About Rahima

My Food Story

Cooking has always been my love language. I grew up in Sylhet in a house where the kitchen never really closed — there was always a pot of dal on the stove and someone dropping in for a plate of rice. I started cooking for my family when I was eleven, standing on a stool so I could reach the counter.

When we moved to Walthamstow in 2003 I missed those flavours terribly, so I recreated them from memory: mustard oil, panch phoron, fish from the market on Hoe Street. Friends kept asking me to cook for their gatherings, and eventually one of them said, "Rahima, you should be selling this." In 2019 I registered my kitchen, passed my food hygiene course and cooked my first order for a neighbour four doors down.

"I believe in fresh ingredients, lots of love, and recipes that bring people together."

Today I cook three or four dishes a day, all made to order. Nothing is frozen and nothing is reheated from yesterday. I shop in the morning, cook at midday, and my regulars know that if they message me by ten I can usually add something extra to the pot. My grandchildren help me pack the boxes at the weekend.

What I love most is that food travels further than words. People who have never tasted Bengali cooking come back and tell me it reminded them of their own grandmother's kitchen, somewhere else entirely. That is the whole point.