Namkeen Is Spuntino’s New Ghost Kitchen

Cindhura Reddy, the chef and co-operator of Spuntino on West 32nd Avenue in Highland, grew up in Cleveland, exactly where South Indian food stuff was usually on her family’s table. “My mom and dad moved listed here from Hyderabad [now in Telangana, formerly Andhra Pradesh] when they have been in their 20s,” she says, “and when I was developing up, we sponsored a pair of aunts and uncles that would occur live with us. Cooking was a entire household endeavor.” 

In 2018, Reddy and co-operator/partner Elliot Strathmann channeled her skills and loved ones recipes toward recreating the dishes of her childhood at Namkeen (pronounced num-kin), which held a stall at Zeppelin Station in RiNo. The flavors and textures in the food stuff on Namkeen’s menu ended up explosive, fascinating, and executed with treatment it was impossible not to crave Reddy’s spicy, tangy fried chicken 65 and heat roti. Regrettably, the stall shut in early 2019. 

Quick ahead to a world-wide pandemic: Spuntino’s crew has weathered the storm of 2020 with grace and resilience, making an solely al fresco cafe on the tented patio they established in their facet parking lot. They’ve hosted Namkeen pop-ups, founded an in-house shipping support (if you are fortunate plenty of to live within 3 miles of the restaurant), and held their employees employed and at comprehensive gains. Have they slept? Not substantially. And they are not going to commence now, as Reddy and her kitchen crew, which includes younger gun chef de cuisine Austin Nickel, release a daring new culinary program for wintertime 2020.

As of today by way of spring 2021, Spuntino will offer you a full Namkeen takeout menu, readily available for curbside pickup or community shipping and delivery, as very well as a spouse and children-type South Indian feast for two individuals which you can acquire dwelling or take in on its patio. “I’m excited to provide back again the mission of Namkeen and what we had originally set out to do,” Reddy says, “which is to present considerate property-cooked Indian meals with liable sourcing of proteins and create. I think it lends by itself so simply to choose out, and in a planet where by we want to inspire take out as a great deal as possible, it appeared like a natural upcoming action for us.”

Spuntino’s present-day Italian menu will shrink a bit, but admirer favorites such as arancini and pappardelle with El Regalo Ranch goat bolognese will stay on the roster, as will obtain to Strathmann’s masterful home made amari and producer-pushed wine checklist. 

The abbreviated Italian offerings will allow for much more prep time to go to Namkeen’s dishes, which range from snacks like samosas and gobi (cauliflower) 65 to Reddy’s childhood favored chana masala and methi hen curry. The two-man or woman South Indian meal will alter just about every month, but do not let the initially iteration go you by it is a superb supper that incorporates tender potato-stuffed samosas with raita and two chutneys, cumin basmati rice, and falling-off-the-bone braised Colorado lamb shank with Reddy’s roti and tangy tomato pickle. Scooping up bits of the spicy, juicy lamb and rice with a piece of roti and dipping the bundle into Reddy’s loaded, umami-bomb tomato pickle is a address you don’t want to skip. (Strathmann endorses ingesting Foradori’s lightly extracted Lezér Teroldego, made by the son of operator Elisabetta Foradori, with the lamb, and, of study course, he’s right.)

If all goes effectively with the new Spuntino-Namkeen hybrid, Strathmann says that they’re planning to increase the restaurant’s shipping radius a bit. For now, east siders can only hope—and buy that curbside carryout. 

Spuntino, 2639 W. 32nd Ave, 303-433-0949