Moti Mahal (restaurant)

Moti Mahal is a restaurant chain founded in Delhi, India.^[2] Founded after the partition of India in 1947,^[3][4] the Moti Mahal in Delhi was founded by Kundan Lal Gujral, Kundan Lal Jaggi and Thakur Das Magu as one of the first restaurants to introduce Punjabi cuisine and North Indian cuisine to the rest of the world such as tandoori chicken, paneer makhani, dal makhani, and butter chicken.

Moti Mahal

Company type	Restaurants
Industry	Hospitality
Genre	North Indian cuisine, Punjabi cuisine
Founded	1947
Founders	Kundan Lal Gujral, Thakur Das Magu, Kundan Lal Jaggi[1]
Headquarters	Delhi, India
Area served	India, Bahrain, UAE
Products	Restaurants

Internationally, the franchise has restaurants in Bahrain, and the UAE.

History

Moti Mahal was founded by^[1] Kundan Lal Gujral, Thakur Das Magu and Kundan Lal Jaggi, in Delhi in 1947. They worked at a small eatery called Moti Mahal, owned by a man named Mokha Singh Lamba in Peshawar, British India, from the 1920s to 1947.^[5]

A portion of Tandoori chicken. Kundan Lal Jaggi, Kundan Lal Gujral and Thakur Das Magu,^[1] the founders of the restaurant, are credited with the invention of the dish.

After the partition of India in 1947, they fled to Delhi with their families.^[6] In Delhi, the three partners bought a thara (booth) in the Daryaganj area, then considered a newer part of Old Delhi and then they started Moti Mahal, Daryaganj.^[5] Moti Mahal further went on to invent butter chicken, paneer makhani, and dal makhani as well as the modern tandoori chicken.^{[7][8][9][10]}

References

1. "Punjab on a platter". 31 March 2018.
2. Vora, Shivani (16 October 2012). "Now in New York: Delhi's Moti Mahal and a 'Dosateria'". The New York Times.
3. "On a journey's trail". The Hindu. 28 November 2009.
4. "Had I not re-invented the brand, Moti Mahal would have become a thing of the past than a legacy to the future". India Hospitality Review. Archived from the original on 3 August 2017. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
5. Vohra, Pankaj (2 February 2009). "Moti Mahal The Gem in Delhi's palate". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 9 July 2010.
6. Laura Siciliano-Rosen (13 January 2014). "Delhi Food and Travel Guide: The inside scoop on the best North Indian foods".
7. "Dish". The Hindu. 17 May 2008.
8. Patel, Perzen (4 January 2015). "Eight Kilometres Of Eating In Purani Dilli". The Huffington Post.
9. Sanghvi, Vir (26 July 2014). "Bukhara: It's old but it works". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
10. Sanghvi, Vir. "The modern dal makhani was invented by Moti Mahal". Vir Sanghvi. Retrieved 13 March 2010.

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