When I walked into Swadist Indian Craft Kitchen, Narender Godala was preparing a tea of fresh ginger, turmeric, lemon and honey. It smelled delicious and when he gave me a glass of it afterwards, I could absolutely feel the goodness coursing through my veins. Narender started his working life in India in IT but when he moved to Melbourne, he retrained as a chef. After a few years working in restaurants around Melbourne, he has opened Swadist to hero the food from the southern region around Hyderabad where he comes from. When he talks about the food he is cooking, his whole face lights up and I am sure we could have talked for hours more. As it is, you are in for a treat and I cant wait for you to read Narenders story.
So Narender, you're from Hyderabad?
Yes, which is down here in this part, South India. I am only doing food from this region. I worked in IT from 1997 until 2001 in India, came here, tried my best to work in IT, couldn't find a job. I didnt have local experience. I started doing some part jobs at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre as a pantry hand. Then I started cooking; I spoke with the chef and asked if I could work in the kitchen as a sandwich hand, rather than a pantry hand. She managed to put me into the kitchen. I thought it was better, if I couldn't get something in IT, to learn something else and I started studying for my Certificate 3 full time. That's how I got into this. Then with a few friends and communication through them, I started working in a few kitchens. The first one was in Greensborough. I knew one of the chefs who said, you can come and train with me.
Was that Indian food?
No. Im actually not trained as an Indian chef. I worked at Pier in Port Melbourne, on the corner of Bay Street and Beach Road. Its a known place for weddings and so on. I worked for a short while for the Belgian Beer Garden as well. Then the people called me back to Greensborough. After that I worked for five years at the Studley Park Boathouse in Kew. They have a caf and a restaurant and the caf was my baby for five years. Part of this, I was a casual employee for Delaware North who catered for Eithad Stadium for the AFL and Melbourne Park for the tennis. So I did three AFL seasons and two tennis seasons as well.
So big numbers.
So far my record for steaks in one night was 273 or 274 steaks. It was, I think a Carlton Bulldogs game, so 43, 000 people. I was on the grill that day. I went back to IT for a year but, it wasnt for me. I wasnt feeling good. I wasn't happy. It wasn't my kind of thing. Then suddenly during the Covid time, somebody came to me and said there were a few places in Ormond and I should come and we will all work together and do this. I said, OK, why not? At least I am in the kitchen. But they all stepped back. I'm the only one left. They were all scared about Covid and how the business was going to go. I said, Look, you pushed me a little bit and perhaps now is the time for me to do this; I'll do it by myself.
I did a little bit of market research and looked at what was selling. Indian restaurantswhat are they doing? What is actually selling? I looked at that and then thought I would come up with my own. If I do something, I want to have my identity. If I do the same as everyone, then why do they want to come to me? If someone wants to come to me, I have to have some unique thing. How do I do that? This was in the back of my mind; Indian food, why can't we do it caf style a plated thing? I choose what goes together and they have that. Thats how it all started. With a friend we came up with the small plate, large plate concept. Indians with their religious background don't eat beef and Muslims' background, they don't eat pork, but if I target one section, it makes it hard to manage the other section. I thought I would make it simple where everyone can eat. As long as it is halal, then Muslims have no issues. And no pork, no beef, Im fine with that. As long as we give good food in a modern way but making it authentic regional food. And it is designed in such a way that it is not an issue to anyone.
I see, so you have goat and mutton
And chicken and seafood and the meat is all halal meat.
Is it mainly Indian diners that you are targeting?
No, not at all. I get locals from Brighton or Bentleigh and they're not Indians.
And your experience as a chef who wasn't doing Indian food, how does what you learned translate to what you are doing now?
First of all the hygiene, the cleanliness. And also, the meals take a bit of time. I'm not doing pre-cookedas soon as you give an order, I just put it in a plate, no, it takes a little bit of time, because I am doing the basics. What did I learn here? I learned from other people. Most of the time, it was a little bit Italian background families, thats where I learned. If you see my gnocchi, you will go crazy and ask, is it an Indian who made this gnocchi? But I love my gnocchi. People who know me and my work say, let Narender do thatno one touches that.
Do you make your gnocchi with potato or semolina?
Potato. Just potato. If I want to make the crust a little more crunchy, I might use semolina but even that, I pan-fry, I don't boil the gnocchi. That crust you get with pan-fried; you can't beat.
It's delicious, isn't it? Is your food authentic from the south or a mixture of regions?
No, it's from the south.
So your mum would say that this is absolutely the food thatyou ate there?
Especially if I give my mum this dish, it's a small eggplant dish with millet bread. Millet is like a quinoa; Indian grains, gluten free. Its not easy to make. People like mums who are experiencedand not every mum can make it. It has to be handmade. I can't do the handmade, but I love that bread. Whenever I go to India and come back, I get about 50 of them bagged up, get it here and I eat them for a month. They don't go off. But the taste of that dish, if I give it to my mumI sent her a video to show her how I now do her roti and she said I was doing really well with it. I worked for nearly four months to get it right. I did so many trials at home. People who see what Im doing here go home and try and they say, Narender, we tried but it is not coming. It is about touch. You have to feel it. You know that gnocchi when I make it, I don't really follow the recipe. When I mix in the potato and touch the flour and know how much parmesan, simple, nothing else. When you feel the dough, once you know what it is, you dont need recipes. You know it is right.
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I've spoken to other chefs who also say they have taken months to perfect something. When you say that, what does that mean exactly? Is that every day working on it or thinking about it as well?
Not every day. Once every week I come back to it and wonder what worked or what didn't work. One of my friend's mums was here from India and she knows I like that bread and she made it for me. We ate it from the pan. That's how you eat it, so it is fresh. She asked if I wanted to learn how to make it another way with a rolling pin. It didn't come straight away. I tried. I took it as a challenge. I like that bread; I should make it work. I tried, chucked it in the bin, I was not happy. That happened so many times. Then one day by mistake or something, I put in less water. Maybe I made a wrong calculation. It came out well. Now I can do it blindly and I am teaching a girl how to make the roti, so it is one less job for me. I make the dough then she makes the roti. We par cook it. It is hard to make to the docket. We don't know when we will get the order. It is very labour intensive. But the end result is the customers are happy.
It never stops for me. Melbourne gave me that platform. I learned everything in Melbourne so I thought, whatever I know, let me give my version to Melbournians.
Another thing my mother would know is the Biryani. She knows that. The other food, she is not familiar with them. Some of these dosa, for example. My wife and son started laughing when customers started giving feedback that they had the best dosa here. They said they must be kidding. My wife makes better dosa than me, but I am working on it. I hadn't made dosa before I started working on them here. One of my staff does it, but I thought I should learn it. I didn't know about cocktails so I thought I should learn about that too. This is my baby. If someone calls in sick, I should be able to stand up and make it work.
That's right. So you're doing cocktails too?
Yes we do. And with an Indian touch.
What's an example of that?
Indian mojito. There is a rum from India, Old Monk. Indian people love it and it is very unique to other rums. We make a lot of that. And other drinks. Kids come in and they ask for a lassi. Everyone knows about mango lassi. It is more north Indian, from Punjab. It's not a south Indian thing. So I said, ok, let me make something with almond milkHorlicks is like Milo in Indiaso I started to do a fun thing with drinks for kids: dates, banana and Horlicks. It's healthy and they love it and its a bit different.
Then another recipe is Khubani. Khubani is a very famous Hyderabad dish, Khubani Ka Meetha, they call it. In our version, it is really just a cream; apricot almondsyou know the almond you get out if the apricot seed. You crack the apricot seed and get a small almond out of it. You don't get much out of them and you have to peel a lot of apricots to get it, so we just use normal almonds. I make that as a trifle with cream cheese, some normal cream and some seasonal fruit. People ask what is in it and what the flavours are. Then the Kashi Halwa which I am prepping at the moment, takes three and half hours to do. It's a winter melon, or ash gourd, a vegetable. You grate it, squeeze it you get a lot of water with it then I add organic palm sugar, milk solid and some nuts and Indian people use a lot of sultanas in desserts. I use blackcurrants.
Ok. Because?
They are small and when you bite it, you want the taste, but you dont want it to take over the main ingredient which for me is the ash gourd. Then the spinach and paneer rolls; the stuffing and the flavours are south Indian. I pickle the vegetables, carrot and cucumber. The dipping sauce isn't sweet chilli, I use palm sugar, poppy seeds and chilli for the dipping sauce. When you taste it, you feel like you are eating a spring roll, but your mind tells you are eating something else. That is what I am trying to do.
The way you talk about food is incredible. You love it.
It comes from my body. I feel it. It comes from inside. If I didn't have that, I would work somewhere else.
I bet you never talked about IT like that, or did you love IT as well?
Back then, but not anymore. It is totally different. I tried again recently in 2017 but so much has changed and my mind is saturated. After a certain age it is hard to learn new things.
I feel though that you are learning new things with food, but it is a different kind of learning. You are really motivated to find out more.
Oh yes and now I am working on Saturday and Sunday brunch. Not bacon, but other stuf; eggs, mushrooms, salmon but with a touch of South Indian. Instead of normal breadyou know dosa? We make thick pancakes out of that. I can make normal pancakes, like blueberry pancakes, but I can make it with dosa batter. They are gluten free and have a totally different flavour. I am working on it.
That's amazing. What a story.
It never stops for me. Melbourne gave me that platform. I learned everything in Melbourne so I thought, whatever I know, let me give my version to Melbournians.
636 North Road, Ormond