WE’RE SEATED IN A 200-YEAR-OLD PORTUGUESE home in North Goa’s Assagao, complete with a central courtyard, terracotta roof and a maze of interconnected rooms. Yet, kitschy Indian artefacts, paintings and subtle Nawabi touches create a distinctly Awadhi setting within it.
On the table before us sits a yellow arhar dal, simmered slowly over the bhatti. “This was my dadu’s favourite, with a side of lean meat kebabs,” chef Azaan Qureshi tells us as we savour spoonfuls of it, letting the Kashipur chillies, garlic and cumin slowly warm the throat.
The Dal Qureshi is one of many preparations that have travelled across generations to find a new home at Kesar Bagh, whose culinary lineage traces back to the royal kitchens of Lucknow’s Qaiserbagh Palace. The recipes reached chef Azaan through a raqabdar (taste keeper) who stepped out of the palace’s ‘Bawarchi Tola’ (chefs’ quarters) and made his way to Delhi, where he would go on to build a culinary legacy for modern India. Dadu, as Azaan fondly refers to him, was none other than the late Padma Shri Imtiaz Qureshi. He adapted the magic of Dum, the traditional slow-cooking technique, into a restaurant format at Dum Pukht in ITC Maurya, introducing generations of diners to Awadhi cuisine.
And to think, Qureshi’s grandson almost traded a chef’s coat for a turntable. “I wanted to be a DJ,” he recalls, before adding with a laugh, “But a Qureshi always ends up in the kitchen.”
His world was shaped by his father, Gulam Moinuddin Qureshi, and his grandfather, even if his earliest memories of them are somewhat distant. “Growing up, I was never particularly close to my father and grandfather because they were completely immersed in their professional lives. My bedtime stories were stories of our cuisine, its legacy and the people who shaped it,” he says.
Under the supervision of his mother, Aisha Qureshi— Imtiaz Qureshi’s eldest daughter and first apprentice— Azaan learnt to roll kebabs. “My mother made the best kacche gosht ki biryani,” he recalls. “She would pack rice, uncooked meat and other ingredients into an aluminium pot and cook it together for 30 minutes.”
Azaan soon realised that music was more passion than talent and swapped DJing for hotel management. Graduating from ITC’s WelcomCulinary Programme in 2013, he joined the pre-opening team at ITC Grand Bharat. It was only in 2016 that he began training under his father and grandfather.
Over the years, he travelled the world with the family, cooking for everyone from Barack Obama to Heston Blumenthal and Massimo Bottura. Yet the culinary heir apparent insists he never assumed he would end up at Dum Pukht. His early days, he says, were as nerve-racking as those of any kitchen trainee. “I thought I knew everything about Indian cooking. On my first day in the kitchen, I realised I had a long way to go.”
One of his earliest lessons came from his ustad, who assigned him three seemingly simple tasks for an ITC archive shoot: preparing unsweetened soaked dates, baking sheermal and making a gelatinous vegetarian stock similar to a nihari broth. “I managed the first two,” he recalls. “But I got a proper scolding for throwing away the pulp from the stock. No one was going to taste the dishes, but that was the protocol ustad followed.”
The passing of Imtiaz Qureshi in 2024 coincided with the beginning of a new chapter for his grandson. From hosting the cooking show Zaika Awadh Ka to launching Pukhtaan, a chain of affordable restaurants serving heirloom Awadhi fare in Delhi, Azaan has set out to take the cuisine beyond the rarefied world it has long inhabited.
The move is particularly significant given Awadhi cuisine's history. For generations, culinary secrets were closely guarded within families and passed down through lineage. Azaan, however, believes preservation depends on accessibility. “The first step to protecting a cuisine and making it accessible is to institutionalise it. One restaurant is not good enough to take a cuisine to a wider audience,” he says. His ambition is to create multiple expressions of Awadhi cuisine across formats, audiences and price points.
With Kesar Bagh, created alongside restaurateur Priyank Sukhija, Azaan is attempting to bring the spirit of the Bawarchi Tola into the present day. There is an Urdu word, he tells me, for the feeling he hopes diners leave with: ser hona—to be content, satiated and fulfilled.
Sampling the menu, I understand exactly what he means. A fragrant kakori kebab arrives first, its char-grilled minced mutton carrying warm notes of cinnamon and clove. For a moment, the outside world recedes. We surrender willingly to the glistening richness of the dish.
Next comes the Chandi Murgh Tikka, coated in an almond paste scented with pepper and shahi jeera. “There has to be an evolution in the catalogue,” says Azaan. “We’ve held back on the grease. Most diners today wouldn’t be able to consume the original quantities of oil and ghee.”
The Takka Paisa Kebab, discs of cottage cheese are tucked into a crisp potato shell, arrives crunchy on the outside and soft within. The standout of the evening, however, is the Samudari Rattan—crab balls perfumed with clove, served in a velvety qaliya.
As we move on to the kacche gosht ki biryani, the conversation turns to his grandfather. Azaan recalls Imtiaz Qureshi's final birthday, just days before he passed away. “He sent me out to buy the meat and ordered me to make him biryani,” he says. “I feel blessed. His honesty in cooking is my greatest lesson.”
The meal ends with Halwa Sanj, the menu’s promise of a sweet finish. We cut into a syrup-soaked shahi tukda layered with lacchedar rabri, almonds and pistachios. By the time a chilled Lucknowi paan is offered on our way out, that feeling Azaan spoke of at the beginning has fully settled in. Ser hona, indeed.
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