Ranji Smile: The forgotten chef who opened America’s first Indian restaurant

Omar Khayyam, Smile’s Indian restaurant, opened in late 1901 at 325 Fifth Avenue. This was prime actual property, a block away from the unique Waldorf-Astoria Resort the place, 29 years later, the Empire State Constructing would rise. Smile adorned the restaurant with Indian draperies and hanging lanterns.

Because the New York Herald reported, a fleet of Indian waiters in “voluminous turbans” staffed the premises, as did a gaggle of Indian musicians. Now fairly the embodiment of the American immigrant success story, Smile eagerly awaited his prospects and followers.

Alas, they by no means materialised. Inside a 12 months, Omar Khayyam shuttered. The New York Solar claimed that folks had “drained” of Indian fare, dismissing it as a passing fad.

Smile’s stardom, which had blazed so brightly within the Large Apple, additionally started to dim. Sadly, his showmanship and aptitude for theatrics shaded into deceit and prison exercise.

Smile started claiming that he was, in any case, not an on a regular basis Joe however relatively a prince, the son of the emir of Baluchistan, a fictional title. And, earlier than opening Omar Khayyam, he made a rapid go to to Bombay, the place he pronounced himself to be a visitor on the upcoming coronation of King Edward VII in London and recruited a retinue of employees: valets, a dancing lady, and “mahouts to drive his herds of elephants”.

All of this was reported in New York newspapers just like the Instances as a result of, as a subsequent federal case towards him alleged, Smile illegally trafficked this employees into the US to work at his restaurant. As an alternative of changing into a pioneer outpost of Indian gastronomy, Omar Khayyam practically acquired Smile deported.