In a west Dublin industrial estate, an Indian-Pakistani restaurant is full of regulars

On Sunday, as usual, Umair Aleem and Maimoona Khalid parked up on the side of a road  inside the Coolmine Industrial Estate, next to a squat brick building, one side offering car repairs, the other serving food.

The couple walk into the restaurant, Darbar. They already know what to order. “It’s the usual. Chicken kadhai and naan,” says Aleem.

“Later, we will get tea and gaajar ka halwa,” says Khalid – a carrot dessert.

“Usually, we would either order home or one day a week we would reserve to come here,” says Aleem.

The entrance to Darbar is taken up by a small snacks and mithai – sweets – bar called Nawal.

Through a door to the kitchen, Nauman Ilyas brings halwa puri – a puffed naan, two varieties of spicy yellow dal with potato and lentils and carrot dessert – the weekend breakfast special, on a tray to another customer.

He notices Kashif Rasaq at the table next to the snacks display. The two men greet each other. Ilyas motions that he will return for a chat.

Rasaq says he comes at least twice a week. “I even have Nauman’s personal phone number,” he says, laughing. “The staff is lovely. They look after me.”

Making a move

The owner of Darbar, Farhan Abbas, moved his business to the Coolmine Industrial Estate from Upper Camden Street a few years ago.

It used to be called Ambala, and sold Indian sweets imported from the UK, he says. “Due to a lot of people moving to Lucan and Blanchardstown and parking becoming an issue, we decided to move with the flow.”

That’s part of a trend the last few years, says Khalid. “When I came here in 2016, there were only a very few shops and very few restaurants in this area. And now we have five or six grocery stores that are Indian or Pakistani.”

A block away in the Coolmine Industrial Estate is the Bombay Bazaar store. The estate also boasts , among its many outlets, sushi from Umi, Rising Star Sichuan cuisine, the Syrian House Cuisine restaurant, more north Indian restaurants, including Tadka House and Bombay Biryani.

Food wasn’t Abbas’ first business. A few years after moving to Ireland in 1989 to live with some of his family, Farhan – still a teenager – joined his uncle’s already-established clothing business. “We grew the business to many stores,” he said.

The rise of online shopping struck though, he says. “We can see it, the internet was definitely affecting the business,” he said. They had to pivot.

Hoping to find a market that won’t be hurt by the Internet, Abbas decided to start an Indian sweets store in Upper Camden Street, to cater to the growing South Asian communities.

Years later, his market is still this. While some immigrant businesses may change their tastes a little, to try to appeal to a larger market, Darbar has taken a different tact, with a traditional menu.

“All our clientele is our own people. Everyone wants to taste home,” says Abbas. “We serve a bit of home.”

These days, Abbas owns and runs Darbar, and also runs Nawal, a UK-owned Indian sweets franchise in Ireland. “I have the Nawal franchise for the last 12 years.”

Darbar’s blended menu reflects the cuisine Abbas grew up with in Karachi in Pakistan, as a child of Gujarati heritage.

“My mother was a Gujarati living in Karachi since the partition,” he says, referring to the bloody creation in 1947 of independent India and Pakistan, divided by a border.

He remembers his mother’s Gujarati cooking. Darbar’s menu consists of both traditional Pakistani dishes and north Indian recipes he adopted from his mother.

“We have a lot of snacks. I’m Gujarati, so chaats [Indian snacks] are a big part of our menu. Combined with my mother’s recipes from home, we brought it together,” he said. His cooks are all from Karachi too, he says.

Rasaq, one of Sunday’s customers, said he appreciates how they ask customers about their spice preferences. “They ask you how you want your food prepared, Pakistani-style, or Punjabi-style, and how you would like the spice.”

The opening hours are handy too, says Khalid. “They serve breakfast meals at 2 or 3 in the afternoon.”

Inside the restaurant, Indian-style art hang on the walls. There are dark brown tables and chairs with maroon faux-leather cushions.

There is chatter, the clatter of cutlery, and ambient Punjabi music. Tunes from the kids’ show Cocomelon and the smartphone game Subway Surfers distract children as their parents eat.

At one table, a mother comforts her toddler, who is tucked close on one side, with one hand as she eats with the other hand. A few more children mill about while they wait for food to arrive.

At the back of the restaurant, five men sit in a circle, laughing and chatting about work with the Association of Irish Pakistani Physicians and Surgeons.

“I drove down here from Limerick. No, I’m not joking, I really did,” says Nauman Nabi, the association president. “I’m good friends with Farhan, we go a long way back.”

Said Dr Usman Leel: “In our city Limerick, I don’t think so there is any good place to eat you know.”