The first step in Nick and Kirk Mathews-Bowden’s Raja masterplan was to snare a chef who matched the restaurant’s ambitious pitch.

With one of the rising culinary stars of Sydney – Indian-raised, Firedoor-tuned chef Ahana Dutt on board – the Kellett Street eatery ticked its first box.

“We’ve lived in London and loved the ... Indian cuisine,” Nick Mathews-Bowden says of plans for Raja, which opens on Tuesday, July 18, next door to the duo’s three-year-old Ezra restaurant.

Raja’s prospects on the historic Sydney eating strip – in the corner site where Libertine and Silly Tart Kitchen previously traded – will lean heavily on its delivery on the plate.

In Dutt, the 90-seater has a six-year veteran from Firedoor, the three-hatted Surry Hills restaurant.

“The way that I now cook is very much influenced by my time at Firedoor,” says Dutt, who sources her produce from farms such as Moonacres Farm, Crooked Vegetable Co and Newcastle Greens. “At its core, it is a restaurant that celebrates amazing produce. That ethos is something that has become ingrained in me.”

Dutt says the menu is a reflection of her memories of food. “A lot of the dishes are ones that my mum used to make for me. These dishes evoke a sense of nostalgia for me and I think [they] will do the same for a lot of people,” she says

The cooking will include some Bengali influences of Dutt’s upbringing as well as Mumbai dishes and the sour spicy flavours of Goa.

The menu skips from oysters with chili, coriander, lime water and plum-spiced sweet chutney to masala clams, Punjab spatchcock, and a pepper, garlic and butter-fuelled crab dish.

“It was very important to me to be able to do my best to represent India as a whole,” Dutt says

“There are innumerable dishes and cuisines from India that the rest of the world has not seen. I have tried to incorporate some of them into the menu – galho, pathrado to name a few.”

Nick clearly feels lucky to have snared the chef: “Ahana is one of those rare people who is incredibly creative and also organised.”

The Mathews-Bowdens’ travels in India influenced the venue’s aesthetics. A mahogany drinks counter emblazoned with “Chai Walla” was imagined as a tea or chai station on a train from the Wes Anderson film The Darjeeling Limited. Two tiger chairs, nicknamed Suni and Cher, were inspired by carved seats the pair spotted in an Indian hotel.

“I have an appreciation for minimalist, Raja is maximalist,” Nick says, pointing out leopard upholstery he describes as “high camp”. “When we find a taxidermy peacock, it’ll be ours,” he adds.

The space is the work of New-York based designer Rosie Rainbow, who is responsible for Danny Meyer’s Ci Siamo in the Manhattan West Plaza, as well as Ezra.

Raja’s wave-backed banquette and pink private dining room offer an interior Nick describes as both tongue-in-cheek and electrifying.

Open Fri-Sun lunch; Tue-Sun dinner.

1 Kellett Street, Potts Point, raja.sydney