Gather Round For Food, Stories, And Community At Bondhu
Bondhu, which took over the beloved French restaurant Mill on the Floss in New Ashford, Massachusetts, is a “food experience business” that offers an encounter for every food lover. No disrespect to the traditional restaurant model, but Bondhu is something more fungible (and fun). It’s all of these: a supper club with changing themes, a place to take a cooking class, arrange a private dinner party for you and your guests (planned with the chef), and a deep dive into a specific culture’s cuisine. Above all, time spent at Bondhu means interacting with both people and food. There’s a reason it’s named “bondhu” — it means friend in Bengali. You just might make some of them there.
“It’s not about cooking the perfect five-star plate, it’s more about leaving an impression about the thought behind it,” says Farah Momen, the food maven behind this new enterprise, which opened in October. She wanted to create a community space where she could encourage people to awaken their minds as to what food can be, to think about who made that food, where they and the food come from. So far, experiences have included dinners devoted to a Halloween murder mystery, the Native American culinary landscape, a meal inspired by books (“Bites From Books”), a South Asian themed dinner, and cooking classes, both private and public (coming up on January 29: a curry night instructional).
Bondhu meals tell a story along with a multi-course fixed price menu, with the individual dishes revealed only when you’re at the communal table. At a recent New Year’s-themed dinner, Momen and a team member Cindy Judge spoke about the food traditions of various cultures as one year transitions to another. At the table, a crossword puzzle relating to New Year customs was an ice breaker to get the conversation flowing among the guests. Several of the dishes took inspiration from Momen’s south Asian heritage.
“Bangladeshi identity is food,” Momen says, “and food has been our love language.” One thing you can count on at a meal or class at Bondhu: there will probably be a Bangla dish or two. “I want to preserve that, but keep a space for hybrid identities,” she says.
Momen grew up in New York State but spent her early years in Canada, falling in love with the food in Toronto, where she met her husband. Although Momen had been a foodie since childhood and had been hosting and cooking for people throughout her twenties, she wasn’t really on a professional culinary path. With a bachelor’s from McGill University and a master’s degree in international affairs from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, she was a program manager for a federal tech startup and co-founder of a nonprofit, The Now Exchange.
But becoming a Season 1 cast member of Top Chef Amateur on Bravo TV (she beat out six competitors for the win) made her rethink some of her choices.
“On the plane ride back after filming the show, I was thinking about my job, which I didn’t necessarily love. I was leading a program from the Department of Secuuity, but my heart was somewhere else,” she says. “I realized how fulfilled I felt being in a cooking space, and I began to think, how can I create that space?”
Samosas with Camembert, curried apple, onions and potatoes, and chaat masala yogurt, served with puffed rie, toasty peanuts, mustard oil, herbs and spices. Photo courtesy of Bondhu
Pushing her culinary and hosting skills to the next level wouldn’t be possible in Boston, where she was living — it’s hyper competitive, not to mention exorbitantly expensive. Her husband’s work as a data consultant meant they could look farther afield. They considered upstate, but Momen says she liked the Berkshires for its location and literary history. When she discovered that Mill on the Floss was on the market, she knew it was basha, the Bengali word for home.
“As soon as I walked in, I was blown away by the feeling of the space,” she says. “The kitchen was suitable, and we could live upstairs.”
Patrons of The Mill on the Floss will recognize the 18th-century farmhouse upon entering. The rustic bar and main dining area haven’t changed much. Momen wanted to preserve its history but made changes to the sunroom/porch, lightening up the space with Scandinavian simplicity and putting in eastern-style floor seating. Upstairs, Momen and her husband share the living quarters on Airbnb, offering three of the rooms as a “lush boho foodie Berkshires paradise.”
The reception to the supper club-cooking lessons-hosting space has been gratifying. Half of the suppers have been sold out. This summer, Bondhu will be opening up the space for weddings.
Momen admits she was part of the Great Resignation propelled by the pandemic. But Bondhu couldn’t have arrived at a better time as people are eager to resume in-person activities.
“COVID was hard for people mentally,” she says. “We can use food as a healing tool.”
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