Spice Girl

by Katie Kelly Bell | The Atlantan magazine | December 27, 2011

Asha Gomez takes her spice tin very seriously. All beauty and light, she floats across her kitchen floor toward me, explaining, “All Indian cooks have a spice tin; from this we can prepare dozens and dozens of dishes.” The lid is lifted and I am treated to a visual feast of tiny, intricate compartments containing colorful spices: cinnamon, turmeric, cumin, clove, star, cayenne and cardamom. Most are fairly straightforward, but in Asha Gomez’s hands spice is anything but ordinary.

Gomez first wooed Atlantans with the elegant Indian meals served at her pop-up Spice Route Supper Club. Now she has us swooning over the thought of her new restaurant, Cardamom Hill, named for the lush wedge of land in Gomez’s native Kerala, India, that sits between the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

Gomez arrived in New York at the age of 18 to attend school, bringing with her a treasure trove of culinary traditions unlike anything most of us have ever known. She eventually moved to Atlanta and brought her flavors to the South, cooking homespun magic in this very kitchen for anyone who was interested and introducing a slew of Southerners to her native dishes.

“On our family compound in Kerala, we shared a traditional kitchen and that was where my mother and her sisters would cook. We ground spices, grated fresh coconut, and everything was wood, coal and clay; even the pots were made from clay,” she says. The only girl in her extended family—which included 13 boys—Gomez, “naturally gravitated toward the women and cooking.” Mornings would bring fresh fish, while weekends were special because the butcher “came with his cows on Friday night so we only ate meat on the weekend.” And her milk? “The lady would come to the house and milk the cow on the spot.”

For Gomez, the opening of her restaurant Cardamom Hill this month will be the ideal blend of modernity and tradition in one spot. The kitchen’s pots may not be made of clay, but her dishes succeed in showing us what an Indian woman with culinary heritage and a serious spice tin can really do.

1700 Northside Drive NW, spiceroutesupperclub.‌com