While the battle of the “original” butter chicken between Delhi’s Moti Mahal and Daryaganj is on, we tried both to see which one tastes better.
If Kundan Lal Jaggi, Kundan Lal Gujral, and Thakur Dad Mago were alive today, they would have been the best judges to settle the Delhi High Court case. The court will decide the original inventor of Butter Chicken and Dal Makhni.
In 1947, escaping partition horrors, they left Peshawar for Delhi, opening a restaurant in Daryaganj—named Moti Mahal after their Peshawar workplace.
Moti Mahal's Tandoori Chicken became renowned, attracting figures like Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, US President Richard Nixon, and Jacqueline Kennedy. Allegedly, Maulana Azad, India's first education minister, once remarked, 'Visiting Delhi without eating at Moti Mahal is like visiting Agra without seeing the Taj Mahal.
Daryaganj was launched in 2019 by Raghav Jaggi, the grandson of Kundan Lal Jaggi. He branded his restaurant as the 'inventor of butter chicken and dal makhni.' This is the main point of contention, leading Moti Mahal to take Daryaganj to court.
Moti Mahal's version: They claim that butter chicken was invented by Kundan Lal Gujral when he felt that the tandoori chicken might be too dry for some taste buds. He then added tomato gravy and cream to enhance its flavor.
Daryaganj's version: They claim that Kundan Lal Jaggi was the original chef of the restaurant. One day, when some refugees came to the restaurant and there was only leftover tandoori chicken, he added tomato gravy and cream to it before serving them.
We at The Quint had 6 people try both butter chickens without disclosing their origins. Three preferred Moti Mahal, and the other three favored Daryaganj. All six, however, loved the butter chicken.
As one Quintee noted, 'A bit of everyone's butter chicken is butter chicken.
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