Daryaganj: From Butter Chicken to Shark Tank

As Daryaganj restaurants from Delhi-NCR were featured on Shark Tank India Season 2 recently, its co-founder and CEO Amit Bagga shared insights on the defining moment. Excerpts:
Q. How does it feel to be featured on Shark Tank India Season 2?
A. I believe that to win a lottery, you need to at least buy a ticket, which simply means that to achieve something really big, you need to at least try and not expect it to happen on its own. I decided to apply for Shark Tank after seeing a post about it pop up while I was surfing some random websites. I didn’t think in the wildest of my dreams that we would make it to the final round and get funded. Overall, it was a great experience. Sales have shot up like anything. Our delivery sales are at 2.5x, and our dine-in sales are at 1.5x. We can’t go further than this in the dine-in segment since there is a certain limit to the capacity of the seats. We’ve received a great response, and there have been queues of customers waiting for tables since the day we’ve been featured on national television.
Q. Please give a brief description of the history of the restaurant and how you derived the name Daryaganj?
A. The reason behind us choosing the name is that Daryaganj is the birthplace of Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani.
In 1947, Kundan Lal Jaggi, a refugee from Peshawar, migrated to Delhi after India’s partition and launched an iconic restaurant with two other partners in the locality of Daryaganj in New Delhi. At this restaurant, the most iconic North Indian dishes like Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani were invented by him. He also popularized the iconic Tandoori Chicken, invented by Mokha Singh in Peshawar in the 1920s. This started a revolution of Tandoori cuisine all over the world. He invented Butter Chicken out of necessity to serve a large group of guests, and Dal Makhani was invented on a suggestion by a foodie guest. In 2019, Kundan Lal Jaggi’s grandson Raghav Jaggi, and Raghav’s childhood friend, Restaurateur Amit Bagga, launched a brand called Daryaganj – By the Inventors of Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani as a tribute to his legacy. They have successfully revived the secret recipes of 1947.
Daryaganj blends old-world flavors and closely guarded recipes with a very talented and creative team to create a best-in-class dining experience reminiscent of a bygone era.