Sammy Akuthota

INFO

Name	Sammy Akuthota (he/him)
Born	1988
Country of Birth	India
Place of Residence	Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Ethnicities	Indian
Artform	Culinary arts
Decades Active	2010s, 2020s

ABOUT

Sammy Akuthota is a restaurateur based in Tāmaki Makaurau, most well-known for founding Satya Chai Lounge. His approach to hospitality is grounded in his upbringing as a takeaway kid, growing up in his family’s first Satya restaurant, which became a chain of South Indian restaurants throughout Tāmaki Makaurau. In every business venture he has started, he places emphasis on providing a contemporary Kiwi-Indian hospitality experience, achieving this by partnering with other New Zealand-owned businesses and offering dining experiences that are relatively underexplored in our culinary culture, such as Indian-inspired alcoholic drinks and Indian street food.

Sammy’s parents, Swamy and Padmaja Akuthota, migrated to Tāmaki Makaurau from Hyderabad, India, in 1996 with their two boys. Struggling to find jobs in their specialised fields, the couple decided to start a restaurant, which birthed the first Satya, opening in the summer of 1999 on Hobson Street. Being immersed in his parents’ business was a formative experience. In an interview for The New Zealand Herald, he said:

As a child you ask, ‘Why do I have to help out and work when all my friends are playing?’. But now I can say how important it was growing up in the restaurant, learning how it works. I was surrounded by a very rich Indian culture, which was so precious to me.

In 2016, while his parents were overseas, Akuthota secretly converted the space behind the Satya restaurant in Sandringham into a small bar and restaurant. This space eventually became Satya Chai Lounge. On a tight budget, Akuthota pulled together cheap decor — old coffee bean bags cover the walls and are used to create a draped false ceiling and empty cans of drink are hung from the ceiling en masse in the entryway corridor to create their “iconic beer can alleyway” — which has since become the restaurant’s signature interior design, contributing to the atmosphere. Akuthota describes it as “A second-generation take on Indian food.”

In creating Satya Chai Lounge, Akuthota says that he “used that as a platform where I could just kind of showcase a whole different style of Indian cuisine”. In conversation with Satellites, he noted that many first-generation Indian restaurants in Aotearoa offer very similar fare and do not take many risks in their offerings. He felt lucky to have had a first-generation upbringing in a traditional Indian restaurant, which inspired him to offer his own take on an Indian food experience in Tāmaki Makaurau. Instead of serving classic rice and curry, he has placed the emphasis on street food that you would find at a dabha or street food stall. Satya Chai Lounge has become known for providing Indian street food as small plates alongside draft beer and cocktails. Their Dahi Puri is their signature dish, which Metro describes as “gorgeous puffs of yoghurt sitting atop a crisp cracker-like shell, topped with a splodge of tamarind sauce and dusted with spice powder and chopped coriander. Truly, it’s the kind of snack you would find in heaven.” Jessica Ellis said of the establishment on the Urban List, “When you sit down at Satya, you get a sense of comfort and community—a theme that also comes through in the food.”

The following year, Akuthota opened a second Satya Chai Lounge on Karangaphape Road, and in 2018, opened GG X Flamingo, a retro-style cocktail bar, adjoining Satya Chai Lounge. At the bar, the staff wore tropical-print shirts, and many drinks were served with paper umbrellas. Spirits were infused with spices that were imported from India, creating distinctive spiced cocktails.

In 2018, Akuthota teamed up with Gemma Walsh, founder of Plant Magic, to host a South Indian Breakfast Pop-Up, which was organised by Satellites and funded by Auckland Council. It was held in the Satya Pollen Street warehouse in Grey Lynn and offered upma, masala chai, mango lassi and kumara-stuffed dosa.

Akuthota hosted another pop-up on Pollen Street in 2020, this time in collaboration with Pōneke-based beer company Garage Project. Named the Hyderabad Hotel — inspired by the 2014 Wes Anderson movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, the pop-up used the same font and drew on the visual aesthetic of Anderson’s films, boasting a bright blue and orange bar and restaurant that served craft beer and dishes created especially for the pop-up. This included Beeryani, made by the two collaborators, which served as the signature drink for the venue. The beer was a rice lager crafted with spices like cloves, saffron, coriander, and cinnamon to mimic the taste of a biryani. In conversation with Viva, he stated that he wanted the design to be playful, noting that “I find that’s what’s lacking in Ponsonby, everything around is just so straight lines and clean edges. I hate doing that and so does Garage Project. I want to return to what Ponsonby and Grey Lynn used to be back in the day, not super flash places but super chill and with character.”

As of 2023, GG X Flamingo remains open for private functions. Both Satya Chai Lounge locations are open to the public. As a restaurateur, Akuthota continues working with his hospitality industry peers to create food experiences that combat the formality in restaurant dining and focus on flavourful food with interesting drink and cocktail pairings. In 2023, he partnered with chef Alfie Ingham to produce XO Mangal, a pop-up with a menu that changed weekly. The menu was inspired by the Silk Road, harnessing elements from Chinese, Turkish, North Indian and Middle Eastern cuisines, where “Everything’s spicy, salty, sour, crunchy,” and served in the cosy setting of the Karangahape Road Satya Chai Lounge.

To host his pop-ups and restaurant ventures, Sammy uses spaces that are owned by his parents. He notes that he is grateful for the support that his parents provide him, stating that:

People come and knock on their door all the time asking to build 10-storey flats here, so it’s super tempting for them to sell and retire. I’ve convinced them to let me have fun in the hospitality industry over the next 10 years.