Scrumptious "Little Kolkata"

Like any other Bengali child from a modest upbringing, Prabir Chattopadhyay grew up seeing his mother cook various Bengali dishes for the family and for the temple. The yearning to learn cooking began early and he and his little sister would watch their MAA for hours, sometimes helping and relishing the different aromas that arose, at different stages of the cooking process. Years later in 2016, Prabir officially launched “Little Kolkata”.

Prabir began his journey out of home at the age of 18 with a scholarship to train as a marine engineer working for Maersk. Prabir began travelling countries, getting acquainted with various cultures and their cuisines. After travelling 11 countries, he decided to pursue something more homebound.

He moved to the UK in 2006 to complete his Masters in Operations and Supply Chain. As a student, he started working as a kitchen porter with Pizza Express and within a short stint worked his way through to becoming an assistant manager for Bella Italia. This helped him to experience and acquire a robust first-hand understanding of the operations within the food hospitality industry.

“Little Kolkata” includes recipes from his grandmother’s kitchen, street food and delicacies inspired from the Mughal and British invasion of Calcutta, and the age old Kolkata patisseries in the likes of Flurys.

The launch of his brand Little Kolkata was a huge success with raving reviews from renowned bloggers, industry influencers and critics. He has already been invited by various pop-up organisers to be part of bigger food festivals. By launching Little Kolkata, Prabir plans to gradually re-integrate traditional Bengali cuisine into the British culture across different cities.

The Brand and Prabir were recently nominated for two prestigious awards by the UKBCCI- Business and Entrepreneur Excellence Awards. The nominations were for the “Best New Business in UK” and “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” and Prabir managed to beat thousands of very capable contenders to be selected as one of the three finalists in both the categories.

Little Kolkata will be holding its next supper club event on 10^th December in Borough High Street.