A Gourmand's Guide to Kolkata's Cabin Hotels

Kolkata’s cabin hotels, an offshoot of the snugs of Ireland, offered women and families a safe space to enjoy restaurants without breaking the social taboos of the time. Despite their disappearance from Ireland’s modern landscape, they linger on in Kolkata, offering refuge to businessmen, young lovers, politicians, and even the occasional celebrity, away from the public eye. Drishya Maity maps some of the iconic cabin hotels of Kolkata.

It’s impossible to imagine being scandalised by a woman eating and drinking at a restaurant or bar, but in Victorian Ireland (a conservative Catholic country at the time), the idea of a woman drinking in public, though legal, was practically sacrilege. The solution to these misogynistic social norms was the ‘snug’ — a small enclosed space separated from the rest of the bar, where women and others who wished for privacy while partaking in Ireland’s pub culture, could do so without causing a scandal. The snugs began making an appearance in Irish pubs in the late-1800s — a small, walled-off booth at the end of the bar, typically wood-panelled, with frosted glass windows.

In India, the concept found similar popularity in Kolkata’s European eateries. By the late-1800s, the British Raj had consolidated their control over much of India, and Kolkata (then Calcutta) was the centre of their sprawling empire. Then the capital of British India and an important port city, Kolkata attracted young workers and traders from all over Europe, and soon enough, European restaurants sprouted up all over the city, to cater to working-class European settlers, serving popular British pub food like fish and chips, mutton, lamb, or pork chops, and fish or meat cutlets. The food soon evolved into a genre of fried food based on British chops, croquettes, and cutlets, but with a distinct and undeniable Indian influence.

By the early-1900s, these Indian iterations on British pub food gradually made their way to the newly-formed Bengali middle-class, and created a new kind of eatery in the city — the family restaurant. These family restaurants primarily catered to recently westernised and affluent Bengali bhadralok society. In similar vein to the Irish snugs, they offered curtained seating inside enclosed booths, so that discerning Bengali bhadralok (Bengali for ‘gentleman’) could enjoy the restaurant with his wife and children, or friends — in private. These booths, often resembling railway carriage compartments, came to be known as ‘cabins’ (pronounced ‘kay-bin’ in Bengali) and the restaurants, Cabin Hotels.

Once a popular concept in conservative societies like Catholic Ireland and colonial India, snugs and cabins became obsolete relics after these societies liberalised in the post-war period. In Ireland, most snugs were torn down in the ‘70s and ‘80s to make room for longer bars. But in Kolkata, some of these cabins persisted as pockets of privacy, especially for young lovers looking for an escape from the prying eyes of the moral police. In the days before the advent of discreet, app-based hotels, many Kolkatans had their first kiss behind the curtains of a cabin; many still do. But the cabin hotels serve a very different purpose now — that of satisfying Kolkata’s insatiable appetite for fried chops and cutlets.

Here’s a glimpse of some iconic cabin hotels in Kolkata.

Dilkhusha Cabin

The 116-year-old restaurant in College Street is perhaps the most popular cabin hotel in Kolkata today. Famous for its fish kabiraji and deem-er devil, this iconic restaurant is the go-to place to try Kolkata’s very own takes on British and Irish pub staples like batter-fried fish and Scotch Eggs. No one knows for sure how the fish kabiraji got its name, but the general consensus is that the name originates from the English word ‘coverage’ and refers to the cutlet’s crispy outer cover made with eggs. Similarly, deem-er devil or egg devils have nothing to do with their near-namesake devilled eggs, but rather refer to Kolkata-style Scotch Eggs made with minced mutton pre-cooked in oil with a heady mix of spices and aromatics like bay leaves, finely sliced onions, ginger, garlic, and green chillies, and ground cumin, coriander seeds, turmeric, dried red chillies, and Bengali gorom moshla. Unlike traditional Scotch Eggs which are made with soft-boiled whole eggs, deem-er devil is made with hard-boiled and halved eggs, and served with a side salad of finely sliced onions, carrots, and beet roots, and the spicy, pungent, fermented kasundi sauce made from mustard seeds. Dilkhusha Cabin, like the Indian Coffee House, was once a popular adda spot frequented by the who’s-who of Kolkata’s cultural milieu like revolutionary poet-songwriter Kazi Nazrul Islam (later the national poet of Bangladesh) and satirist Shibram Chakraborty in its heydays.

Address: Mahatma Gandhi Road, College Square West, College Square, Kolkata.

Basanta Cabin

Originally located nearby in the old College Street Market, Basanta was set up by brothers Basanta, Sushil, and Sudhir Ray in 1890 as a small tea shop. Basanta Cabin does not have a particular signature dish but is popular for their deep-fried chops and cutlets. However, unlike British chops which refer to slightly thick, round, boneless or bone-in cuts of meat, usually from the rib or loin, Bengali chops are more like croquettes, made with seasoned minced meat or vegetables filling. The original location has shut down, but branches of Basanta Cabin still thrive on 53, College Street, near Calcutta Medical College, and in Hatibagan, across the street from Scottish Church College.

Address: College Street, Kolkata.

Allen Kitchen

This was originally part of a restaurant chain that belonged to a Scotsman, Allen-saheb, and was better known as “Allen-saheb-er Dokan” (Bengali for “Mr. Allen’s Shop”). The original Allen-saheb-er Dokan was in Sir Charles Allen Market (unrelated to Allen-saheb) in Upper Chitpur Road (now Rabindra Sarani), but that shop shut down when Allen-saheb left Kolkata and handed over his restaurant business to Jiban Krishna Saha, one of his Bengali employees. Since then, the Sahas have run Allen Kitchen at the location on 1, Jatindra Mohan Avenue, serving their signature fries, chops, and cutlets — all cooked in ghee (clarified butter) and served with a vegetable salad and Kasundi sauce. The juicy, crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside prawn cutlet is their signature dish.

Address: Metro, 1, Jatindra Mohan Avenue, Girish Park, Sovabazar, Kolkata.

Mitra Cafe Sovabazar

Another iconic Sovabazar restaurant famous for its chops, cutlets, and kabirajis, this small tea shop was set up by Ganesh Mitra in 1920, but has been run by his friend Sushil Roy’s family since 1922. The signature dish here is the gondhoraj chicken pakoras — chicken nuggets seasoned with a chiffonade of gondhoraj lime leaves and zest. Mitra Cafe is also one of the very few spots in Kolkata that serve the Afghani Cutlet — an inspired take on the fried and breaded cutlet that has always reminded me of the British classic Bangers and Mash. The Afghani Cutlet is a deep-fried, breaded piece of fish or meat served with a thick, spicy, onion-based gravy. Although not as popular as Mitra Cafe’s cutlets, kabirajis, and gondhoraj chicken pakoras today, the Afghani Cutlet is still an important part of Kolkata’s culinary heritage — if only for the uniqueness of this dish as the only Kolkata-style cutlet served with gravy.

Address: 47, Jatindra Mohan Avenue, Sova Bazaar, Kolkata.

Anadi Cabin

Better known by its iconic hand-painted signage “Anadi-r Prosiddho Moghlai Porota” (Bengali for “Anadi’s Famous Mughlai Paratha”), is a 99-year-old spot famous for, naturally, its Mughlai paratha — a stuffed and fried flatbread similar to the Turkish Gözleme — served with aalur torkari, sliced onions, and sweet tomato ketchup. Founded by Balaram Jana in 1925 and named after his son Anadi, the restaurant is now run by the third generation of the family.

Address: SN Banerjee Road, New Market Area, Dharmatala, Taltala, Kolkata.

Drishya is a writer + artist based in Kolkata, India. He was shortlisted for the Mogford Prize for Food & Drink Writing and nominated for the BBA Photography Prize - One Shot Award in 2022, and selected for the ICA Long Form Food Writing Mentorship in 2024. He is @drishyadotxyz on Instagram and X.

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