99 Years...And All That Jazz!

For the uninitiated, what is Trincas? Yes, it is a restaurant. But it is also a place intrinsically interwoven with the culture zeitgeist of Kolkata. Established in 1927 as a colonial-era tea room, it went on to play a pioneering role in the India's live music scene, especially during the golden age of live jazz. I can't think of almost any eateries in the world that have stuck around for a century and had such a huge cultural impact on generations of people

- - Writes Anand Puri, the third-generation owner of Trincas

We have been running Trincas for 60 years and I came into the business six years back. And apart from being a restaurateur, I also eventually became a time-traveler–while attempting to trace the roots of the restaurant, I started to discover the city I grew up in. History became my new obsession–not the one you read in textbooks, but one that delves into a seemingly alternate universe throbbing with of colourful characters, stories, and urban legends.

To set the tone, you must understand that Calcutta was called “the city of palaces” and then “the second city of the empire”. A hundred years ago, India was a place where Europeans migrated to find their fortune and escape their war-battered homeland battling with poor economy and the Spanish Flu. Among these immigrants was a Swiss gentleman set up a confectionery shop and tearoom in Calcutta. It was a daring move, to say the least. But he made it work.

Cinzio Trinca came to Calcutta's Park Street just when it was getting rebuilt by the Armenians and the Baghdadi Jews. The palatial garden homes of nizams, zamindars, and British governors were giving way to grand colonial apartment buildings with lofty ceilings, red-ochre polished floors, marble-flagstoned foyers, woodwork of precious Burma-teak, and wrought iron grilles. These apartments had electricity, indoor plumbing, and piped gas. Boxwallahs (elite corporate executives of British Calcutta) started to move into these new apartments, as did well-off Indians from all parts of the country giving the city its cosmopolitan character. And Park Street was at the cusp of becoming a central attraction in Calcutta where Cinzio Trinca's tearoom perdured and flourished.

By 1959, he was in his sixties and he sold his business to Puri and Joshua who worked their way up for fifteen long years, starting in a hotel called The Grand Hotel, which later spawned the Oberoi Hotel chain. It was a new India; the duo was hungry for success.