An intimate dining experience. A journey through Central India.
Born from memories of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh kitchens, 23rd Parallel is a thoughtfully paced evening of food, poetry recital, and stories shared at the table.
May 17, 2026 · 8 seats per night · San Jose, California
You arrive as a guest. You leave as part of a story. Between those two moments — seven courses, a poem read aloud, and the kind of conversation that only happens when eight strangers sit down together and taste something true.
Menu varies each month. Vegetarian by design. Surprises guaranteed.
✦ $75 per person · 6 PM · 8 seatsI grew up in Korba, Chhattisgarh — a small city in the coal belt where the market smelled of raw turmeric and mahua flowers, and food was never written down because everyone already knew. Then came Surat, Gujarat, where I was raised on undhiyu and the particular sweetness Gujaratis fold into everything. My roots, though, are in Bhopal — my parents' city, the one I return to, the one that made me.
I studied and worked in Maharashtra before the road brought me to California. Trained as a software engineer, I spent years building systems — but the thing I kept returning to was the food nobody here had tasted. Central India's flavors are among the most layered in the subcontinent, and almost entirely unknown to the world. That felt like something worth fixing.
23rd Parallel is my answer. A Californian table set with forgotten recipes of the heartland — reinterpreted with local produce and the eye of someone who has lived at both ends of the world. Not fusion. Not nostalgia. Something new, grown from something very old.
"I grew up eating food that has no Michelin stars, no Instagram presence, no English translation. It just had flavor — the kind that lives in your body for decades. That's what I'm serving."
— Host & Chef · 23rd Parallel
Forgotten Royal Kitchens of the Holkars & Scindias of Madhya Pradesh
Menus change with the season. The full course is revealed at the table.
The menu changes with the season. These are only a few of the stories we've told.
Two intimate dinners, two distinct menus. Only 8 seats each — reserve early.
A fully plant-forward journey through the royal kitchens of Central India — celebrating the extraordinary depth of Madhya Pradesh's vegetarian culinary heritage. No meat, no compromise.
The full Khansama's Secret experience — forgotten royal recipes of the Holkars & Scindias of Madhya Pradesh, featuring the non-vegetarian specialities from the maharaja's table. Rare, storied, unforgettable.
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$75 per person
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23rd Parallel Supper Club · San Jose, CA
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