Now Open: Naveen's Cuisine

Naveen's Cuisine, 2325 W. North, opened for business this past Tues. Aug 24.

The establishment is owned by Naveen Sachar, who was born and raised in New Dehli and came to the United States in 1992. The West Buckowner will be offering Indian and Thai cooking classes, catering, parties, and take-home family style meals.

Though Naveen's first business as an official chef, the married stay-at-home father of two twin boys is no stranger to cooking. After being laid off in 2001, he hosted cooking parties for friends and family while looking for a new job, which he found nine months later. He continued to cook for friends after going back to work as an electrical engineer at a software company. After another layoff in 2008, he decided to make a go of being a full-time father and chef, beginning with making his son's baby foods.

"When you pick up a jar of baby food, it says peas and water, bur you don't know how much is water and how much is peas," Naveen explained. "With me, it's all peas. I don't put something in the jar to give it shelf life."

Coming in Naveen's 'pipeline' are cooking class demo nights, which will offer participants a chance to create fusion by mixing Indian spices into Italian pasta, or rubbing salmon-- not an Indian fish--with Indian spices, and serving it over rice accented by tumeric and roasted cumin. Recipes for creating simple and popular Indian street foods will also be shared, along with a possible baby food class for parents of infants, or parents-to-be.

Costs for classes and parties are about $60/person. A see through cooler allows for BYO, and the state-of-the-art appliances are all LEED-certified. More so than the cooking, Naveen, who is very hospitable and played the role of host graciously (even when The Pipeline accidentally knocked our beverage over and onto the floor mid-sentence, prompting a swift mop!), envisions the gatherings to be, "like culinary entertainment, a night out, a place to interact with others and to do something we all have to do, which is eat."

Leased since this past January, the space was remodeled and designed as a commercial grade restaurant by architect Matt Nardella of moss. Long ago the corner storefront at Claremont and North housed a furrier. The original doors to the vault, where the furs were kept in a moisture controlled environment with concrete floors and a cork ceiling, remain intact.

For more images, from Naveen's web site, click here.