Red Fort Opens May 1 in Ogden’s Old El Matador Building

Red Fort Cuisine of India will open in Ogden May 1 in the former El Matador Building at 2564 Ogden Avenue.

El Matador closed in September 2022 after over 60 years in business. Last last year, owners Tony and Paula Hasratian sold the building to the Red Fort group, according to Ali Noori, a manager at the Layton Red Fort location.

Noori’s father, Wahid Noori and partner Harpal Sing Toor own the Red Fort in Layton, which opened in February 2022.

When I interviewed Ali Noori last November, the goal was to open by February. But, there are always lots of inspections, licenses, remodeling, procuring equipment, hiring staff, and other hoops to jump through when you’re opening a restaurant. And in an older building, some surprises. In February, Siar Noori (another son and manager at the Layton Red Fort) posted on Facebook that Ogden City was requiring that a new grease trap be installed.

Counting the Layton location, this will be the fifth Red Fort restaurant. The original is in St. George, and there are also sites in LaVerkin and Meridian, Idaho. The Layton location opened in February 2022 on the site of the former Marie Callender restaurant.

Interestingly, the Noori family comes from Afghanistan, not India. In an interview with the Standard-Examiner, Ali Noori talked about how his father became a chef, after the family escaped from Afghanistan in the 1990s when the Taliban first came to power.

 “Our family had to flee to Pakistan because my father was in the Afghani army,” Ali Noori said. “We spent four years in Pakistan.”

 They stayed with a relative in Pakistan, the whole family all sharing one room, Ali Noori said. As a way to support the family, Wahid Noori cooked Indian-style food and sold it from a food cart.  

Eventually they were able to meet with the U.S. Embassy and immigrated to the United States as refugees. They arrived in New York just two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Ending up in Utah, Wahid Noori soon got a job as a cook at Bombay House, one of Utah’s long-standing Indian restaurants. After over 20 years working at Bombay House, he wanted to own his own restaurant. He received help from Harpal Singh Toor, one of the Bombay House’s founding partners, said Ali Noori. Harpal’s brother, Shamsher Singh Toor, had already opened the Red Fort Cuisine of India in St. George, and Wahid Noori ended up becoming a partner.

The name Red Fort comes from the historic Red Fort in India where Mughai emperors lived, dating from the 1600s. The elephant with a raised-up trunk stands for good luck, said Ali Noori, and is featured prominently in the restaurant’s logo and decor.

When they started their restaurant business, their dad was the only one with cooking experience. But the family pitched in and learned the business. Ali Noori had worked at Bombay House on weekends during high school, but by the time Red Fort opened, he and his brother, Ahmed Siar Noori, both had careers in the financial industry.

Wahid Noori’s son-in-law Mujtaba Faiz — who was a professional soccer player in Afghanistan — learned how to make the sauces and other culinary skills. He became the kitchen manager at the Layton location.

  “Everything is cooked in-house, cooked to order,” said Faiz.

“People from the ouside think it’s so easy running a restaurant, but they don’t realize all the work you are putting in,” said Ali Noori. “We are doing 12-13 hours daily, seven days a week. But I would rather do that for my own business, rather than another business that’s not going to benefit me in the long run.”

Red Fort’s large menu has chicken, lamb, seafood and vegetarian dishes. There are three tandoori dishes — chicken tikka (breast meat), chicken tandoori (thigh meat), and shrimp tandoori. A tandoor is a large clay oven, heated from burning coal at the bottom, at around 500 degrees. The dishes are marinated in yogurt, garlic and spices, and then grilled on a skewer without touching the oven’s surface.

Soft, pillowy naan breads are cooked by “slapping” the dough on the inner hot wall of the tandoor.

 Butter chicken is a signature dish on the menu, said Ali Noori. “We make it different from other restaurants. We cook the chicken as a kebab style, and the sauce is a butter base rather than a tomato base.”

  The chicken is cooked in a tandoori, and added to the sauce with butter, cream, onions, garlic, ginger, cashews, and golden raisins and spices. The result is tender morsels of chicken swimming in a spicy pool of sauce that can be soaked up with the accompanying jasmine rice. How spicy? Well, you can choose your heat level, so that depends on the customer.

“Most of the locals here are more used to an Americanized spice level,” said Ali Noori. “But if they are from the Bay Area or Arizona, they are used to hotter food.”

Ali’s personal favorite is the same butter sauce, with lamb. It’s not on the menu, but people who know about it can ask for it.

  The popular chicken tikka masala is tandoor chicken breast meat cooked with bell pepper, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, cream and spices.

  He said the restaurant makes its own garam masala, a spice mixture that gives the cuisine its distinctive flavor.

  “That’s a recipe that we don’t share,” he said.

  Those who want to try a sampling of the different appetizers can order the Assorted Snacks platter, with vegetable samosa, (stuffed with mashed potato and green peas), fried vegetable balls with potato, spinach and bell peppers; and chicken pakora (boneless chicken tenders fried in chickpea batter). These appetizers come with mint and tamarind chutneys for dipping.

  “The kids love the chicken pakora because it’s similar to chicken tenders.” Ali Noori said.

   Red Fort serves specialty drinks, such as lassi, made with yogurt. Noori said the mango and strawberry lassi drinks use real chunks of mango and strawberries.

The Fort Lime drink is another guarded recipe, and has you guessing as to what herbs and spices are in it. Basil? Cilantro? Try it yourself and see what flavors can be identified.