What happens when a trained pastry chef turned busy engineer is forced to pause for six months? She finally follows her passion.
When Nirupa Konijeti was laid off from her job in tech two years ago, she ended up spending six months between day jobs. In that time she finally had the space to breathe, relax, and redirect her focus to her core interests, and in that, to cook.
“It was then I remembered I had this dream [to cook]. I remember thinking, If I don’t do this now, I will never do this.”
Enter Bazaar. The aptly named supper club she now runs every month from her apartment in Brooklyn.
For each supper club she hosts, her 18 guests can expect a table brimming with delicious food. Each dish she creates cleverly combines modern Indian cuisine with something from somewhere else—the counterpart usually inspired by the seasonal produce she sources fresh from various New York farms.
“One flavor screams Indian, and the other global cuisine.”
For Margot, she made us a taste of what we might try at a Bazaar dinner party. Starting with Japanese matcha and pureed mangoes made from fruit imported by the Indian store, topped off with pistachio milk for a final layer of green vibrance.
With that, we ate fresh pulled burrata over a bed of chard, a traditional Indian dish made up of mixed greens, finely chopped vegetables, and spices. A delectable twist on the classic Caprese salad.
Each dinner takes her three days to prepare; a popular reel on her Instagram breaks down the costs and labor required for each event. The extra mile of effort she puts in doesn’t stop there. In fact, all of her spices are hand-ground back home, coming straight from her mother’s kitchen in Southern India.
“What is special about me is I am Indian, and we have one of the best cuisines out there… Growing up, I never really appreciated my culture, but now I really want to carry it forward.”
Indian food is, of course, automatically full of spices, making for automatically colorful meals. For Nirupa, color means happiness. “Yellow is a shade of happiness,” she says jubilantly on our call. “My goal is to feed your body with a lot of colors; it’s good for you!” She adds, to which I smile, for you can practically see the nutrients fizz out from the food she makes via photos alone.
Her other driver for starting her business was as a means to meet people and to help quell that sense of loneliness we all can feel when living in a big city.
“After covid, I was trying to find a new meaning for friendships. I became alcohol-free and started going to events centered on food…. I feel like all your walls come down when you’re around the dinner table.”
This is showcased perfectly by the wall of bright yellow post-it notes, which decorate her otherwise pared-back apartment. At the end of each dinner, Nirupa invites her guests to jot down some words about their experience. The result is a wall in her home, reminding her of how she is achieving her goal one dinner at a time.
The word Bazaar transcends many cultures. For most of the world, it means market. In America it might be equated with a certain fashion magazine.
Regardless, it feels an apt name for Nirupa and her budding business, a fusion of old and new, a mishmash of cultures and colors. It is a Brooklyn-based business after all. Ultimately it indicates a delicious dinner, bringing together all kinds of people from all corners of New York and, in that, all corners of the world.