Authentic food and a convivial atmosphere at The Brooklyn Curry Project  

By Scott Lynch

It started with a lemonade stand.

Swetha and Venkat Raju, who moved to Brooklyn from Bangalore, India, in 2016, didn’t plan on opening what could be considered one of the hottest restaurants in town. If, in fact, you can call it a restaurant. It’s more of a weekly, makeshift South Indian food stand on Willoughby Avenue across from Fort Greene Park.

The couple have two children (now 13 and 7 years old), full-time jobs (she’s a software engineer, he’s a lawyer), and plenty of other daily-life things to occupy their time and energy. But as Swetha tells Brooklyn Magazine, “We really, really missed home when we first came here, so we just started cooking and inviting neighbors over, to the lounge area where we lived in City Point. Just to meet people.”

Everyone loved Swetha and Venkat’s food, but it was their daughter’s lemonade stand, set up one summer Saturday in Fort Greene, right near the popular weekly farmer’s market, that inspired them to take the whole cooking-for-strangers thing a step further.

“We really liked talking to everyone who stopped by for lemonade,” Swetha says. “So we kept coming back. A couple weeks later we started doing lunch boxes, like rice, chapati, and a curry. Two weeks after that, we realized having dosas would be really good, too. South Indian food is so nutritious and wholesome in nature.”

And so, driven by what Swetha calls “the sense of satisfaction that we get from meeting so many people,” things just snowballed from there. Today what the Rajus call The Brooklyn Curry Project attracts a long line of regulars snaking down Willoughby Avenue every Saturday, usually starting at around 10:30 a.m. and running until everything’s sold out.

Dosas are the anchor here, and they are fantastic. The Rajus start the prep for Saturday’s batter on Thursday night — it’s made from scratch, like everything at the stand, and the “wild fermentation” process alone takes eight to 10 hours, Swetha says — and the masala version is liberally seasoned and stuffed with mashed potato. Pro-tip: If Swetha asks if you’d like ghee on yours, you should.

Order your dosa as part of the lunch combo and it comes with pickled vegetables, a ladleful of khichdi, which is a daal (lentil) dish and a crunchy little moong sprout salad. “These are recipes from my mom, my grandmother’s, my great grandmother,” says Swetha. “Family heirlooms, passed down to us through generations.”

Masala dosa lunch combo, $10 (Scott Lynch)

You can also get idli here, spongy steamed dumplings served either pancake-sized and slathered in green chutney or as miniatures stuffed into a cup with a lively sambar. (On Valentine’s Day weekend, they were heart-shaped.) Either option is a good one.

Thatte idli, $6 (Scott Lynch)

As is the uttapam, which eats like an open-faced crepe studded with onions, potato, coconut, green chili, and coriander. Complement it all with a cup of Venkat’s lovely, restorative chai, always prepared that morning from freshly-ground spices.

Uttapam, $10 (Scott Lynch)

Everything is made to order at Brooklyn Curry Project, and Swetha only has two burners to work with, so don’t show up if you’re running late and looking for a quick bite. Besides, as Emma Orlow and Lanna Apisukh documented at Eater, Saturdays at Brooklyn Curry Project is as much a social hang as it is a way of getting fed.

“This is our Saturday tradition,” Clinton Hill resident Rohun Iyer tells Brooklyn Magazine. “We started this last summer, followed the scent to the stand, and it’s fantastic. I’m Indian, and it reminds me a lot of what my parents made, consistently solid and proper traditional stuff. I love it.”

Neha Dharkar and Varshaya Visvanathan are also diehard regulars. “The food tastes like my mom’s,” says Visvanathan. “And honestly some of it’s like, I shouldn’t say this out loud but, maybe a little better?”

Dharkar adds: “Honestly, on top of the food the family’s just amazing. They’re really nice, and just really sweet. The vibes here are 100.”

Undeniable vibes (Scott Lynch)

And in the end, creating this community around them is why the Rajus do it. “I think the passion and the sense of satisfaction we get after meeting people is what keeps us going,” said Swetha. “It’s just so nice for both of us. All the tensions from the work week go away. It feels really, really good.”

The Brooklyn Curry Project tent is located on Willoughby Avenue across the street from Fort Greene Park, and is open every Saturday starting at around 10:30 a.m. The Rajus also set up shop on Wednesdays at 10:30 at 383 Bridge Street in Downtown Brooklyn.