The title of the finest restaurant in Essex at the British Restaurant Awards has been bestowed upon an establishment specializing in Bengali cuisine. Brohmon, located in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, has proudly secured the distinction of being the top restaurant within the entire county.
Brohmon is skillfully managed by a dedicated husband and wife duo, Karim and Sultana, who share an unwavering devotion to exceptional culinary experiences. In an interview with Asian Voice, Mr Karim Ullah talks about his restaurant and his love for South Asian cuisine.
What is the story behind the inception of Brohmon and that behind the name?
My wife and I travel a lot and we were very frustrated by the quality of Indian food or food from the subcontinent. Many restaurants, claiming to be Indian in the UK, are failing to deliver outstanding quality food which the diaspora as well as the Britons truly enjoy. And so we paired up authentic and flavourful Indian food with great service, ambiance and a fabulous overall experience for people visiting our restaurant.
As for the name, Brohmon is originally a Sanskrit word and then it also has a Bengali origin, both of which mean the same thing: JOURNEY. We wanted to create a brand name not just for here and now, but for the future, one that would stick out and be a composite of the ecosystem.
As we celebrate South Asian Heritage Month with the theme ‘Stories to Tell’, how can food define and narrate the story of a culture?
Our food, I believe, is up there with the very best cuisines in the world and when I say our, I mean the entire subcontinent. I think there's so much that people can actually help people learn about South Asian culture with food. I'll give you a perfect example. we actually have our own gin, which is distilled in a local distillery. And it is actually distilled with a citrus fruit, an incredibly aromatic citrus fruit from Bangladesh, called a gyro level and very few people know about it. it's been one of the most successful things that have travelled from the subcontinent, thankfully.
How, according to you, has the South Asian cuisine transformed in the past few decades? Has the concept of fusion led to the loss of the original taste and flavours?
Since man has inhabited the world, we've seen things change all the time. But there are certain things that I'm very confident people will be eating for many more centuries. I do think that there is so much that we could learn. There's no reason why we shouldn't be more experimental as long as it's done correctly. The biggest problem I have with the typical Indian restaurant is that they do fusion very badly. I hope the fusion dishes that we create will make the really tasty dishes and healthy dishes more popular than these really awful-tasting dishes. The traditional and fusion can truly coexist if it's done correctly.
Having won the Best Restaurant Award recently, what are your plans for the future of the restaurant?
I love food, travel and music. I have worked in hospitality and the domain of travel luxury for ten years and wanted to try and amalgamate the things I love into a business ecosystem. On the restaurant’s front, we need to expand to different locations and curate a retail operation to go with it. I also want to expand Brohmon to the travel domain. It's a very ambitious plan and whether we succeed or not is beyond our hold and because no one has seen this being done before, people are going to be naturally quizzical at the very least. I am, like many entrepreneurs, trying to do something out of the box. In these cases, if you succeed you’re a genius and if you don’t, you’re a fool.
How does it feel to win the Best Restaurant award?
It was a surreal feeling. I'll be honest with you, it was lovely to be nominated, but I wasn’t expecting a win. I saw the other restaurants that were nominated and they've been around for a lot longer than we have, having a huge head start on us.
We were just elated to be one of the twelve restaurants in the county. We went to the award ceremony thinking that we'll just go, meet people and l have a nice time. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would walk away with the winner title. So it was quite a surreal moment. I was really unprepared.
