Inside the Cottage Cheese, a Kensington Market mecca for unique Indian eats
With a flair for the unexpected, this restaurant wants to build an Indian food hub that's different from any other on the city—and it's indebted to the neighbourhood it's in.
A lot of restaurants would describe themselves as fusion. Many would even say they’re a blend of the local and the international. The Cottage Cheese in Kensington Market takes those concepts to the next level. Housed in what was formerly The Urban Carnivore, the Cottage Cheese is an Indian restaurant serving up fresh takes on Indian cuisine that are inspired by Canada and the Market specifically. It’s the perfect mishmash of of here and there.
Owner Pratik Parmar came to Canada from Mumbai in 2019 and previously ran a restaurant in midtown Toronto. That restaurant, he tells me, was nothing like the Cottage Cheese. There, he tried to stick with the Indian takeout classics: Chicken tikka masala, saag paneer, butter chicken. But he dreamed of doing something outside of the takeout menu and pay homage to India’s culinary diversity.
“There are 28 provinces in India and every province has different foods—even within the province it’s completely different,” Parmar says. “It’s like if there was completely different food between Barrie and Toronto.”
So, deep in the pandemic, Parmar reached out to Vikash Chhetri, a chef who worked with him at the midtown restaurant. He appreciated Chhetri’s creativity and loved that he had the technical chops from his time in culinary school. Together, the two began to plan their wholly unique menu.
Officially opening in 2022, The Cottage Cheese has dishes from all across India and menus that rotate seasonally. But, importantly, each dish comes with a twist. Instead of a traditional malai kofta made from potato and paneer, The Cottage Cheese’s current menu features an Italian-inspired black rice arancini kofta with green olives. It was a stroke of genius that led Chhetri to the dish, which replaces the leftover risotto rice typically found in arancini with the black rice common in northern India.
Even their house-made paneer (for which the restaurant is named) comes with a number of twists: there’s a rose petal paneer dish on the menu that has chunks of their homemade paneer cheese swimming in a butter-tomato sauce infused with rose. “I always want to complicate things,” Chhetri says of his unique menu. “That’s why I’m a chef.”
For Chhetri, the Canadian culinary scene provides ample inspiration. For example, the chef says that he really wants to incorporate maple syrup into an upcoming menu. “I’m trying to do something like maple syrup butter chicken,” he says of his future ambitions. “Butter chicken is already a sweet dish, and maple syrup is sweet too. So I’m just doing some research and playing around with it right now to see if it’ll work.”
The research and development that goes on at the Cottage Cheese is next level. With the goal of overhauling the menu once every six months, Chhetri says that it’s a fun challenge to figure out how to translate an ingredient not commonly used in Indian food to the menu. For example, Chhetri tells me that he’s currently experimenting with raw banana and wants to make a dish that pairs the fruit with a cashew and onion gravy. He’s also working on a variation of the common Indian dessert gulab jamun which will take the round balls soaked in sweet rose syrup and transform the dish into a gulab jamun churro with an accompanying rose custard. These culinary creations are no easy feat: it takes at least a couple of months of experimenting and fine-tuning to perfect a recipe.
It’s no wonder that that Chhetri was first inspired to become a chef after an iteration of Masterchef was shot in his home city of Kolkata. (The frantic energy of the contestants and the creativity with ingredients has stuck with Chhetri, he says. Though he’d rather be a judge on Masterchef now, not a contestant.)
Another challenge and blessing is how they source their ingredients: aside from the meat, everything they use in the restaurant comes from Kensington Market. They go to Augusta Fruit Market down the street for their produce, which also helps them get a sense of what’s in season, what’s going out of season and what will be seasonal soon. Supplies like sundried tomatoes or rice for arancini are also bought in the market.
As for what’s next, Chhetri is already starting the R&D process on next winter’s menu and is looking forward to serving the summer menu in the coming months. This summer’s menu is more fish-forward, the chef tells me. And there’s likely to be more small bites and finger-foods on offer, since they’re hoping to attract people wandering around Kensington Market, who may be more likely to stop in for a snack rather than a full meal. Diners might even see Chhetri’s banana dish and the churro gulab jamun on offer.
The Cottage Cheese, 64 Oxford Street.
Three bites I can’t stop thinking about:
🍸: The Naked London Fog ($14 during happy hour; $18 regularly) from Kensei Bar. Though this is technically a SIP I can’t stop thinking about, this clarified London fog-inspired cocktail has just the right balance of vanilla and lavender to keep me cozy and refreshed. Plus, it was garnished with an adorable panna cotta gummy bear.
🦀: Tum Pu Pla Ra, or papaya salad with salted crab and fermented fish sauce, from Tha Phae Tavern ($12). I attended the opening of this new Thai market-inspired bar (complete with a karaoke room to sing out all your feelings!) from the geniuses behind Toronto staple Pai and fell in love with this super spicy, super flavourful papaya salad. A delightful blend of crunchy, briny and spicy, this was by far one of the most unique Thai dishes I’ve had in the city and reminded me of my time in Bangkok last summer.
🍜: Fish fillet noodle with pickled mustard ($17.15) from Yee’s Hand-pulled Noodles. I love this no frills Lanzhou-style pulled noodle place right at Yonge and Wellesley. Hand-pulled noodles are my ultimate comfort food, and Yee’s is the best of the best. This particular bowl has a light broth, thinly sliced fish and spicy pickled mustard. Get it with the extra thick noodles which does a great job picking up that pickled mustard (their thickest noodle option is called “Playboy,” which… ???)
love this place and you've inspired me to go back soon!
Now I want to try it out! Great write up and sounds amazing.