South Daytona restaurant will feature traditional Indian cuisine

Ammrit Indian Cuisine is so close to opening you can taste it.

Well, not yet, but pretty soon, and when you do, many of the meals you will be tasting are home-cooked recipes straight from the Cambow family kitchen to your table. “I like to cook. My wife is really a good cook,” owner Bhupinder Cambow said.

The restaurant is at 2055 South Ridgewood Ave. in South Daytona. It is the former home of Perrine’s Produce. Perrine’s suffered damage from Hurricane Matthew and was not rebuilt.

This will be Mr. Cambow’s first venture as a restaurateur. However, he is familiar with feeding the public, “I used to run a deli,” he said. “Pizza, sandwich, salads and all kinds of stuff.” The deli was in a Chevron gas station on International Speedway Boulevard in Daytona Beach.

“We'll be having authentic Indian,” Mr. Cambow’s son-in-law Gurdev Singh said.

They will be bringing together the different tastes of north and south India.

The difference between authentic Indian and what the American palette is used to is best described by the preparation “and all the spices,” Mr. Singh explained. “We are going to use authentic Indian spices. They're not going to be like, Americanized.”

The menu will be descriptive so guests will know the spices that go into the meal. Popular items, such as butter chicken and garlic naan will be menu selections.

“Everything on the menu is going to be good,” The daughter of Mr. Cambow, Gagan Cambow, said. “It’s gonna be a traditional Indian restaurant but we're gonna have buffet options.”

She followed up in an email correspondence, “The menu will feature a range of specialties including Indian street food, authentic North Indian (Punjabi) flavors, traditional desserts, and much more.”

Speaking of traditional desserts, the homemade mango ice cream (Kulfi) with pistachio and coconut is a must-try.

Beverages include Masala tea and “all kinds of Indian beer and American beer,” Mr. Cambow said.

The restaurant décor has received high praise. Josh McEnaney, South Daytona’s code compliance manager, emailed his appreciation for the efforts the family has undertaken. “It’s great to see the improvements made at this location,” he wrote.

Sitting in the soon-to-be-opened restaurant on a recent sunlight Saturday, Gagan Cambow said, “We're a family-run business. We've been in the community, like my dad said, for like 20-plus years. We know the people, we know the town and we know the food. We're all Indian. My parents are from Punjab from India. So they are bringing those flavors back to my home which is here in America.” She said they want to share the food and culture with the Daytona Beach community.”

It is a family-run business with a name steeped in family tradition. Amrit was the name of Mr. Cambow’s father's clothing store in India. Mr. Cambow worked there when he was younger. Using one “m” as opposed to the two, as in Ammrit Indian Cuisine, is the traditional spelling.

Gagan Cambow explained Amrit is a common Punjabi name and “Amrit by dictionary definition means sweetened water, which is considered divine by Sikhs,” she wrote. “The name Ammrit is bringing a little bit of my family's home and history to Daytona Beach.”

The restaurant will be open for lunch 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and reopening for dinner from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. They will be open every day, but Tuesday.