Chef Neeti Chaudhri grew up standing atop the counters in her paternal grandmother’s kitchen and climbing stepstools to reach the stove. She spent the early part of her childhood in Ludhiana, India, in the state of Punjab, curiously observing her elders and family helpers prepare their multi-generational household’s meals from scratch, as most Indian families do.
She was enthralled as they effortlessly blended herbs and spices, cut fresh vegetables and prepared stewed meat dishes.
“There were no shortcuts,” said Chaudhri, now the co-owner of the Little India Restaurant in South Broad Ripple. “They customized everything for whomever they were cooking.” Her grandmother made everyone feel at home.
When Chaudhri was a young girl, her family decided to send her and her two female cousins to a top British boarding school in India, the Auckland House School. On breaks home, she found herself able to take on a few reins in the kitchen, making tea sandwiches for her family as they entertained.
She then began experimenting on her own. She’d buy recipe books and spend hours creating and altering the dishes. “I would make a recipe and immediately know how to change something to make it better for me.”
As Chaudhri enrolled beyond boarding school, she realized cooking wasn’t her only passion and began her post-secondary studies in art school. She painted, learned color theory and took a fancy to fine fabrics. But even while she earned her certificate in interior design — she would still enter into local cooking competitions as a creative outlet. She’d win often.
During this time, her older brothers and their friends took an interest in her cooking. She delighted and puzzled them with her elaborate meals and unconventional takes on classic Indian food.
“Sometimes it was a blunder!” She laughed heartily. “They would eat really well one day, and the next they would hate it.”
Through the blunders, she kept cooking. She sought out new ways to use those same herbs and spice blends she learned from her elders, and found new ways to season food to create her own style of Punjabi cuisine that she would eventually come to share with Indianapolis.
From interior design to culinary creativity
In February 2001, at the age of 25, she met her future husband, Nikhil, at a family wedding. He was living and working in Long Island, N.Y. Their families decided they were to be betrothed, and by December they were married.
As a new wife, Chaudhri found herself unable to stay away from the arts as she learned the culture of New York City. She realized this hustle and bustle was vastly different from the one she grew up with in India. Through that discovery, she decided she wanted to pursue her bachelor’s degree in interior design. She was accepted into the prestigious Parsons School of Design.
But, Chaudhri couldn’t shake the desire to be in the kitchen, creating. In a bold move, she decided to rescind her application to Parsons and enroll in the Culinary Institute of America. It was the kismet she yearned for. A new world of knowledge opened for her. She learned more about classical food and preparation methods. She was introduced to ingredients and learned techniques from all around the world.
Chaudhri said, “I felt my creative lights shine brighter than ever in school.”
During her time in school, she also became a mother. She and Nikhil welcomed their daughter in 2003. Then in 2005, she graduated as valedictorian of her class at the culinary institute.
From there, she was given the opportunity to intern as a corporate chef at what was then called Computer Associates, a huge multinational tech enterprise. They placed her in the most popular station in the corporate café, the International Station.
In order to understand how big of a deal this was, you’d have to know that Computer Associates prided itself on workforce diversity before DEI was even a buzzword. They fed their employees cuisine that was as culturally deep as their pool of labor.
Chaudhri shined. She got hired on beyond her internship and focused on learning the unsexy, but necessary, parts of the business. She became adept with the processes — sanitation and safety, customer satisfaction, vendor and partner relationships and food costs. Yet Chaudhri became restless. Something needed to give.
Family and food connections in Indy
After the Chaudris welcomed their second daughter in 2011, they felt compelled to reexamine their life in New York. It was too fast for their growing little family.
For several years, they had been visiting her parents Anil and Anita Thapar, as well as her brother Dr. Anish Thapar’s family in Carmel. They fell in love with the small-town vibe and its proximity to Indianapolis’ vibrant international community and cultures. They decided to relocate.
Once in Indiana, Chaudhri took a job as an instructional assistant in the Carmel Clay School District, where her daughters attended school. Then, well, she started cooking.
“I would cook for people on the weekends and they always asked for more,” she said.
She began taking orders from her new friends and coworkers, and colleagues of Dr. Thapar. She relied on her corporate catering experience to cook for groups of Indian and American families by starting off small, doing one or two catering jobs per week, eventually moving up to parties of 50 or more. Through the magic of good food and word of mouth, she soon was far too busy to keep up with demand.
“When they tasted my food and said it’s the best version of the dish they’d ever had — it was the best feeling,” she said, fighting tears. Like her grandmother Vimlavati Thapar, who died in 2023, Chaudhri never took shortcuts.
“I don’t ever want to compromise taste, so I use the best ingredients. I know I try to do everything right and when people love it, I know that I have,” she said.
She decided it was time to look for a restaurant space. The Chaudhris, along with her brother, Dr. Thapar, and sister-in-law, Bhavana, decided to go into business together. In early 2023, they contacted a broker who knew of the perfect space for them.
A tiny Indian place in SoBro that had been struggling to keep up with finances and the health code needed a buyer. The family bought it, kept the name, and began to revamp the space.
The ‘new’ Little India reopens
They overhauled the storage facility in the basement and got new kitchen equipment. The dining room was important to Chaudhri, so she redesigned the layout and brought in new décor; including a gorgeous Phulkari, a type of ladies’ shawl made by hand in a little village not too far from her home in Ludhiana.
Her mother, Anita, brought it back to Indianapolis after a trip home and had it framed. It now hangs as a beautiful reminder of their rich culture. From lighting incense right before lunch service and playing Filmi music on the TV screens, Chaudhri wanted everything to be intentional — down to the mandala in their revamped logo.
Using rich blues, pinks and yellows in the details, hanging a hand-carved wooden wall piece and enshrining the tiny restaurant with ornate gold and brass ornamentation ensured that the space radiantly paid homage to their home country.
Chaudhri knew it was important to bring to life the fruit of their matriarch’s legacy of delicious, scratch-made food with fresh ingredients in a welcoming environment. She revamped the menu with her take on the classics and also some new dishes.
The “new” Little India restaurant opened in September 2023. Shortly after, they celebrated the life of their matriarch, Vimla Vati Thapar, who died at age 99 in November.
With Chaudhri at the helm, her husband as the console, her brother and sister-in-law steering, and her parents and children controlling the rudder with their support, Little India’s large impact on the Indian food scene here in Indianapolis can’t be ignored.
They keep sailing forward as new ships hit the seas. At least 15 new Indian restaurants have opened within the last two years in Indianapolis and surrounding areas.
‘When people taste it, they say it’s the best they’ve had’
Chaudhri is still making a name for herself with excellence. She earned third place in the preliminary round at the 2024 World Food Championships. This was my first exposure to her. It was incredible to see this tiny woman yield such power in the competition kitchen under pressure and then, carrying this large beautiful dish down the competitors’ walk to turn in for judging.
Unfortunately for me, this was the round for which I was not a judge. I’m not bitter about it.
She’s also been a guest chef at events around the city, the most recent being an Epicurean Dinner co-hosted by Indy Women in Food showcasing women chefs and front-of-the-house. She and I were both honored to be called to task.
I tasted Chaudhri’s chicken tikka masala with a pillowy slice of her homemade garlic na’an and immediately asked for her number. There was no doubt in my mind that she had an incredible story. I could taste it.
What’s the most popular dish on your menu?
Chicken tikka masala. This is one of the ones where when people taste it, they say it’s the best they’ve ever had. We make it from scratch every day.
What are some of the misconceptions people have about Indian cuisine?
That all Indian food is spicy! One thing that I love to do is make sure that when people come here, they know we can customize the food. If someone doesn’t want it too spicy, we can make it milder. If they want it spicier, we can do that too.
I also like to change out ingredients to fit not only their taste, but also dietary needs. I have a vegetarian dish called Malai Kofta. Vegetable Dumplings in a creamy sauce. I changed the recipe to make it gluten-free and it’s just as delicious as the original. We also have a lot of vegetarian, vegan and dairy-free dishes.
Tell me a dish that is slept on, meaning — you wish people would order more.
Gobhi Manchurian. My version has a fusion of Indian and Chinese spices and seasonings. It is cauliflower, with a delicious breading, fried and then tossed in a sweet and spicy sauce. It’s really, really good!
What are some challenges you’ve faced with running your own restaurant?
The biggest one is maintaining a strong team. My family is wonderful. My husband (Nikhil), brother (Dr. Ashish Thapar) and sister-in-law Bhavana Thapar are co-owners. Bhavana does all of our social media, and I love her for it. My parents, Anita and Anil Thapar, are here a lot.
My mom cooks when I’m not here and my dad helps run errands. My daughters serve and clean sometimes. But finding good help in the kitchen is challenging. It is difficult to train people because we do not compromise flavor, ingredients or processes. A lot of times people don’t share the same vision.
What makes you the most proud of The Little India?
It has become a place where people always feel welcome. We have some customers come two or three times a week, some once a week and some once a month. But it is always a place that people come back to.
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Oya Woodruff is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor. You can reach her at chefoya@chefoya.com.
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