India, Jan. 24 -- The great misconception about Kolkata is that it is a parochial Bengali town. That's much less true than it was when I lived in the city, and even way back in 1986, Kolkata's food was marked by cosmopolitanism. Very few of the dishes that people raved about - and which found fame all over India - were Bengali in origin. The chaat, which is among the country's best, was made by Biharis. The Nizam's Roll (now better known nationally as the kathi roll) was made at a restaurant set up in 1932 by north Indians. The famous Kolkata biryani is roughly as Bengali as Wajid Ali Shah, the Nawab of Awadh, at whose court it was allegedly created. Chilli chicken was created by canny Chinese restaurateurs to appeal to Kolkata tastes. *** Anyone who knows the Kolkata food scene well will tell you that among its most famous restaurants are what are regarded as Muslim restaurants, which have been serving a distinctive cuisine for many decades. My friend and former colleague Pritha Sen, the noted chef and food historian who has researched the development of Bengali food, says that the pride Bengalis take in Kolkata biryani is a relatively recent development. The biryanis were always available at the famous local Muslim restaurants, but Bengalis were not always so proud of them. Now, an entire mythology has grown up around Kolkata biryani. It was created for Wajid Ali Shah, we are told, after he was exiled to Bengal by the British, and his chefs added special touches such as potatoes ("such a delicacy", "so expensive in those days" etc). Most of this is nonsense. The biryanis were created in the first half of the 20th century by the men who founded the Muslim restaurants. By some coincidence, at least four of Kolkata's most famous biryani restaurants were started by migrants from the same region in Uttar Pradesh - not far from Lucknow - who came to Kolkata in search of work. I had lunch at the original Aminia, an iconic restaurant near New Market, founded in 1947 by the ancestors of Kabir Azhar. Kabir says his great grandfather first ran a stall serving biryani and chaap before the restaurant was launched, using the same recipes. Kabir is the fourth generation of the family to be in the business, and he sticks to the traditions: The food is brilliant but the recipes (the masalas in particular) cannot be disclosed. The Aminia biryani, like most other Kolkata biryanis, did not descend directly from Wajid Ali but is essentially a Lucknow-style pulao, to which potatoes have been added. Though the masalas are secret, I think it's fair to say that all of the Kolkata Muslim restaurants make food that is a little sweeter than the UP original. (That may be the only Bengali influence.) Aminia does not add eggs to the biryani and the best way to eat the biryani, Kabir told me, is to put a little of the mutton, a bit of the potato and some rice on your spoon and to then pop it into your mouth. All of the food was delicious and I loved the fact that we were eating it at the original restaurant; a link to the Kolkata of the last century. *** It was Asma Khan who introduced me to Kabir. Like Pritha, Asma is also an old colleague (it's strange how many members of the old Sunday newsmagazine team have found fame in the food world) and though she is a big star in London, her heart still belongs to Kolkata. Asma was one of the reasons I was in Kolkata. She had asked if I would attend a charity dinner she was cooking at, and of course I had said yes at once. The dinner was at the wonderful Glenburn Penthouse, a super exclusive (just nine suites) hotel in the centre of town with the best views of Kolkata. The Glenburn Penthouse is run by the elegant Husna-Tara Prakash who had not only hosted the dinner but had also managed a line-up of chefs who epitomised the best of Kolkata. Asma was the star, assisted by Kabir's Aminia team. But the desserts were by my old pal Shaun Kenworthy (who has a great new memoir out) and the first courses were done by Auroni Mookerjee, who reunited for the evening with his colleagues at Sienna, Kolkata's restaurant du jour. *** I first went to Sienna when it was a small cafe on top of a shop and wrote here about how much I loved it and how its chef Auroni Mukherjee was a major talent whom we would hear more about. Since then, Auroni has moved on, like Dick Whittington, to other cities but fortunately, he is now back in Kolkata and will be opening new restaurants. Sienna has fulfilled its early promise and is now to Kolkata what Masque is to Mumbai. Avinandan Kundu and Koyel Roy Nandy, who were Auroni's sous chefs, have taken over, have put their own imprint on the menu and form an unusually effective partnership. I went for a weekday lunch having had the sense to book; there was a queue of people waiting for tables at the door. The food was fabulous and though there were clear Bengali influences in the flavours and ingredients this was not modern Bengali food. It was food made by two chefs at the top of their game. *** I ate very well in Kolkata but the big discovery for me was what chefs Vijay Malhotra and Pramod Sinha are doing with North-Eastern food at the ITC Royal Bengal. They have already made North-Eastern flavours a rage in Kolkata at the Grand Market Pavilion. But this time they did something different. ITC has broken new ground by building new dishes around the flavours of South India with the acclaimed Avartana restaurants. Vijay and Pramod have tried to follow the Avartana principle for North- Eastern flavours; inventing modern North Eastern food in the process. They gave me a preview of their dishes and as an early advocate of Avartana I have to say that I felt exactly as I did when I first ate there. The food was as good, if not better. In an ideal world, ITC would now open a North-Eastern Avartana. Except that we don't live in an ideal world. Would a restaurant that harnessed the flavours of this region be commercially successful at an Avartana price point? Or are Vijay and Pramod ahead of their time? I don't know. But what I do know is this: If they opened the restaurant I would eat there every week, or even more often than that!...