While Indian cuisine has historically been influenced by Tibetan-Mongolian culture, Chinese-style food as we know it made its way to India through Kolkata. Hakka Chinese immigrants are documented to have arrived in Kolkata in 1778, using the eastern ports as the primary gateways for travel into the region. The Chinese community of Calcutta reached its peak in the early 20th century, with a population of over 20000, as a result of families fleeing the China-Japan conflict and subsequently, the Chinese Civil War. The immigrants integrated with the locals of the area, and a ‘Chinatown’ of leather workshops, schools, temples and eateries formed. The populations included Cantonese and Hubeinese, though a majority of the immigrants were Hakka, each engaging in specific occupations of carpentry, dentistry or leather work. With the stereotypical occupations associated with Chinese workers in India came the gradual assimilation of Chinese food culture, as restaurants and bakeries were established alongside these communities.
Kolkata’s Chinatown, Tiretti Bazaar
Source: Deutsche Welle (DW)
Family businesses cropped up, converting traditional Hakka flavours into ones suited for the Indian palate, using indigenous ingredients to recreate the food of their homeland. This included the development of sauce brands in the Calcutta area in response to the new need for familiar flavours made from newly accessible ingredients. An example of this cultural shift can be found in the history of the iconic Pou Chong sauce company, established in 1958 by Lee Shih Chuan, a descendant of the original Hakka immigrants of the 18th century. The sauces began as a business catering towards the Chinese-Indians of Kolkata, reintroducing traditional flavours and techniques into the culture, but soon expanded to include Indian herbs to create an innovative Indo-Chinese blend, such as the green chilli sauce and the soy sauce that eventually became a staple to Kolkata’s cooking. Iconic restaurants such as Fat Mama, Eau Chew, and Nanking Restaurant established themselves during this phase of the development of Indo-Chinese cuisine. Kolkata’s Tiretti Bazaar continues to stand as the closest modern equivalent to what Chinese-Indian food started as. The flavours that developed during this period of experimentation and fusion eventually crossed the border from Kolkata and entered other Indian cities.
Pou Chong Sauce
Source: Telegraph India
The story of Indo-Chinese food is one of progression, from a small community culture to a nationwide phenomenon. Despite this, following the defeat of the Sino-Indian War in 1962, thousands of Chinese-Indians were relocated from the homes they had established in Kolkata, Assam, Jamshedpur, Mumbai and several other cities and towns. Many were subsequently sent to a camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. However, even in the face of displacement and prejudice, their culinary legacy endured. What began in the kitchens and eateries of Kolkata’s Chinatown did not disappear; it adapted and embedded itself into modern Indian food culture. From street-side stalls to polished restaurant menus, Indo-Chinese cuisine has become a shared language of taste, continually reimagined through beloved cross-cultural dishes.
Nelson Wang is likely the most well-known pioneer of Indo-Chinese food beyond Kolkata’s Chinatown. His career as a caterer for the Cricket Club of India in Bombay reached its peak when he innovated on Bengali-Chinese flavours to develop a dish now called 'Manchurian.' Despite having no relation to the Manchuria region of China, it was an immediate hit and its success pushed Wang into starting his restaurant, China Garden. His career expanded the repertoire of Indo-Chinese cuisine, with dishes like Hot and Sour Soup, Chicken Lollipops, Creamy Corn Soup and Date Pancakes becoming national staples. Wang’s success as a chef allowed him to expand beyond Bombay, spreading the exceedingly popular flavours of Indo-Chinese cuisine from its roots in Kolkata to cities throughout India like Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Goa, and beyond as smaller independent chefs picked up on these flavours and recipes and recreated them for their own success.
Indo-Chinese cuisine staple Chicken Manchurian
Source: South China Morning Post (SCMP)
Renewed global exchange and lingering geopolitical tensions between India and China have shaped the post-pandemic dining landscape of the early 2020s. In this context, pop-ups and chef collaborations have begun to reshape how Indian audiences engage with Chinese cuisine. Pop-ups like Chef Lin’s “Far & East” in Bengaluru in 2024 introduced Indians to regional Chinese techniques and ingredients, helping challenge assumptions about what “Chinese food” tastes like. These moments of cross-cultural exchange create room for Indo-Chinese cuisine to evolve, embracing a broader spectrum of Chinese flavours while still retaining the familiarity that makes it so widespread in India.
In a time when political relations remain complex, food continues to open up avenues for understanding and conversation. Indo-Chinese cuisine is more than just fusion; it represents how migration and adaptation shape how people connect across civilisations, with food becoming a shared language through which identities and cultures interact.
