FREMANTLE’S gold-plated Maya Indian Restaurant turns 25 this year and has announced its first-ever foray outside the port city.
Maya has been selected by the Metropolitan Development Authority to open an offshoot in a key location bridging the Perth cultural centre with the city link project. It’ll be known as Sauma, after the mythological drink of the gods.
“It’s a little intoxicating and it’s gives you a lot of energy, but it’s forbidden for the people,” evergreen Maya proprietor Gurps Bagga told the Herald.
He says it’s been a long three-year process but comes at an opportune time, as the oft-awarded Freo restaurant is also undergoing a transformation. Having won as many Gold Plate awards as allowed, the Fremantle favourite is going a little more casual and has a new menu to match.
A devout Sikh, Mr Bagga and his family fled to Australia in 1986 to escape political unrest that marred the country following the assassination of Indira Ghandi in 1984. She’d been killed by her Sikh bodyguards and supporters exacted bloody revenge.
“We hid in our neighbours’ homes during the riots while the mobs massacred men, women and children of Sikh decent,” Mr Bagga recalls.
• Gurps Bagga (left) with his father Rajpal and brother Pinder. Photo by Matthew Dwyer
In Perth, his first job was working at the Gull petrol station in South Terrace near Sealanes, pumping fuel for $2.25 an hour.
“It was an eye-opener for a young guy who usually spent his summer vacation in their holiday home in the hills.”
He was pushed towards a career in computing by a school guidance officer, but gave it up to pursue his passion for the food of his homeland.
“I still have fond memories of watching my nana cook stuffed parathas for breakky on her wood-fired clay stove and serving it with home-churned butter,” he says.
He convinced his dad to buy a run-down Indian restaurant in Freo with a reputation for bad food and poor service. He said they’d be on easy street, but the reality was far different.
The family didn’t have any money left over to change the name of the restaurant, so Maya it stayed. After eight patchy weeks of struggling, he took a bus to Perth and bought the biggest book on catering he could find. Hilariously, it was based on classic English fine dining.
“While the book helped me understand restaurant service, we must have baffled a few customers by serving dishes lined with paper doilies,” Mr Bagga says.
• Gurps and his family gather for a birthday back in DehraDun, a small town in northern India.
Always keen to improve, he signed up to study at Tafe which, adding to his second job delivering pizzas to get by, meant he was working insane hours.
He says back then most Aussies summed up Indian cuisine as “curry” but when fellow apprentices at Tafe encouraged him to put a few dishes on the menu at the Tafe-owned Grosvenor Restaurant they were a hit.
“I also became famous at the college for being an apprentice at my own restaurant and never getting in trouble with the chef, as I was his boss.”
The real turning point for Maya came in 1996 when Mr Bagga nominated the restaurant for the Gold Plate awards and, unexpectedly, it won.
“The following day was a Tuesday and there was a queue of people waiting to enter Maya just before 6pm,” he recalls. The place has never looked back.
Since then the restaurant has gone on to pick up a swag of awards and remains a local favourite.
by STEVE GRANT