Chris Payton and Casey McQueen - Owner and chefs of The Curry Club

Two twisting paths end at Curry Club

They’re running a professional kitchen. But talking to Chris Payton, owner and chef at the Curry Club, and his executive chef, Casey McQueen, a partner in the restaurant, is a bit like chewing the fat with a couple of laid-back students. There’s not a chef’s white jacket between them. Payton squats on a cube seat on the restaurant’s first floor. McQueen slouches back among red and purple silk cushions.

Neither of them set out to be chefs. But last year (2006) they made Zagat with their Indian cooking with “a British spin.” Do their diners realize Payton, originally from north of London, is a self-taught cook who tackled Indian recipes for the first time only in 1999 when his Indian wife, Parule Basu-Barua, became pregnant? His first dish didn’t even come from an Indian source. It was Chicken Korma from a Nigel Slater cookbook.

Payton had been sent by the BBC to New York to work on a magazine. His wife had come over to launch the BBC America channel. After they married, they were moved down to the Washington office.

“Being English, we gave dinner parties — rare in D.C.,” says Payton. The couple’s British ex-pat friends were delighted by his new hobby. In Britain, Indian food is considered the national cuisine. Very soon, they were asking him to cook for them on a regular basis. He began to e-mail them with a weekly menu, calling the venture the “Curry Club.”

By early 2004, he realized his hobby had developed into something more passionate. As soon as the couple found a commercial space, he gave up his job and moved into the kitchen. It was a massive transition from cooking for friends. One day he stepped out into the alley out back for a breather and bumped into McQueen. “He was working next door at Bistro Lepic. We were both frazzled.”

Payton had been looking for another cook. McQueen was helping out at the French bistro at the same time he was working at Cashion’s Eat Place in Adams Morgan. But he stepped in to lend a hand.

“I started creating and having fun,” he says. “It was not my intention to stay, but it took on a life of its own. The cooking style is not so different [from French]. The braising is similar.” And Payton wasn’t offering mainstream Indian food but what he calls “Indian with a twist.”

McQueen hadn’t begun life wanting to be a chef either. He’d fallen in love with cooking on his post-school travels. A native of Adelphi, Md., he had been backpacking around Australia but traveled to England for a wedding outside London. He stayed six years in the town of Wadhurst, learning to cook at the best pub in the village. Wadhurst had an Indian restaurant, so he quickly absorbed the English practice that “Saturday nights is Indian food.”

Says Payton, “Casey made us a more serious food restaurant, helped bring us up a rung.” Now on the menu are Saffron and Sweet-Pea Risotto with Tandoori Shrimp, Smoked Salmon and Potato Cake with a Red Pepper Radish Salad, Roasted Chicken in a Turmeric Cilantro Sauce and Leg of Lamb Braised with Spices and Apricots.

Part of the challenge their restaurant faced is that the main dining room is upstairs, and the first floor’s open kitchen is on full view from the sidewalk through the windows. Payton suspects that in the early days, passersby, when there were any, mistook them for a take-out. Their block on Wisconsin Avenue in upper Georgetown is not a destination, unless you’re seeking a service like getting your hair or some bespoke tailoring done.

But after the listing in Zagat, things changed. Other chefs showed up and spread the word. People who didn’t think they’d like curry came in. They’d tell the two chefs, “My vision of curry was totally different from what I have just eaten!” It’s their “twist” approach, says Payton. “It gives people more choice and us more pleasure.”

What do Indian customers make of their interpretations? Payton confesses that he thought they would take one look at them and think, What do two skinny white guys know about Indian food?

“We had 40 Indians for a birthday party. I was sweating, I can tell you. But they absolutely loved it,” he says. “They came downstairs and spent time with us talking about all the food, and they want us for other parties. If we can attract that crowd that grew up on this flavor, we’re doing what our aim is.”

Payton is no longer married to Basu-Barua, but she is still very involved. And Billy Blu, his 7year-old-son, comes down with his stepson Redd, 15, to roll bread “and accost the waitresses.” They both eat all the Indian food.

Payton goes out to sample the competition at Rasika and Indique when he is not with his sons at his home near American University. There was a time when he played tennis, but he’s only managed a game or two in the past couple of years. “I’d like to carve out more of another life beyond restaurants,” he says.

McQueen, who lives just behind the restaurant, says his outside interests are “eating and drinking. I love sitting at the bar in a restaurant with a glass of wine and eating.” His favorite place is Cashion’s. But he’s awed by the food of Frank Ruta at Palena. “He’s someone who can cook something so simple and still wow you with it.” He’d like to do something similar himself. His customers may say he already does.

Curry Club (202-625-9090; http://www.curryclub.net) is located at 1734 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Main courses cost from $17 to $26.

This article by Julia Watson first appeared in the NorthWest Current. Photo BillPetros/The Current.