Christmas in Kolkata begins with cakes, writes Chef Shaun Kenworthy

Kolkata does Christmas differently. It always has. I’m forever telling people that Park Street has to be the most Christmassy street in the world for four or five days but you’d have to come here and witness it yourself, as you’ll never ever be able to imagine it! And it is a festival almost shorn of faith. 

The ‘Boro Din’ is for every Kolkatan, celebrated with great affection. It’s about walking in amongst the hundreds and thousands of people, all wearing Santa hats and chomping on kathi rolls, momos and, of course, rich plum cake while navigating the crowds at the Alipore Zoo, Victoria Memorial, the Planetarium — and if you're really brave on Christmas Day — Park Street itself. Just for the thrill…

There are many ways to mark Christmas in Kolkata, but for me it has always begun not with carols or tinsel, but with cake. Heavy, dark, fruit-laden cake. The sort that smells of spice even before you open the box. The sort that feels almost indecently rich in a country that otherwise prides itself on restraint.

I arrived in the city more than two decades ago and one of the first things that struck me was how seriously Kolkata takes its Christmas baking. This is not a city that dabbles. Its relationship with fruit cake and Christmas pudding is long, layered and slightly obsessive. These are not seasonal novelties here; they are heirlooms. Add to that the long history of family baking and community ovens and everyone is in for a treat.

Everyone knows the big names, of course. Flurys, with its pink boxes and almost 100-year-old Swiss history, slap bang in the middle of the chaos of Park Street. Producing some of the finest plum cake, plum pudding, a Dundee cake and even a chocolate Yule log or several. 

Then there’s Nahoum’s in New Market, a 100-year-plus Jewish, family-run bakery. December queues at both feel like a civic duty and the air itself smells of rum, raisins and anticipation, which possibly houses my favourite rich plum cake, marzipan fancies and some of the best savoury biscuits and cheese crackers in the city. These places are part of the city’s muscle memory and rightly so. You cannot talk about Christmas in Kolkata without tipping your hat to them. But the real joy, at least for me, lies in the slightly less obvious stops. The places you discover by walking, by asking, by following a hunch.

Take the unassuming Saldanha Bakery, tucked away in Wellesley, producing some of the most honest, old-school rich fruit cake in the city. Dense without being heavy, properly spiced, not overly sweet. This is a cake that understands its purpose. It is the only, still family-run Portuguese bakery in the city. Or Imperial Bakers near New Market, where affordability has never meant compromise and where Christmas baking remains rooted in generosity rather than gimmickry.

Then there are the newer players, the modern Kolkata bakeries who understand tradition but aren’t imprisoned by it. Kookie Jar is one of them (and when I say newer, they are 40 years in at this point). Their plum cake is beautifully balanced, but what really makes me smile is their Christmas pudding, served properly, with brandy butter, no shortcuts taken. Christmas pudding is not fashionable. It is not photogenic. But when done right, it is magnificent and Kookie Jar understands that.

Little Pleasures is one of the much newer kids on the block, quieter and more contemporary, offers the most beautiful iced plum cakes and slices that feel made for modern December life. Add to that beautiful iced cookies for the kiddies and you have something shareable, very indulgent. 

And then there are the hotels, often overlooked, but quietly excellent. The Lalit Great Eastern, that grand old lady of Dalhousie Square, produces plum cakes, Christmas puddings, Dundee cakes and even stollen, yes, proper stollen, dusted with sugar, unapologetically European but perfectly at home in Kolkata. Finding stollen here always gives me a small thrill. It feels like discovering a forgotten chapter in the city’s and my own food story.

Mince pies are rarer, but they do exist if you look hard enough. Sometimes they appear briefly, almost shyly, just like the Hot Cross Buns which show their faces in Kolkata only for three or four days every Easter, in bakery counters, as if unsure whether anyone still wants them. I always do. Flurys have always made them and Kookie Jar houses the most deliciously rich mince pies for hundreds of miles around. 

Every December, New Market is filled with dried fruits, nuts and sweet spices. And somewhere between the first bite of plum cake and the last spoonful of pudding, you realise that Christmas in Kolkata is not about one bakery or one tradition. It is about continuity. About memory. About a city that knows exactly who it is, even in December.

UK-born chef Shaun Kenworthy has spent the past 22 years in Kolkata, shaping the city’s dining landscape while drawing on his deep love for both British and Kolkata food. Today, he is as much a part of Kolkata’s food story as the city’s love for festivity and adda.