He’s already wearing his camouflage bandana as the flames spring to life. The frying pan lying on top starts to sizzle, filling the room with aromas of ginger and garlic. Fahd completes his uniform by tying a muted burgundy apron around his waist. A speaker is blasting hits from The Killers and Two Door Cinema Club. “White boy trash”, his wife, Nagma Nasser (29), jokingly calls it.
These sights and sounds are merely byproducts of the tastes of true Indian cuisine produced in Fahd’s kitchen, the heart of his flat. White tiles line the floor and wall, reflecting a glimpse of early spring sunlight that passes through the large windows. Dark marble countertops reach around the room in an L shape while a few wooden cabinets hover above them.
Next to the stove, a square table displays an array of fresh ingredients. At the centre, a pestle and mortar with spices vital for Fahd’s mission.
“We went through a few names. My favourite though was Pirates of the Currybean,” says Fahd Rayees (29) with a smile. “But then I was thinking that to stay consistent I’d have to have a whole pirate theme: Arrr get your currrry,” he continues with his best pirate impression. “Maybe that’s too much of a thing to commit to.”
Though it took almost a year to land on the current name, Curry Me, the idea for Fahd’s authentic Indian takeaway business came about within the first few weeks of his arrival in the Netherlands. Now, Rayees is taking The Northern Times through that journey.
Born in India, raised in Oman, with a bachelor’s degree from the UK, Fahd moved to Groningen in 2019 to pursue his master’s degree in small business and entrepreneurship. The moment he found a place —almost a miracle considering he had never heard of the Dutch housing crisis before arriving in the country — his mother visited him to help with the move. It didn’t take long for her to come to the same disappointing conclusion as her son: “She was like, ‘You know the food here is really shit?’,” Fahd recalls, “I was like: Yeah I know!”
Within her two-week stay, she helped lay the foundation of the business that operates to this day, with the goal of offering flavourful meals at a reasonable price. “The first week was just sort of her convincing me saying that, ‘you know, you have a passion for the food industry. This is what you want to do. So, why don’t you just start something from home?’” The week that followed is what Fahd best describes as a culinary boot camp; every day, his mother guided him through every step of the cooking of at least three different Indian meals; “I put on a lot of weight,” he says, “but I managed to learn a lot of recipes.”
His passion for food is deeply rooted in his upbringing. “The joke that runs in my family is that we’re either always eating food or we’re talking about what we’re going to eat,” says Fahd. From a young age, he was drawn to cooking. “I was a very energetic child. And every time I expended my energy on things that were not considered very productive, my parents always told me off,” he says, “However, whenever I hung around the kitchen, nobody said anything to me. And so as a result of that, like growing up, I was very close to the kitchen. I was constantly helping out when I didn’t need to.”
During his first months in Groningen, his business became a big part of his identity, and Fahd constantly found himself in conversations all about food; ”Maybe it’s because I brought the conversation there,” he says with a grin. After a few months of inviting new friends over to test out recipes, it was time to get down to business. At first, Curry Me did food deliveries only once a week. As word started to spread, the delivery times started to expand and a few friends were recruited to keep up with the part-time business. And though he values the work of his friends, Fahd was still very much the heart and soul of Curry Me, involved in deciding menus, shopping for food, cooking, and even doing bike deliveries.
But with a degree to complete and eventually a wedding to plan, he had to place his passion for food on the back burner. It wasn’t until 2022, while Fahd worked at an IT company, that Curry Me, which at that point wasn’t a full-time job, was taken to the next level. One day for lunch his then boss, Jeori Scheerhoorn (35), walked in with a typical Dutch lunch, the broodje kaas. “Literally like loaves of bread and slices of cheese. The bread ain’t even been toasted, you know, there’s no ketchup, nothing going on that bread,” Fahd recalls still with a tone of amusement and disbelief.
“I went up to him, and I was like, dude, that’s not lunch man. Let me cook for you and everyone in the office.” And so he did. “I remember he was eating the food and he’s like ‘I spent my entire life disliking Indian food. But I never ate this’. He’s like ‘this tastes incredible’,” Fahd said. Recognising the passion of the young home-cook, Scheerhoorn became a partner and co-owner of Curry Me, allowing Fahd to invest more time in his business. And so, Curry Me as it exists today, was born.
With a pre-order model, Curry Me currently offers three different meals (each with a vegetarian or vegan version) three times a week on its website, each around €10. Reminders are sent on a WhatsApp group chat with almost 300 people. At noon of each delivery day the orders close. This means he knows exactly how much of each ingredient to buy and how long his prep time will take. Not only does this help with planning, it also makes the business more sustainable.
“My food wastage is close to zero. If I have any extra food, it always goes to all my delivery drivers, my neighbours, or I keep some for us,” Fahd explains. Curry Me also encourages customers to return their food boxes during future deliveries, to keep the business more eco-friendly.
Fahd is involved in every step of the process. His passion and energy for all the aspects of his work are almost palpable.
“As hard as possible, as energetic as possible, is the best possible way for everything,” is how Nagma describes Fahd’s work ethic, as they both sit at their dining room table, preparing the delivery bags for the orders to be delivered that evening. Each bag comes along with a handwritten pun. “I usually do the notes,” Nagma says with a knowing smile. “Purely based on my handwriting I should have been a doctor,” Fahd admits, “my writing is like a comic sans.”
Once the bags are ready, Fahd proceeds with the cooking for the day. Chopping vegetables and tofu, preparing chicken, boiling rice, grinding pepper, and adding spices. Once it is all prepared, the food is carefully packed into a delivery box which goes into the puntastic bag. All is ready for the best part, feeding his customers.
“Being able to give a little bit of this thing that you just made to people and you can immediately see how they react, how their face lights up,” he says “It’s very rewarding.”
In a way, feeding others becomes almost another form of communication or a love language. “No person has ever come to this house and left unfed,” says Nagma. “Of course, you can leave now, but I’d like to make a delivery to your house,” Fahd insisted.
A mere hours later comes a text from Curry Me: Your food is on the way and should be with you soon! A few minutes later, there’s Fahd, standing next to his bike, a delivery bag on his back, a brown paper bag in his hand, and the same signature bandana and an eager smile to go along with his food.
