It is undoubtedly the warm welcome that makes the restaurant at Kundah Hotel a success, where human contact is as important as what we find on the plate.
The Kundah Hotel's reputation for delicately combining typical Indian flavors with local Quebec products is well established.
In particular, you can try a reimagined pani puri with yogurt, rhubarb and sea buckthorn or a traditional palak paneer, here called palak bergeron, where the paneer cheese is replaced with cheese curds, to name a few examples. .
One of the most popular dishes at Kundah Hotel is Palak Bergeron, inspired by the famous Indian dish Palak Paneer. We give the dish a Quebecois twist by replacing the paneer with marinated cheese curds from Fromagerie Bergeron. “Photo provided by Kundah Hotel”
A sign that Kundah's success is not slowing down: Since it opened in November 2020, customers have been knocking on the door every day while the 50-seat restaurant is filled to capacity.
“Prioritize people”
With the desire to offer a “hyper-friendly and hyper-professional” service, the duo of young thirties has worked with the renowned chef Raphaël G. Théberge (youngest contestant on the show Les chefs!), who has worked at Laurie Raphaël and Château Frontenac, among others and Samuel Pouliot came up with the idea of opening an upscale but unpretentious Indian restaurant.
“Like visiting friends”
For restaurateurs, the Kundah Hotel experience is clearly a unique culinary journey, but also a meeting with the customer who should feel “as if they were coming home to friends”.
Kundah Hotel's reinvented Indian cuisine is ideal for sharing. “Photo provided by Le Kundah Hotel”
For this reason there is no cocktail menu, they say.
“In this way, we are obliged from the beginning to talk to each other, to get to know each other. It is important for us to get in touch with the person and welcome them well […] We become a little friends over the course of the meal, we make contacts,” describes Samuel, who admits that he is regularly visited by customers at Kundah whom he met in other restaurants around ten years ago.
Before each shift, Kundah Hotel employees share a meal together to exchange ideas and strengthen team spirit. “Photo Didier Debusschere”
Also employees
This feeling of belonging is also reflected within the approximately fifteen employees, a “close-knit” group who work closely together outside of office hours to strengthen bonds.
In summer, employees meet on the basketball court, play pétanque or go fishing, while in winter the owners organize hockey or bowling games.
The boys (the team was recently expanded to include two female employees) return from their week-long “Christmas party” in Cuba, the costs of which were largely covered by the restaurant owners.
Recently, a dozen employees of the Kundah Hotel restaurant flew to Cuba for a week-long “Christmas party.” It was the restaurant's owners, Rapahël G. Théberge and Samuel Pouliot, who bore most of the costs. To make the trip possible, employee fundraising events were also held. Photo provided by Samuel Pouliot
“We often have a fun therapy session before the start of a shift where we all make each other laugh. If you don’t hear laughter at dinner, it’s because you’re not in the kundah,” says Samuel.