At Ivory, everything old is new again

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/04/2018 (2906 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A quick look at Google maps indicates Ivory Restaurant’s newest location at 141 Donald St., which began welcoming customers in mid-February, is about a six-minute stroll from its predecessor at 200 Main St., which served its last meal Dec. 23, 2017.

Despite the relatively short distance between the two, Manoj Choudhary, Ivory’s general manager and the son of owner Parkash Choudhary, has been spending a fair bit of time lately explaining the East Indian-flavoured establishment isn’t a fresh face on the local dining scene, when people venturing there for the initial time wish him and his family good luck with their “new” enterprise. (In June 2017, the Choudharys found out their previous landlord intended to convert their old digs into office space, which sent them scrambling to secure a new site before their lease terminated at the end of the year.)

“It has been somewhat amusing to notice people’s expression when I say thanks, then tell them we’ve actually been around for close to 16 years,” Choudhary says, seated in a U-shaped booth next to his father, who has served as Ivory’s head chef since the day it opened in 2002. “It’s true, though, that our Main Street location was kind of on the brink of downtown, so depending where you work, you might not have had enough time to get all the way there for lunch. Here, at the intersection of Donald and York, we’re kind of in your face a bit more, so we’ve definitely been seeing tons more foot traffic during the noon hour. And because we’re only two blocks from the hockey rink, we’re also getting lots of Jets fans the night of games, which we got zero of at our previous spot.”

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The Choudharys hail from Himachal Pradesh, a state in northern India near the foothills of the Himalayas. In 1991, the elder Choudhary was the chef at a posh restaurant in Mumbai when Kamal Mehra, founder of East India Company, the longest-running East Indian restaurant in Winnipeg, went there for dinner when he was home visiting family. Mehra enjoyed his meal immensely, and openly wondered who the person responsible was. After being introduced to Choudhary, he offered him a job at East India Company, later serving as his sponsor so he’d be able to move to Canada.

Manoj Choudhary didn’t see much of his father for the next six years. While Parkash lived and worked here, his wife and three children stayed in India, biding their time until they were granted the opportunity to come to Canada. Their chance finally arrived in April 1997, days after Winnipeg was brought to its knees by a 72-hour blizzard that dumped a record amount of snow on Manitoba’s capital city.

“We’d never seen snow in India, so to get off the plane, walk out of the terminal and see nothing but white everywhere we looked, we were like, ‘What is this strange place we’ve moved to?’” Choudhary says with a laugh.

Not only did Choudhary have to acclimatize himself to Winnipeg’s sub-zero temperatures, he also had to weather his first few weeks at Fort Rouge Elementary School, where he did his utmost to fit in with his fellow classmates, despite the fact he didn’t speak “one word of English.”

“I remember our poor mom dropping me and my siblings off our first day (at school), and her crying all the way home because she was so worried we weren’t going to be able to communicate with anybody,” he says.

Choudhary’s father remained at East India Company for 11 years. In 2002, founder Dinesh Arora hired him to run the kitchen at Ivory, described at the time as “a bright, contemporary, upscale restaurant and lounge.” (In a 2012 interview with a restaurant trade magazine, Arora said, “When I opened the restaurant 10 years ago I wanted people to try Indian food at the best place. I did a lot of research on different Indian restaurants… or what I thought the modern customer, who seeks healthy choices, quality food and a professional atmosphere would enjoy.”)

In 2014, Choudhary graduated from the University of Manitoba with a bachelor of education degree. He intended to pursue a teaching career, a plan that changed when his father came home one evening and announced Ivory was for sale, and that he was considering buying it himself.

“It definitely was a family decision (to buy Ivory) but because my dad had been there since Day 1, we knew exactly what was involved,” Choudhary says. “OK, not exactly. It turned out to be a lot more work than we had originally anticipated, but for sure, in the end it was the right move.”

While Choudhary’s father continues to spend the majority of his time in the kitchen, preparing tried-and-true favourites such as lamb vindaloo, Mysoor prawns and Chicken 99 (marinated chicken in hot and spicy sauce), Choudhary plunks himself at the front of the house, where he attends to customers’ needs and walks first-timers through the multi-course, lunch and dinner buffets.

“I enjoy working here and getting to meet all the different people that come through the door, plus if there’s a problem, I’m here to take care of it right away instead of saying ‘I’ll get the manager to call you back,’” he says, mentioning one family that pops by so regularly, if something comes up on a Friday — their usual evening of choice — they always call to let him know they won’t be in, so he doesn’t spend time worrying where they are. “I enjoy the different stories and different connections I’m able to make. We also do a lot of catering and through that, you become part of people’s intimate lives when you’re attending events like weddings, engagements and, unfortunately, some funerals. You get to know people… you become a bit like family.”

In September 2015, Choudhary was performing his regular duties, answering the phone and seating parties, when one of his regular customers beckoned him over to his table and whispered in his ear, “Do you know you have royalty in the room tonight?”

After Choudhary did a full 360 without spotting anybody who looked particularly majestic, he asked his informant which regal-types he was referring to, exactly.

“It turned out to be members of AC/DC who, I found out later, were performing at the stadium the following night,” Choudhary says, admitting while he is familiar with the gazillion-selling Aussie band, he never would have recognized them on his own. (At first he thought his leg was being pulled, but after finding a pic of the group on his phone, and discreetly holding it aloft to verify it really was them, he officially welcomed them to his family’s locale.)

“They were very nice gentlemen, very quiet and reserved, who, if I remember correctly, definitely like their food a bit on the spicy side,” he continues, adding Ivory has also fed the likes of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Satinder Sartaaj, an international recording star born in Punjab. “As the night went on and more and more people recognized them, they became very accommodating with their time, posing for pictures with some of the other tables and stuff.”

Choudhary chuckles when he mentions how, when he’s making plans for dinner with friends, the debate often turns to what type of cuisine everybody is in the mood for.

“You get used to hearing things like should we order Chinese or Thai, but when somebody says Indian, it always make me laugh because at home, we don’t call it Indian food, we just call it food,” he says with a grin. “It’s like naan, which means bread. When people come to Ivory and ask what kind of naan bread we have, it’s the same as asking us what kind of bread bread they can get.”

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric businesses and restaurants.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca