Story

Ravi & Anita Jaisinghani opened Indika in July of 2001. Ravi, an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) scholar who runs a successful automation engineering company, provided the business support for the restaurant. Anita, a self-taught cook, who had a brief stint at Café Annie as a pastry chef, is the creative force behind the food. They were both born and raised in India but are of Sindhi origin (which now exists only in Pakistan).

Our Food - A note from the chef

The cuisine at Indika is a highly personal one. It is a story of my journey from India to Canada in the early 80s and then to the United States in the 90s. As much as I love the vibrant spice-laced cooking of India, living in North America for more than half my life has made me appreciate the restraint of western cooking.

During my annual pilgrimages to my parents’ home in India (with stopovers in Europe), I began my love affair with food. I remember marveling at ethereally flaky croissants and the depth in the chewy crusty flavorful breads in Paris, or the delicious cakes and pastries (with just the right touch of sweetness) in Frankfurt. I had never seen anything like this in India!

Throughout years of being a home cook, I began my relentless experimentation with old Indian techniques, the vast array of spices and Texas ingredients. That sparked a small experimental business of selling chutneys to select Texas stores, including Whole Foods Markets. This led to a two-year stint at Café Annie where I learned top-level fundamentals.  This eventually boosted my confidence and determination to open a restaurant!

At Indika, I have embraced street foods of Mumbai and Delhi (better known as chaats), thrown in snippets of the flavorful simplicity of Gujarati vegetarianism, added the fragrant seafood curries of Kerala and paired it with the rich and complex preparations of Punjabi and Sindhi. Not to mention the quirky cooking of Parsis of India – another one of my favorite cuisines of India. India has a vast and complex regional cuisine, only parts of which I have been exposed to as I continue to I gather, experiment and create!