'We left him two jars and a piece of paper with our name and number on it.' A call in favor of the product resulted in a done deal. 'We didn't even have a card,' she recalls laughing.

Amazingly, a buyer was at the store during their visit. 'We got all dressed up and literally just walked into Whole Foods-the original, it was on Shepherd back then-and asked to speak with the buyer,' she remembers. When it came to distribution, she sought out Whole Foods to be a partner.

Along with a friend, she developed and jarred her own cilantro chutney, calling the product NJOY. So, she created the must-have Indian condiment herself. Beyond the food in restaurants, she discovered she couldn't get her hands on a cilantro chutney that wowed her. However, it was back in the 90s when she set the wheels in motion for building a career in hospitality.Īfter moving to Houston from India in 1990, Jaisinghani saw Indian dining throughout the city and felt that it was not being represented well. James Beard Award-nominated chef and newly minted cookbook author, Anita Jaisinghani has built a successful modern Indian dining concept with her River Oaks restaurant Pondicheri. Before there was Amrina, Musaafer, and Surya India, there were three hard-working Indian women who carved out a space for modern Indian dining in Houston. Furthermore, they built a solid foundation for a new era of restaurateurs to establish roots. Thirty years later, these three women operate some of the top-rated restaurants in town, and are highly regarded among their peers. Their contributions were imaginative and exciting, and Houstonians took note. This shift began largely in the 90s, when powerhouses like Anita Jaisinghani, Kiran Verma and Shiva Patel were unknowingly building the cornerstones of what would eventually become Houston's impressive modern Indian dining scene.

Around the same time, a few unlikely restaurateurs took things a step further by incorporating attractive beverage programs, high-quality ingredients, and thoughtfully-designed spaces. They had candlelit dining rooms and white tablecloths, and they were making the cuisine more visible to Houston diners. As years passed, Indian restaurants slowly began appearing in hip neighborhoods, like Khyber at Upper Kirby and Bombay Brasserie in Uptown.

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