What Is a Kati Roll?

A kati roll is street food from Kolkata, India, where you find it all over the city. The fillings are grilled on a skewer, rolled up in a buttery paratha flatbread and finished with chutneys and spices. It comes hot, it comes wrapped in paper, and it is made to be eaten on the go.

That is the short answer. The longer one is worth knowing, because every part of the roll is doing a job, and once you know the parts you can order exactly the roll you want.

The word means skewer

The word kati literally means skewer, and the name tells you how the roll starts. Chicken, steak or paneer is marinated, threaded on a skewer and grilled, then pulled off hot and laid into the bread. Some fillings are not grilled on a skewer at all: the Shami Kabab Roll is a croquette of minced lamb and lentils, and the Aloo Masala Roll is a spiced potato patty. They all share the same bread, the same chutney and the same finish.

Payal Saha grew up eating kati rolls in Kolkata. When she moved to New York she could not find them, so in 2002 she opened a small shop at 99 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village and made them the way she remembered. The Kati Roll Company is often credited with introducing the kati roll to American diners. You can read how that first store came together.

How a roll is built

Every roll we make is built from the same five layers, in the same order.

• Paratha. A layered flatbread, made with butter and lightly fried on a cast-iron griddle. Or a roasted whole wheat roti, if you want it lighter.
• The filling. Marinated and grilled in-house.
• Lime-cilantro chutney. Made fresh every day. We squeeze the limes and chop the cilantro by hand.
• Onions. A medley of sautéed, pickled and fresh.
• Chaat masala. Our own spice blend, sprinkled on top.

The bread comes first

Kati rolls are traditionally served in a paratha. Ours is hand-rolled, made with butter, layered and lightly fried on a cast-iron griddle. It is the traditional choice.

The other choice is roti, made from whole durum wheat and roasted on the grill or griddle. It is lighter, still full of flavor, and vegan. Every roll on the menu comes on either one. We wrote a whole post on paratha or roti if you want to choose well.

The fillings

There are six fillings, three meat and three vegetarian. All of our meats are certified halal, and our chicken is antibiotic and hormone free.

• Chicken Tikka: chicken breast marinated in yogurt and spices, then grilled.
• Steak Tikka: cubed beef marinated in yogurt and spices, grilled on a skewer.
• Shami Kabab: a croquette of minced lamb and lentils with aromatic herbs and spices.
• Achari Paneer: Indian farmer's cheese marinated in spicy pickle and grilled.
• Chana Masala: chickpeas with tomatoes, fenugreek and blackening spices.
• Aloo Masala: a mashed potato patty with tomatoes, green peppers and spices.

Unda means egg

Any filling can also come unda, on a flatbread layered with freshly beaten egg. The egg is layered into the bread and grilled with it, so it becomes part of the wrap rather than part of the filling. The Unda Chicken Roll is the chicken tikka filling on that egg-layered bread, and the plain Unda Roll is just the bread and the egg, which is better than it sounds.

Where the flavor comes from

Most of what you taste is the marinade. We marinate and grill every filling in-house with a proprietary blend of up to 30 hand-ground spices and flavors, along with yogurt, lime juice and fresh cilantro chutney. The spices we lean on most include green and black cardamom, cumin, coriander and fennel seeds, kasuri methi, amchoor and asafoetida. We grind them locally for the freshest flavor and aroma.

We marinate our ingredients daily, and we never use pre-packaged foods or sauces. That is the whole method. You can see the full spice library on Our Food.

How to eat one

Hold it upright in its paper and eat it while it is hot. That is the point of street food: no plate, no fork, nothing between you and the griddle. If you like heat, ask for extra green chutney or green chili. If you want something to cool it down, an Alfonso Mango Lassi is made with our own yogurt, and masala chai is brewed with ginger and cardamom.

If you are new, start with the Chicken Tikka or the Achari Paneer, then come back for the Shami. Our first-timer's guide to the menu goes further, and the kati roll is also good late: on Friday and Saturday nights MacDougal Street stays open until 3am.

Welcome to a taste of Kolkata.