Korma Chameleon

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Adam Ferguson

You can eat at chef Paddy Rawal’s Tulsi as we speak.

The community’s obsession with Mumbai-born chef Paddy Rawal -began with Indian restaurant Raaga, which Rawal opened on Agua Fría Street within months of moving to Santa Fe back in 2011.

When he abruptly closed the wildly popular restaurant in 2017 due to stress-related medical issues, Rawal’s loyal fans weren’t just surprised, they were bereft. People in the community—friends, peers, total strangers—had no qualms asking him to return to the culinary scene, however, and in 2018, after taking time to travel, rest and reflect, Rawal opened Raaga-Go, a scaled-down, takeaway version of his popular eatery.

Then came 2020. Pandemic closures initially provided a boost to Raaga-Go’s delivery format, but when sit-down restaurants reopened, Rawal says, business faltered. He closed Raaga-Go in 2023 and immediately experienced deja vu.

“I kept bumping into people around town who said, ‘Paddy, we need you!,’ and ‘Paddy, where did you go?’” he tells SFR.

Once again, Rawal traveled, rested and reflected, and, like 2017, he decided he wasn’t done cooking in Santa Fe. Rawal, who has appeared on major cooking competition shows like Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay, knows he’s got star power and finesse, and calls himself  “a known entity” around town. Six months after closing Raaga-Go, he began designing the menu for Tulsi (839 Paseo de Peralta, (505) 983-6927), his new Indian and Asian restaurant in downtown Santa Fe. Now he’s ready to pull the trigger.

I visit Rawal in late November, less than a week before Tulsi’s opening day. The walls of the restaurant, which previously hosted well-loved Mexican spot Mucho Gusto for 20 years, are still decorated with framed Diego Rivera prints and colorful Mexican baskets. Unopened boxes of kitchen equipment sit stacked to the ceiling, and huge stainless steel mixing bowls, still in their shrink-wrap, are nested haphazardly into each other. On a table, several dozen of Rawal’s cookbooks (he’s written two and is working on a third) form small towers. As the chef and I sit down to talk in the empty dining room, electricians and delivery drivers tramp in and out, and the phone rings frantically. Nevertheless, Rawal remains focused, energized and completely serene.

“If my cooking brings comfort and joy to people, then my life improves,” he says. “You could call it karma.”

Last spring, with the reluctant blessing of the same physician who told Rawal to step back from Raaga in 2017, the chef secured financial backing from a silent partner, developed a menu of Indian and Southeast Asian dishes and purchased the Mucho Gusto space from its chef-owner, his friend Alex Castro, who was looking to move on. Moving on, of course, has proven difficult for Rawal. Preparing food comes naturally, he says, adding that it might come from when he was growing up and would help his mother cook for their family of seven.

“My mother was a master of spices,” Rawal says, “but she used a light touch; she always said, ‘spice for flavor, not just for heat.’”

Rawal’s mother was also a Hindu priest, and performed puja, or holy rituals, for a range of auspicious occasions around town.

“My mother believed we must participate in life in order to get the most out of it,” Rawal notes, “and that stuck with me.”

At Tulsi, Rawal wants visitors to experience what he calls the “theater of Indian cooking,” with all of its attendant drama: richly layered flavors and piquant herbs and spices, of course, added with a delicate touch. Classics like chicken tikka masala (the same recipe Rawal used to beat Bobby Flay in 2020), saag paneer and samosas are complemented by Thai and Malay standbys like green curry, pad thai and tom yum soup. Many of Tulsi’s most frequently used ingredients—cumin, cilantro, tomato—are staples of both Indian and Southwestern cooking, so Rawal pays tribute to both. A crispy okra appetizer, for instance, is served with fresh pico de gallo, and ancho chile gives Tandoori chicken a smoky punch. Several dishes include the restaurant’s namesake, tulsi, or holy basil. According to Hindu tradition, this leafy herb with the licorice-clove kick is the earthly manifestation of the goddess Tulsi, a paragon of purity and devotion, and consort to Lord Vishnu.

“Tulsi is sacred in India,” Rawal explains, “and it’s used in Hindu ceremonies to bless something or make it sacred.”

In his younger days, Rawal studied Transcendental Meditation and Zen Buddhism, and attended ISKCon and Osho lectures. Even though he doesn’t think of himself as religious, per se, the concept of devotion is familiar and comforting to Rawal, whose mother recited Bhagavad Gita passages from memory every morning and made sure that all five of her kids said their prayers daily.

“I still spend a lot of time meditating and looking within,” Rawal says, “and I try to do as much good as I can.”

I visit the restaurant again, early on Thanksgiving Day, and powdered-sugar snow frosts the road. Rawal had been working in his new kitchen for hours, preparing a feast of turkey, gravy, sweet potatos—the works—for people he loves. Karma, for Rawal, is like cooking. Both rely on a strong, intuitive foundation that gets refreshed, and somehow blessed, with each mindful action.