What makes Pathare Prabhu cuisine Mumbai’s best kept secret

For a micro community that’s generally known to be extremely close-knit, guarded and perennially suspicious of the odd cultural appropriator, the Pathare Prabhus have no qualms in being forthright about their alien status in their adopted city of Mumbai. Set in ink Talking to home chef, cookbook author and YouTuber Kalpana Talpade—whose book Kalpana’s Kitchen on Pathare Prabhu food is a popular guide to the nuances of the cuisine—I learn of how the community lays claim to having one of the earliest cookbooks in Indian history. Her attempt at retelling small bits of this seminal Pathare Prabhu classic is, however, not aimed at her own community, but at those outside its “rather closed gates”, as she puts it. Beyond borders But one small, home-based Pathare Prabhu food outfit that’s breaching the community’s Mumbai-limited inner banks, is Gurugram-based Dine With Vijaykars with their regularly hosted Pathare Prabhu pop-ups and food events. “One of the driving forces behind DWV was that this cuisine is not available to people to try unless invited to a true, Pathare Prabhu household,” says Sunetra Sil Vijaykar, who, along with her husband Dr Shreekant Vijaykar and mother-in-law Dr Padmaja Vijaykar have introduced a whole new demographic to very niche Pathare Prabhu dishes.