For Indian players at Norway Chess, tiny Stavanger restaurant serves taste of home | Chess News

Before Arjun Erigaisi flew to Stavanger to compete at the Norway Chess tournament for the first time in his life, he got a helpful tip from his close friend, R Praggnanandhaa. Pragg is not here this time around after his heroics last time, where he had defeated Magnus Carlsen for the first time in hory in the classical format.
“Pragg just told me about the South Indian restaurant where I can order food from,” said Arjun after defeating world champion Gukesh on Tuesday. So right after taking down a world champion in the classical format, Arjun made a quick pit-stop at the downtown restaurant called Spisoh to pick up aatu irachi (lamb masala), parotta, mango lassi and cocktail samosas. Arjun had dined on the same meal the previous day too, when he had won in the Armageddon against China’s Wei Yi.ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
Arjun isn’t the only one. The rest of the three Indian players competing at the Norway Chess tournament — world champion Gukesh, Koneru Humpy and Vaishali Rameshbabu — also rely on the Indian restaurant, which was started five Indian-origin partners in the middle of the pandemic in downtown Stavanger, for dinners after games and even lunches.
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In 2023, when Gukesh played at Norway Chess, he and his father would order meals from the restaurant. Last year, Humpy, Pragg, Vaishali and the duo’s mother, Nagalakshmi, also turned to the South Indian restaurant in the fourth biggest city of Norway for a slice of home.
“Aatu irachi masala (lamb masala) was Gukesh’s favorite, even in 2023. So, he is still going for that,” says Nitish Kamath, one of the owners of the restaurant. “Vaishali has, at least for the past two days, ordered this podi dosa. Humpy has ordered the chicken biryani a few times.”
The restaurant was Gukesh and his father Rajini Kanth’s find in 2023.
All five owners came to Norway many years back, drawn jobs in the country’s booming energy and IT sector. But then they found time to dabble in their favorite passion: cooking. The venture was started in 2021 when the world was still clawing its way back to normalcy after a hard year of COVID-19 as a ghost kitchen (a food service that operates solely on delivery and pickup via apps rather than having a place to eat meals). Kamath says that while his restaurant is focussed on serving authentic South Indian fare, there are other restaurants in the city that usually offer items that foreigners have heard of.Story continues below this ad
“Sometimes it has been an uphill task for us because we were fighting against the chicken tikka masalas, the naan breads, the butter chickens, the rogan gosht, the kurmas,” he says.
For now, most players have stuck to picking up takeaway from the restaurant. But on the rest day, players usually personally visit the place — like in 2023 when Gukesh took his Polish trainer Gregorz Gajewski to eat there in what was their first full-time event linking up as trainer and player.
With the Indian contingent already locked up, Kamath says they’re also open to serve other players at Norway Chess.
“We want the likes of Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura to also come, but I am not sure if they will. We would be more than happy to have them,” he grins.Story continues below this ad
The writer is in Stavanger at the invitation of Norway Chess

Amit Kamath is Assant Editor at The Indian Express and is based in Mumbai. … Read More

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