising vehicular congestion that dissuades diners from journeying across the city for a meal. That’s one reason Bangalore will soon have its fourth bustling Burma Burma restaurant. “Traffic is a blessing to all retail outlets,” he adds.

As for Gupta’s mother, Urmila? “She’s surprised and shocked that people are coming, liking and paying for this food,” he says, with a laugh.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.