They say the best things come in small packages. But they can also come in...the most unusual places.
This is certainly true in the case of Tikka Tonic – a bijoux Indian café tucked into an industrial unit at Lamdin Road on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds.
It’s the culinary ‘baby’ of chef Madhur Beri, who’s well-known on the events scene in Suffolk – but less so for his eatery, where you can chow down on a proper Indian breakfast, and some of his favourite dishes from childhood, alongside a few surprises.
Madhur hails from northern India and, naturally, grew up with food and eating being central to daily life. Food is fastened into the culture. When a mother or grandmother passes you a torn piece of naan or a bowlful of soothing lentils, they’re offering so much more than sustenance. It's a transaction of love.
It’s this love, culture and authenticity that Madhur brings to his cooking.
After taking a degree at a revered Indian culinary school, he was offered a position on the opening team of Hyatt’s prestigious New Delhi hotel, where, he says, the owners had gathered “top brass” from the cooking world to create a splash unlike anything seen there before.
Later, Madhur took a Masters degree in Glasgow, but with few opportunities available in the early noughties, and mounting student bills, fell into the finance world.
“I really enjoyed it [finance] but I always wanted to get back into cooking, where I felt at home and where my passion was. In 2011 I took the step and registered this company, building it up brick by brick.”
There was a lot of love for his stall on Bury St Edmunds market, leading the chef to take on the commercial premises he is based in today.
At the back end of 2019, just months before the hospitality industry was brought to its knees by Covid, Madhur cleared a space at Lamdin Road for an informal café, where customers could walk in and enjoy eating his food in the place where it was created. During lockdown he was forced to shut, instead growing a healthy takeaway and delivery business. But it’s back to business as usual now, with absolutely everything, from marinating meats, and preparing tikkas and gravies, to roasting spices and making bread, carried out on site.
“The idea behind this always from day one was cooking the food I remember from growing up. Back home we used to go out to restaurants and cafes, or vendors on side streets, and there was this freshness. They’re flavours you don’t get with British Indian food. Of course, that has its own space, but I wanted my customers to be introduced to the food we have when we’re in India.”
Madhur was born in Punjab but spent most of his life in Delhi which he considers the food capital of India. “The food is the epicentre of everything in India but more so in the north. Butter chicken is the quintessential Punjabi dish. It’s like fish and chips for the English. It’s something every household makes at least once a week. Perfect comfort food. That’s what I love to cook.”
It’s rather unusual to be able to get an Indian breakfast in Suffolk, but Madhur says it's one of his favourite parts of the day. And he goes to great lengths to bring a taste of home to every plate. “We grind and roast spices for each dish. We want everything to have its own identity, and taste how it should. There’s no ‘mother sauce’ that we spread around.”
“I truly believe breakfast should be the best and biggest meal of the day. Every morning I have a really hearty breakfast to keep me going and I’ll often choose our masala omelette. It’s a spiced omelette of eggs beaten up and spiced with chillies, garlic, fresh onions and vine tomatoes. The flavour is out of this world. You can add cheese, sausages and bacon. Delicious.
“Something else that’s been with us since we started is the naan egg roll. It’s a handmade milk naan – that’s soft on the inside, crispy on the outside – cooked on the griddle. We crack a couple of eggs on top, spice it up and can put on cheese, bacon or caramelised onion. The we wrap it all up. It’s a mouthful,” he laughs. “Really filling.”
There are spiced scrambled eggs too, as well as a full English, with more to come. “I’m working on expanding the breakfast menu to make it even more hearty. And we’ve just installed a coffee machine. We have the most amazing dark roast coffee from the San Francisco Coffee Company.”
You can also round breakfast off with a masala or cardamom chai, or maybe a lassi, whisked up with fresh probiotic yoghurt, made in-house. “It’s really really nice,” Madhur says. “Often you’ll find lassi contains xanthan gum or other additives to thicken it, but here it’s all good ingredients and it’s lovely and thick and creamy. You get a proper moustache when you’re drinking it.”
Diners can choose from a mango, vanilla or savoury salted lassi – which may sound like an acquired taste, but is a real thirst quencher on hot days, he assures me.
Lunch dishes merge into dinner, and the first port of call, naturally, should be Madhur’s butter chicken, conjured over eight to 10 hours by him and his small team.
“It takes a long time to make it properly,” he reveals. “The onions are slow-cooked and caramelised. Some add sugar, but for me that’s a huge no-no. Why would you need to when you have all the beautiful sweetness from the onions themselves? To those I put tomatoes in, good quality ripe tomatoes.
“And there’s lots of butter so the gravy becomes smooth and creamy. The chicken is cooked in a tandoor, not with the gravy. We skewer chicken breast, marinade it for up to 12 hours, and bake it, then voila. We slice it and layer it on top of the makhani (butter) gravy, with a garnish of roasted fenugreek and melted butter to bring it all together – that makes a real difference.”
Mop it up with a homemade fluffy naan, rolled to 2ft in length at Tikka Tonic before being fired. “They’re the bee’s knees,” Madhur says, adding other popular chicken dishes he makes are a tikka masala, and kadahi chicken – each one tasting utterly different to the other.
There’s a keema lamb bowl too. And three vegetable curries, the best apparently being chholle Amritsari. “That takes a lot of hard work. It comes from the Amritsari region in Punjab, and is made with an onion-based gravy cooked in mustard oil for a very distinct flavour profile with a bit of sharpness. It goes very well with steamed rice.”
Something else the chef is rightly proud of is his samosas – and they are good, believe me, I’ve tried them! Unlike some, who use filo, Madhur makes his own samosa pastry, filling each pocket with a blend of potatoes, peas, fresh chilli and spices. A splash of tamarind chutney dosed over the top is a must.
You can even up the ante if samosas are your jam, by ordering samosa chaat. Crushed samosas served over chickpea curry with chutney, pickled onions and fresh coriander.
Then there’s aloo chaat, where fried potatoes line the bottom of the dish. And another, paapri chaat, where samosa pastry is hidden beneath the curry. “So you get a crunch but also some parts take on the sauce. It’s delicious.”
While he errs on the side of tradition, Madhur does like to mix it up in the kitchen occasionally, and his dalliances into fusion food have gone down a storm with customers. Take the naan bread pizza for example.
“I love a nice Neapolitan pizza and was thinking about making them but wanted to do something a bit more Indian – to bring the two things together. We take our naan dough, roll it out to about 16ins, and add our toppings, some chilli and chaat masala.
“The really popular one is called Kebabish. The base is our makhani sauce – I do think if you’ve got a nice, rich sauce and beautiful bread, you’re already 90% there. We put on that keema minced lamb with green chillies and garlic, a mix of mozzarella and Cheddar, red onions and Tabasco.”
There’s a butter chicken pizza. And a vegetarian option with firecracker spiced paneer cheese.
Another invention is the insanely good-sounding toasties – one filled with samosa, chickpea curry, pickled onions and cheese, and another with butter chicken and cheese. Hungry yet?
Even chips get the special treatment. “You can have Indian fries or skin or potatoes a few different ways. Masala, with nice hot spices that have you coming back for bite after bite, and Tangy fries which are bit less spicy, with things like dried mint and dried lime. They’re so good.”
Well, that’s all food for thought. And with portions being more than generous, you may end up schlepping home with fridge pickings that will take you through to the next day.
Specials are regularly added to the menu, be it chole chicken with puffy friend Indian bread, or pav buns – all posted on the café's social media channels (Tikka Tonic is on Facebook and Instagram) regularly.
Find Tikka Tonic at Unit D2 Lamdin Road, Bury St Edmunds, IP32 6NU. It’s open 8.30am to 8pm Wednesday to Monday (9am to 7pm Sundays). Takeaways are available.
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