We are proud to present an immimentary* about an immigrant who came to America and enjoys his work as an entrepreneur in the restaurant business. He is the founder and executive director of a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Hi, my name is Sonny Solomon. I was born in India in a place called Mochel, and I came to the U.S. in 1996. This is my immigrant story. I remember my early childhood growing up in a village in Punjab called Jabalpur. My mother was a nurse, so she was transferred there. I lived in the village for about three years.
I remember the days when I was little. We had a big garden in the middle of the campus; it was actually a nursing home for the villagers. All the accommodations were provided by the hospital, and we used to live on the campus. At night, my mother would receive calls from all the villagers who were pregnant. In the middle of the night, she would go and deliver the babies.
My father will accompany her to whoever’s house the delivery is happening at. It was fun living in the village because the air was pure, the food was good, and the people were nice. I also remember taking my neighbor’s cows to a nearby pond. I would sit on the back of a cow or buffalo, and they would just go into the pond. There was a little kid sitting on their back, just relaxing in the muddy water. Well, that was definitely dirty water, but it was fun for me as a kid.
I remember going to the fields to get fresh vegetables, and everybody knew my mother was a nurse, so nobody would ever charge us any money. They would actually give us more than we needed, and people were very generous back then. Everybody took care of everybody; we never had any problems with food or milk. We always had butter, ghee, eggs, everything was always given by the neighbors. They used to respect my mom a lot because they could call her in the middle of the night, and she would just get up and walk to anyone’s house to treat them and do whatever needed to be done for the patient.
In those days, one of my uncles from the U.S. came to visit us in India, and he stayed with us for a couple of days. I remember him giving me a plastic keyring with a picture of the Empire State Building on it. When I first looked at the Empire State Building, I fell in love with it. I knew from a very early age, maybe when I was four or five years old, about New York City and the Empire State Building. I guess that was the time when the dream was born in my head to come to the U.S.
We had a big tree on the campus, which was a neem tree. Neem is a medicinal plant, and people use its branches to brush their teeth. They would make medicine with the neem leaves to apply on wounds, and some people would boil the neem leaves and drink the water to purify their blood. I used to sit under that tree and think that the sky extended all the way to America. In my head, I used to look up at the sky and think, “Oh, if I go to America, that’s the limit; the sky ends there”. As a little kid, I didn’t know any better, and every time I saw a plane passing by, I thought that every plane was going to America.
I didn’t know anything about any other country; all I knew was America. I thought every flight was going to America. Well, anyway, I started asking my father questions about New York and the USA. He used to tell me, “Yeah, one day when you grow up, you’re going to go there too because your uncles have filed the paperwork, and they’re going to call everybody”. I was very excited about it, and in my head, I would think every day, “Oh, maybe next year I’m going to go to the U.S”. Well, it didn’t happen that way.
It was fun; I used to go to school in the village, and I remember we had only one room in our school. Most of the time, everybody would sit outside. The only time we would all go into that room was when it was raining, and usually, when it rained, our school would be canceled, so they would just send us home.
We had a wooden board, an old school board where you write with a pen dipped in ink. One side of the board was for writing, and then you would turn it over to write on the other side. I remember it well, it used to be fun! That’s how I started learning my ABCs, 1-2-3s, Punjabi words, and Hindi words.
Our school was very simple. We would all sit under a tree, and our teachers would have one blackboard. They would write on it, and we would copy whatever was written on the board.
I used to walk to school; it was not far, maybe a 10 to 15-minute walk. We had a few kids, not too many; I would say about 25 to 30 kids in that school, all from the village. Out of those 30 kids, basically half were younger and the other half were older. The younger kids would go to one class, and the older kids would go to another. There were no first, second, third, fourth, or fifth grades.
Living there and going to school was a lot of fun. Then, as I got older, after about one and a half to two years, I was transferred to a school in the city. My father had a bicycle then, and he used to drop me off at school every day. It would take us about 40 to 45 minutes. I would sit behind him on a carriage, and he would ride while we talked about things. He would tell me stories on the way to school, drop me off, and then come back to pick me up after school.
I didn’t realize for a very long time that sitting on the back of the bicycle and riding for about 40 minutes was a lot of work. I realized this later on in my life when I used to carry my friends just for fun. It was a fun time. I wished we had a bike or a scooter so my father could drop me off, but we didn’t have that sort of money at that time to afford a bike or a scooter.
School was fun; I went to a big school, and I liked it. While we were going to school, I got into sports and drama, and I used to be in my school choir. We did a lot of fun activities. After three years, my mother was transferred back to the city, and then we moved to a one-bedroom apartment. When I say “one-bedroom apartment,” I mean it was basically one room, about 400 square feet. We had two beds on each side of the wall, and at night we would put another bed in the middle of the room, leaving no walking space.
During this time, I used to think about how I would make plans for when I go to America. I wanted to build a house so my mom, dad, and brother could live in a nicer place. The location was nice; we had a lot of kids on our campus. Again, we lived on a hospital campus, so there were always plenty of kids to play with and go to school with. Neighbors would take care of each other; they were all part of the hospital, working in different jobs.
At any given time, if you wanted to go out and play, there would be about 30 to 40 kids, depending on the age group, hanging out together, playing cricket, soccer, field hockey, or badminton. It was a lot of fun. We didn’t think about money back then, although times were tough because a nurse could only make so much money.
My father also worked in the hospital, so we were living a comfortable life. You know, once or twice a year, we would get new clothes, and that was for Christmas or Easter. It was a lot of fun for us; we used to wait for Christmas, knowing our parents would buy us new clothes and new shoes. We would get excited, and all these things were handmade. We used to go to a tailor who would measure us, and then he would make the clothes for us. We were always excited to wear the new clothes. Every time we went out, I would wear the same new clothes because it made me happy.
Later on in life, when I was in fourth grade, I was transferred to a new school called Shamrock School. The principal there was from Australia, and it was a Montessori school. The only reason I could afford it was because my mother was a nurse, and it was a Christian school, so they gave us a good discount. I studied there for two years, and I think those two years were the most important years of my growing up. What I learned in those two years had a very positive impact on my life. My principal, Mrs. Marg Naer, who is no longer with us, changed my life. I am very thankful to have had the chance to meet someone like her.
After sixth grade, I was transferred back to a different school because it was closer to my house and had more grades; they even had high school. I started going to St. Thomas School, and I was a good student. I was always in the top 10, but I was also very much involved in other extracurricular activities at my school, such as singing, dancing, drama, and sports.
All my schoolmates and classmates were my friends, and we had a good time growing up. After finishing my schooling, I went to Cyprus to study hotel management. While doing two years of hotel management and working at a restaurant at the same time, I realized that I liked working in a restaurant much better than working in a hotel.
My first job outside of India, or my first job ever to make money, was as a dishwasher at a Greek restaurant on a Greek island. I was very happy about it because I was finally able to make my own money. I called my father and told him that I got a job. I said, “This is what I’m doing,” and he replied, “I’m very proud of you”.
I lived in Cyprus for about two years, and after that, since my family was living in the U.S., I came to the U.S. in 1996. I started living here, and since I knew the restaurant work, my first job in the U.S. was in Chicago. I worked in a Subway sandwich shop for about two weeks to two or three months. The only reason I took that job was to make enough money to come to New York City. I saved my money and bought a ticket; I believe it was in September of 1996 that I moved to New York City, not directly to New York City, but to Long Island to stay at my aunt’s house.
I was there for about a month, and then one day, I found a newspaper called “India Abroad”. I used to look for jobs in that section, hoping to find something. Finally, I found a job at an Indian restaurant called Mogul Palace.
The day I was hired was right before Thanksgiving Day, so my first job in New York, and in the U.S., was on Thanksgiving Day. There was a private party going on where I had to work as a bartender. I knew how to make drinks, but at that time, I was not familiar with limes. That was the first day I learned what limes were all about. Somebody told me about the green limes, and I knew about lemons, but we didn’t have limes back then in India.
I worked in that restaurant for about a month, and while I was working at Mogul Palace, a chef and a few other guys came in and saw me working there. They asked me if I wanted to move to New Jersey and said they were going to give me, I believe, $200 a week with free accommodation. I was excited! I thought, “Okay, finally I can live by myself”. They said they would come pick me up on Christmas Day.
That was my first Christmas. My mother was here at the time, and we had a big family together in Long Island. But I had to leave on my first Christmas, and my mother started crying. I told her, “Mom, next year I will spend Christmas with you. Let me just go because they want me, and I got a job where I can live by myself”. So anyway, I left on Christmas Day, and I stayed in New Jersey for about two years, working for them.
It was fun; I learned a lot of things. From Morristown, New Jersey, I moved to Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where there was another restaurant called Passage to India. While I was working in Morristown, the restaurant used to be called Chan Palace, but it’s not there anymore. I became friends with the chef from Chan Palace, and I always asked him, “Chef, teach me how to cook”. I knew how to cook, but I wanted to learn how to cook in a restaurant and understand the menu. He was the first person in my life who told me, “You don’t belong in the kitchen; you belong on the floor,” and he always discouraged me from going into the kitchen.
One day, he said, “There’s another restaurant opening up where I’ll be the chef. You can come with me”. I said okay, so we went to Passage to India. Again, I worked on the floor, and on Mondays, I used to go with my owners to the Philadelphia Food Market to buy groceries for the entire week for the restaurant. They used to pay me a little extra, and it was fun for me to do something different than working in the restaurant. I also worked in the kitchen one day a week because I wanted to know everything about the restaurant industry.
Finally, after a few years, I decided it was time to come to New York City. Back then, there was a restaurant called Dawat; it was one of the best Indian restaurants in New York City. I moved there and started working in the kitchen as a food runner. They were a busy restaurant, and we were doing about 200 covers a night.
I was in the kitchen running food when, one day, my owner made me a kitchen supervisor. In that role, I had to cook certain dishes, ensure we had everything available in the kitchen, and I was expediting and packing deliveries. essentially running the whole kitchen. When I got tired of being in the kitchen, I told my owner that I needed to come out on the floor. He said, “Whenever you want, I’ll put you on the floor in that restaurant”.
After being a kitchen supervisor for a while, I knew about the food menu and everything, but I didn’t know much about service. So, he put me on the floor as a back waiter, and I started helping my captains. After 2 or 3 months, I was promoted to captain at my restaurant. After 7 months, I was basically running the show, working closely with the maître d’ and my manager. It was a good experience.
Eventually, I decided I had enough of Indian food and wanted to try some different cuisines. I began applying for jobs in the afternoons, just looking for whoever was hiring. Luckily, I got a chance to meet the human resources manager, Christopher.
He was the human resources manager for Gustation, and when he called me in, I thought I would be going to the restaurant. Instead, it was an office in a building. So I went there wearing my tuxedo, and he asked me if I wanted to be a captain. At that time, I asked him what kind of food they served, and he said it would be French cuisine. I told him I wanted to be a back waiter because I didn’t know anything about French food. He told me, “You look good in tuxedos; we’ll teach you everything”. I said I still wanted to learn everything from the bottom because if I made a mistake as a back waiter, you wouldn’t fire me, but if I made a mistake as a waiter, I’d be fired right away. He liked my answer and said, “Sure”.
He hired me, and the next day he said, “Come, I’ll take you to the restaurant”. When he took me to Gusto Vino and opened the door, I was in shock. This place was a $27 million restaurant! They had two floors: the bottom floor was a brasserie and the top floor was a fine dining club. He offered me a position as a back waiter in the fine dining club, and that’s where I met another captain, Gil Daniel.
Gil was the one who taught me about service for fine dining, which I had never done before in my life. Gil was my coach, and I would be his back waiter for about two months. All the managers knew that Gil and Sunny wanted to work together, and we did. I learned a lot, and after about a month and a half to two months, my GM approached me and said, “Sunny, I think you should be a captain now”. Gil expressed that he didn’t want to work with anyone else except me, so we both ended up working together, earning the same amount of money. It was fun!
I used to work five days there, and on my two days off, I started buying books about wines, different styles of service, and French food. I began to self-educate myself. When I started reading about wines and foods, I fell in love with this business and the culture at Gino’s. I think that motivated me to want to own an Indian restaurant with a different style, one that featured proper service, proper food, and proper wine. That’s how my dream of opening my own restaurant came about while working at Gino’s.
I would often watch the chefs as they cooked, and I was very impressed by the way they did things, including their presentation and cooking methods. Daniel was the chef there, and I fell in love with the whole restaurant scene.
We had some high-profile guests who used to come there, and we hosted a lot of Hollywood parties. Many movie stars would come, and it looked like a party every night. It was fun! From there, I applied for a job at One CPS, which was inside The Plaza Hotel. As everyone knows, The Plaza Hotel is a landmark in New York City, so I got a chance to work there. I started working for David Burke, managing the Chef’s Table. I had a great schedule, 12 PM to 8 PM, Monday through Friday. It was fun, good money, and a very good schedule for a restaurant. You know, 12 to 8 meant that sometimes I would be cut off at 5 PM if there were no reservations for the Chef’s Table.
I used to visit new places whenever they opened in New York City to check out different foods, layouts of the restaurants, and various concepts. It was exciting for me because in the back of my mind, I knew I was going to open a restaurant someday. I would look for designs and observe how people worked in those restaurants, which always thrilled me.
Later on in life, I got a chance to work with Jean-Georges. I worked at Mercer Kitchen and Spice Market, and I loved it. I loved his style of work, the culture of the environment, and the professionalism of the entire management team.
When someone asks me if I ever went to school in the U.S. or in New York, I would say I went to the best school, and that’s New York City. New York City can teach you things that nobody can teach you at school or in your family, and what you learn from New York City cannot be taught anywhere else.
My mentors, like Jean-Georges, always impressed me. He was always sharply dressed, very professional, and would greet everyone, taking care of his staff and all the people he worked with. He was a really cool guy.
I also worked for one of the biggest cheese restaurants in New York City at that time, Artisanal. We had about 250 types of cheese. As I mentioned, I always used to visit different places, and I liked the concept of cheese, so I thought it was time for me to learn about it. I worked there for about two years, during which I learned about cheeses, wine pairings, and fruit pairings. I tried almost all the cheeses they had and loved it.
The chef there was Terrence Brennan, and that’s where I met Dwayne Collins and Mark Shay. They played a significant role in my life as well. Mark Shay was the GM of Artisanal and was very experienced in the restaurant industry.
I asked him, and he told me he’s been doing this since he was a teenager. He has always worked in restaurants, and I will always have questions about the restaurant business. Rather than asking how everything needs to be done in the restaurant, I was always curious to learn about the financial side of running a restaurant. He was a great mentor, and we are still in touch. He’s retired and moved to Portugal, but whenever he comes to New York City, he visits me.
Then I met one of the best service managers, Dwayne Collins. He was the GM for Aqua when they first opened up; I believe he was a service manager at that time. What I heard about him was that if Dwayne Collins applied for a job, you would hire him. The service techniques and the logic behind service, as well as how to run the floor, were all things I learned from Dwayne Collins. Again, we are still in touch; he’s a friend of mine as well. He is semi-retired and doesn’t live in New York City anymore, but these are my mentors, my great teachers in New York City.
Finally, in 2004, I got a chance to work with the Indian chef, Chef Hemant, to open a restaurant called Dei. Once we had a meeting about the opening, he told me what he was planning to do, and that’s where we combined East and West cultures in the dining scene. We were the first Indian restaurant at that time to offer a tasting menu in a proper French style with multiple courses and wine pairings. We were also the first Indian restaurant to receive a Michelin star in North America.
At that time, in 2005, we were recognized as one of the top 50 Indian restaurants in New York City. I was there until 2008, and after that, I worked for a steakhouse called Capital Grill. I decided I wanted to do something else on the side, but it didn’t work out, so I returned to the restaurant business. In 2010, I opened another place with Hemant Tuli, which was also in New York City, and I was with him until about 2015. In 2015, I decided to open my own place in Astoria, Queens, called Curry Culture.
At Curry Culture, we were recognized as the best Indian restaurant for five years in a row in Queens. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, we had to shut down the restaurant. It was a beautiful, huge space. After that, I decided to move to the East Village and open something focused on takeout and delivery, a more casual place. So, I ended up opening Veeray da Dhaba, which is located on 13th Street and 1st Avenue, with Chef An Mathur. We survived the pandemic, and it’s the first pure Punjabi-run Dhaba in New York City.
The chef here, Binder, is also from Punjab, so we picked the dishes that we used to eat growing up, and it’s still going strong. It’s doing good business and is still located on 14th Street. After a few years, I decided with Aon to open up a new place, and we ended up opening V, which is where I’m sitting right now. As you can see, this is more upscale Indian dining. While people often call it a fine dining restaurant, I refer to this place as a fun dining restaurant.
The concept of this place is that it’s a speakeasy, the first Indian speakeasy opened by Indians. The speakeasy concept originated in the 1920s during the Prohibition era when alcohol was banned in the U.S. All the mobsters and wise guys decided to open up speakeasies because they were the ones doing bootlegging and supplying illegal alcohol at that time. There were about 100,000 speakeasies that opened up in New York City during that period.
When I saw this space, there were no windows, nothing, and I got the idea that this could be a nice Indian speakeasy. It took me 11 months for the construction to be finished.
Everything you see in this place is custom-built. The lights are made by a gentleman from Spain who flew in to create all the lighting. The mirrors are all vintage mirrors from Italy. The marble on my right side of the restaurant is from Brazil. The brass you see engraved in the mirrors, at the bar, and in the bathroom is aged 100 years; it used to be part of a sculpture in New York City. Our architect, Vincent Van Duysen, purchased it and used it wherever she wanted.
The food is all Indian, representing different regions of India. The cocktails are named after the gangsters and bootleggers of the 1920s. It has a nice, cozy, fun vibe, very intimate dining, and people love our food and our style here.
And I would say that after I built this space, I think about the dream I had for many years when I was a kid. I always wanted to come to New York City. The day I arrived in New York City, I was crossing the Queensborough Bridge, heading home to Queens after my shift. As I looked back at the city, I told myself, “Someday, I’m going to make myself successful in this city”. I believe that with this project, I am getting there. This is the first one, and I plan to open more, but right now, the focus is to get this place up and running.
We recently opened on September 9th, 2024, and hopefully next year, I will have another location in a different city. Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention the address of my place: it’s V, located at 213 East 45th Street. Come visit me! This is my immigrant story. Thank you for watching.

*The term “Immimentary” is a combination of words “immigrant” and “documentary”.
IMMIMENTARY is a film production company and a series of documentaries that feature interviews with immigrants from all walks of life. Stories told by the immigrants themselves.