Press

Join our next Editors’ Preview night at top chef Jessi Singh’s new Sydney restaurant – the night before it opens to the public. Road-test vibrant modern takes on Indian dishes and hear from Singh and Broadsheet’s national editor during a Q&A.

Pinky-Ji is the follow-up to Singh’s colourful Surry Hills diner Don’t Tell Aunty and the cheeky sister venue to his Melbourne restaurant Daughter in Law, which also has outposts in Adelaide and Byron Bay. Step inside a neon-lit room draped in red velvet for fun and “unauthentic Indian” dishes, including a wok section with mud crab as the star of the show.

Indians, we don’t eat out – it’s part of the culture,” Singh says. “There’s no such thing as authentic Indian food, because [Indian people] don’t have set recipes. Our food’s been influenced by the British, the Portuguese, the French … It’s totally different for you or me what Indian food is. Authentic food is what my mum made me all her life. No-one else can compare.

Those who know Singh's original Victorian restaurants – Babu Ji, Horn Please and Dhaba at the Mill, all of which he and wife Jennifer sold before heading to the United States in 2014 – won't be surprised by the vivid explosion of colour and noise here.

The former calling cards – help-yourself craft beer fridges, huge coloured murals of Indian family figureheads and bright projections dancing across the walls – already shook up Melbourne, and Manhattan, back to 2011. Daughter in Law goes further.

There may be no manuals to be a perfect daughter in law but Jesse Singh and his team come remarkably close with their newly launched Indian cuisine restaurant in the heart of Melbourne city.

Melbourne has always been my home, he says of the city where he launched Horn Please, Babu Ji St Kilda and Dhaba at the Mill (he's no longer involved with the restaurants). He says Daughter In Law will be his most unauthentic Indian restaurant yet.

The acclaimed Melbourne and Manhattan chef Jesse Singh oversees Bibi Ji, an edgy Indian restaurant — try the uni biryani — with a wine list curated by the noted sommelier Rajat Parr.

At Babu Ji in New York the modern Indian food is only half the fun!!