About

I am Reena, founder of Urban Rasoi. Urban Rasoi rose out of my passion to create delicious Indian food with unique flavours.  Urban Rasoi did not start as a “business selling food”, but started from my desire to show people authentic Indian regional food and street food – this grew into my business.  

We produce pretty much everything we serve ourselves using fresh whole ingredients without using artificial preservatives, additives or finished products.   This is the style of Indian cooking I know and grew up with and deeply value.  It makes me really happy to know that increasingly our customers also value the same.

My love of cooking started at an early age. My mentor is my mother, I learnt my art of Indian cooking from her but also later from many other inspiring culinary gurus from different regions of India.  We are a lacto-vegetarian family from birth and our diet is predominantly vegan.

Indian regional cuisine has much to offer with dishes full of healthy ingredients and also foods that are fermented which are full of macrobiotics!  Every day home cooked Indian food is not full of oil and heavy like restaurant food can be, although at festival times things we do also indulge and enjoy rich and heavy food and lots of Indian desserts !

My professional journey in food started some 10 years ago when I started hosting supper club dinners to raise money for a charity and we raised a very good sum.  We hosted dinners for five weeks and received really good feedback. Our guests really liked the idea of Indian food that is more home cooked and appreciated the variety not just limited to few curry dishes people usually see in restaurants.  A lot of Indian food is naturally vegetarian and many dishes are also gluten free and vegan as well.  

Afterwards I discoverd the then new street food festival events here in Zurich and took part in my first ever event in May 2015.   It was a huge thing,  I was very nervous but also very excited at the same time.   We had a great success for our first street food event and that’s how my professional food journey started.

I never imagined myself writing recipes but this also came as a need.  I needed to save recipes for our kids who really enjoy good food and love to cook and are also keen to “help” me in the kitchen whenever they can. I want to pass on to them that home cooking is not difficult –  you don’t have to be slaving for hours in the kitchen. Through my cooking classes at Urban Rasoi I also like to teach that preparing Indian food can, with the right preparation and techniques, also be easy to make at home. Yes, some recipes do need some more time and preparation but those recipes can also be saved for a special occasion or for the weekend.

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you have any comments or questions, I would love to hear from you.

Reena,xx