Raastawala

Rinku Dutt, founder of @raastawala, is a British-born Hindu Bengali. Both of her parents are from Kolkata in north-east India and moved to the UK in the 1960s. For Rinku and her parents, the cooking of their traditional dishes was a way to make Britain feel like home. Their kitchen would be buzzing on a Saturday morning, fuelled by the radio playing Indian tunes and the sink filled with kachalu and palong shak collected from east London markets. ⁣

For Rinku, food is an inescapable part of Bengali culture. “It's not only the eating of food, but in our culture cooking together, going to fresh veg and fish markets together and buying the produce is a way of life.” This passion around the entire process of sharing a meal is something that has enriched British culture, and in Rinku’s words – has “spiced” things up!⁣

Not only does Rinku Dutt have her own food business but she has also contributed to many well known publications and recipe books: LEON: Happy Curries, BBC Good Food, The Telegraph and Sainsburies Magazine. She also published her own recipe book last year called Kolkata: Recipes from the heart.