Based in, and serving Calcutta (Kolkata), West Bengal, India, Team CALCUTTA DELI is engaged in the [restaurant, retail & institutional] marketing, merchandising and production of Deli products, mostly meat-based items (see above).
CALCUTTA DELI was conceptualized at the demise of "Kalman’s Cold Storage" ... R.I.P. (see News Item 1, News Item 2, News Item 3). Kalman’s was an icon & long standing stalwart of old Calcutta’s tryst with an unending love story of (Euro-genous / other) migrant populations and their influence on the strangely Occidentophilic Gastronamourosity of Calcutta's gentry and yeomenry.
For more on this, go to our About Us page. |
Our Beginnings: Nostalgic Genesis,
How We Came To Be |
- A little history. It all starts with the OLD "Kalman Cold Storage" *, which was founded in Calcutta, in the 1930s, by accidental migrant and Hungarian charcutiere, Kalman Kohary (who met, fell in love, romanced and started a family, with his beautiful Anglo-Indian sweetheart in a glorious English Calcutta of yesteryear), in the long shadows and grandiose embers of the British Raj ...
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... at a kinder, more genteel and unhurried time, a feudal age of 'Noblesse Oblige' and the "Koi Hai"s, when perhaps Calcutta, always the City of Joy, and parallelly ever the quixotic Cosmopolis of Aristocrats and Old Money, still basked in the glory of its Unquestioned Relevance as South Asia's Greatest Metropolis, its political, industrial, commercial, educational, intellectual and cultural epicenter and masterpiece, heart of the Indian Rennaissance and the Jewel in the Crowns of Tudor, Hanover and Windsor, Calcutta's Golden Age of being the Britsh Imperial Capital, not only for the (Undivided) Indian Subcontinent
but the seat of the British Imperial Viceroy ... second only to Her Royal Majesty Rex Britanniae of the Court of St. James at Westminster. From this glorious Calcutta eyrie, His Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Excellency, the then-Viceroy ruled and strove to enforce the Pax Britannica over the entire fabulous British 'Eastern Empire',
encompassing perhaps a quarter of the world's habitable landmass ... |
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- Kalman's erstwhile brick-and-mortar retail store, a tiny sliver of a hole in the wall on Free School Street (next to 'New Market', opposite St. Thomas Anglican Church) in Calcutta, operated for over half a century, before finally, sadly and terminally closing its doors in January, 2019 -- prithee may its soul rest in peace! [The premises converted to a clothing shop.]
- Skillet & Griddle's restaurants had been major consumers of the products that the old Kalman's store had sold. So we were affected in a very personal way.
- We were getting a lot of pressure from our customers, who were missing the dishes we served, based on the Kalman's products.
- And then we were approached by certain organizations, which were basically groups of passionate Calcutta Foodies, who wanted an outlet to start up again, to sell the stuff that Kalman's used to -- a Kalman's Resurrected!
- Some of the leaders and opinion-makers among these enthusiasts were quite vocal in encouraging us to engage in this project of Kalman's Resurrected, and promising us their support, so much so that they volunteered to participate with us in re-creating the lost institution.
- To alleviate the crisis of these hapless and provide continuity to their time-honoured way of life, and inspired by the Indo-European legacy of Kalman Kohary's passage to India, from Budapest on the Danube to Calcutta on the Ganges by way of London on the Thames, we decided to embark upon "Project Kalman's Resurrected". So, we have been founded to continue romancing and choreographing the far pavillions of this nostalgic 'British Raj' heritage institution, this corner-stone of Ye Olde Worlde 'Brown Sahib' and 'White Mughal' culture and Colonial Calcutta history.
- But we also understood that the Old Kalman's had many shortcomings.
- The European owner's family had left India long ago, leaving the store in the hands of some Bengalee ex-staff-members and local Muslim workers, who were perhaps not the native or natural consumers of the types of products Kalman's made and sold.
- Perhaps as a result, the menu had stagnated for decades, not keeping pace with the ongoing developments in either culture or technology in the Deli industry worldwide, or even basic health standards and sanitary best practices for food production and handling.
- The equipment had been exhausted, worn out beyond any physical possibility of usability, and was failing -- and not able to be repaired.
- Product quality had also fallen very badly in the last 2 decades.
- The old store had never modernised, just selling, in cash only -- whatever they could, from their little hole-in-the-wall, to whomever would come. And at that busy Central Calcutta location next to 'New Market', people still came. After all, Kalman's was then the only game in town!
- Their location had been prime in its day, but the neighborhood had run down and the retail eco-system had changed. The local Anglo-Indian/Christian community had moved away, convenient parking was nowhere to be found, and the new Shopping Centers like Qwest Mall and South City Mall had largely taken away the high-end shoppers of yesteryears from the neighborhood.
- Amazon, Flipkart and their ilk has changed people's expectations of the shopping experience. People now want clean, fast and hassle-free shopping, with convenient online payments and home delivery.
- So we realized that if we had to do this project, we could only do it while simultaneously upgrading to adapt to the age of WalMart-Flipkart, Amazon, Paypal and Bitcoin.
- A tribute to the long ago Sausage-Maker from Hungary, whose Wanderlust brought him to the shores of India's lush and magnificient East, we are conceived to be a Deli, a store making, handling and selling various types of Deli products,
- including much of the legacy product assortment of the heritage store ('Kalman Cold Storage'),
but also
- including a great deal more -- such as
- European,
- Korean,
- Japanese,
- Chinese,
- South-East Asian, and
- Middle Eastern delicacies, and
- Indo-phile, Vegan and Vegetarian twists on traditional European Deli foods.
- This website is the home for our dynamic menu(s).
- Customers, expected mostly to be from the Calcutta area initially, will be able to place their orders using the information presented on this website.
- In many cases, if an item is not kept in stock, customers will be requested to place their orders and make their payments in advance -- so that we can serve them their purchase(s) freshly-made.
- Customers' purchases will be delivered to their locations, which need to be within our easy reach.
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We are not affiliated with the erstwhile Old 'Kalman Cold Storage' at this time. Think of us as Kalman 2.0 -- MUCH improved & updated for the 21st century! |
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The reference to Kalman is our tribute honoring the memory of Kalman Kohary, the legendary mid-20th century European Charcutiere & Saudage-maker of Calcutta.
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