Step Inside

A New Fit

Tailor, Vivek Surti’s South Asian American restaurant, has a new space

When guests arrive for dinner at Tailor, there’s no bar where patrons might clamor to get a bartender’s attention. When seated, there are no menu choices to fret over. And the founder and chef, Vivek Surti, isn’t sequestered in the kitchen. Between courses, he’s visiting with guests, talking about the food and providing a little of its history, hence the “dinner party” concept Tailor is known for.

Vivek and his business partner, Heather Southerland, have recently relocated their critically acclaimed South Asian American restaurant and its signature style to the Taylor Place development at 620 Taylor St. in Germantown. After previously being in a shared space on Third Avenue North and weathering a pandemic shutdown, Tailor has a new home, where guests can embrace the multi-course meals and conversational atmosphere.

The 2,000-square-foot restaurant, designed by Pfeffer Torode Architecture, has a living room area, where guests may enjoy a cocktail before dinner. But don’t call it a bar; there’s not a liquor or wine bottle in sight. The room is furnished with teal sofas, camel-colored armchairs and gold cocktail tables. The decor throughout is accented with pops of purple, orange and gold and highlighted by seven crystal chandeliers from Vivek’s childhood home. “Clean lines, white walls, that’s just not Indian,” says Vivek.

As a first-generation American from Nashville, Vivek feels he has a responsibility to spread the word about the cuisine he grew up on — the kind of food his mother would make. But it took time to come to that conclusion.

“You have a question of identity, which takes you through your entire young and young adult life, which is, ‘Am I American, or am I Indian or Filipino or Thai or whatever it is,” says Vivek about the shared experience of many first-generation Americans. “I remember when I was here in the States, I was always singled out as the Indian kid, and I’d go to India and that’s where everybody would say, ‘Oh, he’s the American.’ You kind of live in limbo of both.”

He discovered a passion for cooking but didn’t begin by making Indian food. “I wanted to make pizza and tacos and grill stuff and all that,” says Vivek. “At some point, I came back to this home cooking because what I realized was the first generation is the link between our parents, who are the immigrants, and the second generation. If we don’t remember the food traditions or the cultural traditions that our parents taught us, then in one generation, boom; that whole culture is gone and lost.”

BY WHITNEY CLAY PHOTOGRAPHS BY DANIEL MEIGS

DINNER IS SERVED There are two seatings for dinner: 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., Thursday through Sunday. Guests may arrive an hour early to have a craft cocktail, mingle and enjoy the ambience. They are then led through the butler’s pantry under a traditional Gujarati rounded archway to the dining room. Apart from the massive crystal chandelier, the room itself, with its exposed brick and open kitchen, is less ornate than the living room, and that’s intentional. “The chandelier,” says Heather, “does a lot of talking.”

ON THE MENU The menu, which changes every three months, might include dhokla, a steamed bread made of rice and lentils; sabudana vada, a tapioca and potato fritter; and Gujarati thali, a plate with eggplant, peas, tomatoes, sweet and sour lentils, basmati rice, and whole-wheat flatbread. Many Americans have a vocabulary of Indian food that primarily consists of chicken tikka masala and anything curry, so if guests had to choose what to order, “no one would order anything because they don’t understand it,” says Vivek. “Then, they try it, and they’re like, ‘Whoa.’”

FAMILY HISTORY There are reminders of Vivek’s childhood throughout the restaurant. There are the chandeliers that no longer fit in his parents’ home since they moved from Oak Hill to Brentwood. In the dining room, there are gold plates, traditional elephant figurines and an oil can from his paternal grandfather’s sewing machine. His paternal grandfather was a tailor, and his maternal grandfather sold sewing machines. They inspired the restaurant’s name. “To me,” says Vivek, “it’s not Tailor unless it has these certain elements that are from home.”