Best Butter Chicken Fitzroy — The Curry Queen's Recipe Story | Masti

Why our butter chicken is the best in Fitzroy — the Curry Queen's recipe story

People ask me about our butter chicken almost every night. They ask if it's the same recipe I used in Geelong, if it comes from my training in Punjab, if there's a secret. The honest answer is all three — and none. The recipe is simple. What makes it special is what went into learning it.

Let me tell you where it begins.

From Bihar to Punjab — a chef finds her voice

I grew up in Bihar, in eastern India, watching my mother cook. She didn't follow recipes. She cooked by instinct — a handful of this, a pinch of that, always whole spices, always fresh. She could make dishes from Punjab, Rajasthan, Kerala, Gujarat, all in the same week. She didn't see borders between cuisines. That openness is something I carry into every kitchen I've ever worked in.

When I moved to Punjab and began working in five-star hotels, I learned precision to match that instinct. Hotel kitchens are demanding — every sauce has to be exact, every dish has to be consistent at scale. Butter chicken was on every menu, every night, for hundreds of covers. You learn quickly what separates a good makhani sauce from a great one. You learn it through repetition, through failure, through tasting until you can't taste any more.

It was during those years that my cooking came to the attention of two of India's most legendary culinary figures — Sanjeev Kapoor, one of India's most celebrated chefs, and the late Jiggs Kalra, widely regarded as the Czar of Indian Cuisine and the man who brought Indian food to the world stage. That recognition meant the world to me, not because of the fame, but because it told me the instincts I learned from my mother were real. They were worth trusting.

What actually makes our butter chicken different

When people talk about butter chicken in Fitzroy, they're usually talking about restaurant butter chicken — the kind made from concentrated pastes, cooked fast, finished with cream. It's fine. But it's not what you'd find in a Punjabi home kitchen, and it's not what we make at Masti.

Ours starts with whole spices. Every morning, my team grinds them fresh — cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, dried chillies. The smell alone tells you something different is happening. Whole spices release their oils when they're ground that day. Spice powders from a bag cannot do what fresh grinding does. This is not a small detail. It is the difference.

The makhani sauce — the butter tomato base — is made slowly. We roast the tomatoes first to concentrate their sweetness and reduce the acidity. Then butter, ginger, garlic, the ground spices, and time. Rushing a makhani sauce is one of the most common mistakes in Indian food in Melbourne. The sauce needs to cook until the fat separates — that's when you know the spices have truly bloomed and the raw flavours are gone. Only then do we finish it with cream.

The chicken is marinated overnight in yoghurt and spices, then cooked in our tandoor. That char — that slight smokiness you get from the tandoor — is what anchors the richness of the sauce. It's why butter chicken in Melbourne made without a tandoor always tastes slightly flat to me, no matter how good the sauce is.

My mother's influence — the part no recipe can capture

My mother passed away before she ever got to see Masti. That sits with me every service. When I opened in Geelong with Eastern Spice, she hadn't made it to Melbourne yet. When I finally brought this food to Fitzroy — to Brunswick Street, to a city that was ready for it — she was gone.

But she is in every dish. The butter chicken at Masti is not a hotel recipe or a restaurant formula. It is my memory of her kitchen — the whole spices, the unhurried cooking, the instinct that flavour comes from patience. I dedicate it to her, even if I've never written that on the menu.

"This isn't fusion. It's Indian cuisine, unfiltered — the way it's made when someone truly cares about the result."

Why Masti's butter chicken stands out in Melbourne

Melbourne has extraordinary Indian restaurants. I mean that genuinely — the standard here is higher than many Australian cities. But the best butter chicken in Melbourne isn't necessarily the richest or the most elaborately plated. It's the one where you can taste that the cook understands the dish — where the spices are alive, the sauce has depth, and the chicken has been given real heat from a real tandoor.

That's what we aim for at Masti every single night. 354–356 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 5pm.

Some guests have told me it's the best butter chicken they've had outside India. I don't say that myself — I'll leave that to them. But I do say this: every serve leaves that kitchen the way my mother would have made it, if she'd had a tandoor.

Come taste it for yourself

If you've been searching for the best butter chicken in Fitzroy — or simply for authentic Indian food in Melbourne that tastes like it was made by someone who grew up eating it — I'd love to cook for you.

Book your table at Masti Fitzroy or call us on (03) 9427 2121. Open Tuesday to Sunday from 5pm, 354–356 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Walk-ins welcome — bookings recommended on weekends.

Come hungry. I'll take care of the rest.