The air in the Bangladesh High Commission’s Maitri auditorium was still heavy with the aroma of spices and post-dinner murmurs when the High Commissioner called everyone this Tuesday. Officers instinctively moved into a huddle and the setting was almost theatrical.

At the center stood two men in nearly identical T-shirts, stamped with a single word across the chest: Fakhruddin. The name carries weight in Bangladeshi culinary circles–shorthand for a brand that has turned Kacchi Biryani into something of a sacred art form.

A team of chefs–five in total– from Fakhruddin was flown in from Dhaka to Delhi on Tuesday morning to prepare Kacchi Biryani for Bangladesh’s belated Independence Day celebration (March 26). The event, held under special arrangements at Delhi’s Taj Hotel, was set to host hundreds of guests.

On Tuesday evening, the chefs conducted a trial run inside the Bangladesh High Commission to fine-tune the dish ahead of the grand occasion.

The High Commissioner didn’t mince words. “Now tell me,” he said, cutting through diplomatic niceties. “How was it? I want honesty.”

The feedback was swift–and unforgiving. The meat had a gamey aftertaste. The fat-to-bone ratio was off. Even the potatoes, usually reliable for soaking up the spices in a good kacchi, had fallen flat.

The Fakhruddin chefs listened silently, taking mental notes. There was no room for ego. In less than 48 hours, they would serve the same dish to ministers, diplomats, scholars, and media at the Taj. They were determined to perfect it–and the trial feedback was their best chance.

Yes, there would be other dishes at the Taj, presented with all the polished excess the venue demands. But make no mistake: the kacchi biryani is the crown jewel. A dish of bone-in mutton marinated and slow-cooked under layers of fragrant rice, it's more than a crowd-pleaser–it’s a statement. Of culture, of legacy, of culinary superiority.

In a country like India–where every region, community, and household claims its own version of the biryani– the stakes are high. Here, biryani is not just food. It’s identity, memory, politics on a plate.

Why is Kacchi so special?

Over time, the dish of Biryani split into two principal schools: Pakki, where meat is pre-cooked and layered with rice; and Kacchi, a far more difficult and risky method where raw, marinated meat is slow-cooked with semi-boiled rice.

The latter is said to have been perfected in the kitchen of Lucknow’s Nawab Wajid Ali Shah–a deposed ruler with a refined palate and a deep melancholy for his lost kingdom.

Today, kacchi biryani is both ritual and performance. One wrong move–a misjudged flame, a mistimed layering, a rushed seal on the pot–and the whole dish collapses.

Yet the version of Kacchi Biryani that holds court in Dhaka today is no mirror image of its North Indian ancestors. It’s a deeply localized evolution–a cross between the robust Awadhi dum pukht tradition of Lucknow and the more delicate, potato-laden biryani of Kolkata.

The Mughal influence was, of course, decisive. In 1610, when Dhaka was declared a provincial capital of the Mughal Empire, the city quickly became a melting pot of imperial culture.

Alongside Subahdars and high-ranking officials came their personal retinues–artisans, architects, and most crucially, cooks. These khansamas brought with them not only recipes but a philosophy of food: precise, aromatic, slow-cooked indulgence.

At first, their creations were reserved for elite tables–the royal courts, the mansions of bureaucrats–but as power shifted and access widened, so too did the spread of these culinary secrets.

Over time, biryani slipped out of gilded dining rooms and into the homes of Dhaka’s growing middle class. But Dhaka didn’t simply adopt biryani. It transformed it.

What emerged was neither a replica of Lucknow nor a cousin of Kolkata–it was something distinct: the Dhakaiya Kacchi.

The distinction of Dhakaiya Kacchi

To understand this transformation, one must go back to 1856, when the last Nawab of Awadh, Wajid Ali Shah, was exiled to colonial Calcutta by the British. Stripped of his throne but not his palate, the Nawab brought his khansamas along.

Faced with dwindling resources, the cooks made a compromise: less meat, more potato. Thus was born the Kolkata biryani–lighter, less spicy, but bulked up with starch. It was a dish of exile, of making do.

Dhaka, however, took a different path. The potato stayed–but the restraint didn’t. Spices remained bold, unapologetically heavy. The color turned deeper, the aroma denser. While Kolkata’s biryani evolved into a soft-spoken dish of subtle notes, Dhaka’s became baroque–richer, louder, unapologetically indulgent.

Served at weddings and grand celebrations, the Dhakaiya Kacchi is not a dish to be shared with distractions. Though commonly paired with chicken roasts or jalee kebabs, purists scoff at the idea.

To them, Kacchi is complete unto itself–meat so tender it slides off the bone, rice infused with saffron, mace, and cinnamon, and the occasional hit of aloo bukhara, adding a whisper of tart sweetness.

The potatoes, soaked in the same spice-laden marinade as the mutton, are no mere filler–they are central to the dish’s character.

It’s this version–defiant, complex, impossible to rush–that will be plated at the Independence Day celebration at the Taj. And if the chefs from Fakhruddin get it right, the Kacchi will speak louder than any speech on that night.

—

Faisal Mahmud is the Minister (Press) in Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi. This article was originally published in The Week magazine of India. It is republished here with the permission of the author.