photograph by michael donahue
Harpreet Singh, owner of Golden India.
A feeling of serenity prevails inside Golden India Restaurant.
White and blue cloths drape the tables. A photo of the Taj Mahal hangs on one wall. A colorful painting depicting five Indian women in saris, carrying water jugs, hangs on another. Like the diners, the women appear to be talking to each other in hushed tones.
Golden India opened in 1998, says owner Harpreet Singh, 33. “A family member owned the restaurant at that time,” he says. “We moved here in 2005. That’s when we acquired the restaurant from them.”
Bagga Singh, the cousin who owned the restaurant, wanted to sell it so he and his family could move to Seattle. Like Bagga, Harpreet’s family is from Punjab. “We moved from India,” he says, “and either we had to get a job or find something of our own.”
They chose the latter path.
Harpreet’s mother, Mangit Kaur, did the cooking. His dad, the late Satnam Singh, worked in the front of the restaurant. He also bought the groceries and did “whatever he could do other than cooking.”
Their cooking style derives from Northern India, Harpreet says, and they serve a lot of Indian customers who know the food is authentic.
Harpreet’s father kept the name “Golden India” when he took over the restaurant. “I think the whole Overton Square was dead. There wasn’t much going on, but it was okay. We were making a living out of it.”
The restaurant really took off by 2013, he says. “I guess people discovered us. We never advertised much.”
photograph by Kathy McLallen
It's just another busy workday for the author.
Today’s menu is little-changed from the menu in 1998. “Here and there we maybe added a little bit,” he says. Murgh makhani, or “butter chicken,” with garlic naan; chicken korma; and lamb are among the dishes that have retained their popularity over the years, he says, adding, “We are big on curries.”
Their cooking style derives from Northern India, Harpreet says, and they serve a lot of Indian customers who know the food is authentic.
Growing up in India, Harpreet and his family lived on a farm. “We didn’t make some of the dishes you see on the menu. Like most Indian people who live on a farm, we are vegetarian. They don’t consume much meat.”
They ate mostly lentils, he says. Yellow daal, a lentil dish, was a favorite, eaten with either roti (a flat wheat bread) or rice.
Saag, a spinach dish, was a common winter dish in Punjab, he explains.
Harpreet, who has two sisters, began working at Golden India when he was 14. He continued there while majoring in finance at the University of Memphis, where he graduated in 2015, then took over the restaurant after his father died four years ago. “I had to take a step,” he says. “Either give it to someone else or run it. So, I did whatever I could because I had experience.”
He hadn’t planned to make the restaurant business his career, but he took it over because of “the family attachments to it.”
Harpreet, who didn’t cook as a child, now gets in the restaurant’s kitchen from time to time. “I don’t cook as much, but I do cook if I need to if no one’s in the kitchen.”
He cooked for six months during the pandemic in 2020, “because we didn’t have cooks. So, I had to cook.” They closed Golden India for a week during the pandemic and then did take-outs and pick-ups. “We survived.”
Today, he says, “the restaurant business is a little slow. But it’s not at the point where it’s too much. I guess it’s just the economy that’s affecting every business.”
They stopped their buffet during Covid, Harpreet says. “It’s just too much work. It’s stressful. We have to work longer hours for it.” Now, he says, “The lunch menu is more convenient for us — it’s fresh, on the spot.”
Golden India serves lunch platters featuring items from the old buffet. “It’s a little smaller portion, but it’s a good lunch portion. You get everything. And the prices are less than for dinner.”
In addition to cooking, Harpreet does “pretty much everything. Like waiting tables, doing paper work, and accounting for the restaurant.”
Last September, he began hauling food items with his semi-truck from Memphis to New York. He works about three days at the restaurant and the rest of the week on the road. “I just needed something on the side. My dad did that, too, before he started the restaurant business. So, it’s like a family thing.”
Golden India almost moved at one point. “Before Covid, when my dad was around, we had plans to move the restaurant to a new location. But after Covid hit, a lot of things happened. My dad passed away, and I thought it was a little risky to take that step.”
They still own the land they considered , so a move is still possible, but “not at the moment.”
But not to worry. If they do pick up sticks, the new location is not far from where they’ve been serving authentic Indian food for almost 20 years. In fact, it’s just off Overton Square.
Golden India Restaurant is at 2097 Madison Avenue.
