This Toronto couple is the team behind one of the city's hottest new supper clubs
Toronto couple Uzma Ahmed and Ali Amarshi have been running one of Toronto's hottest supper clubs for the past year, all while juggling full-time jobs.
When you're really passionate about something, you can always find the time to do it.
That's the sentiment that Ali Amarshi, one-half of the team behind Rakabi, a South Asian supper club that's making waves on the Toronto food scene, tells me allows him to balance running the venture with his full-time job as a tech product designer.
His partner (both in business and in life), Uzma Ahmed, works in the mental health field as a social worker and psychotherapist.
Together, in whatever spare time they're able to scrounge up, they run Rakabi, a supper club and event pop-up they created as a means of exploring and sharing their South Asian roots with the city, and what better way to do so than through food?
Though neither Ahmed nor Amarshi come from a formal culinary background, they've both always had a passion for hosting, and the first seeds of what would eventually become Rakabi were first sown at their home, hosting friends for dinner.
"We always have our friends over. Our place is always 'The Spot' for people to come to, and I think hosting is something that comes very naturally to us, like it's a cultural thing. It's how both of our families raised us, so we were kind of doing it as more of a fun thing with friends," Amarshi tells me.
Word travels fast, even in a major city, and interest in Rakabi steadily began mounting. In the summer of 2024, they finally made the jump to host their first public event.
Now with pop-ups at Hamers Coffee (rest in peace), Standard Time, 915 Dupont and Chez Wa under their belts, Rakabi is a bona fide success story, and the warm reception it's gotten has been made all the sweeter by Ahmed and Amarshi's deep personal connection to the cuisine they serve.
Both coming from South Asian backgrounds, Rakabi is Ahmed and Amarshi's love letter to the cuisines they grew up on, with unique twists that make each Rakabi meal a singular experience.
"We want to show people things that they have never seen before," Amarshi explains. "This is beyond your typical, you know, curry takeaway or whatever. We want to open people's minds and show that Indian or Pakistani food is as regional as Italian food or French food, if not more."
They're not simply trying to emulate classic dishes, though. By Amarshi's own admission, "I don't think I can make food as good as my mom," but the attention to honouring familiar flavours and culinary concepts is still there.
A personal favourite dish of Ahmed and Amarshi's, for example, is their Mandazi Milk Toast, which is inspired by mandazi, an East African fried bread.
For the Rakabi rendition, Ahmed and Amarshi create a shokupan (Japanese milk bread) with hints of cardamom and coconut. It's fried until crispy and topped with a generous drizzle of saffron-infused crème anglaise, a sprinkle of pistachio and dried rose.
"It's pulling from the East African background, the Pakistani background, and then also, through the lens of what we go out and eat every weekend, so it's kind of a story in itself, and probably describes us best in one dish," Amarshi says.
It's such a hit that, this summer, they collaborated with SMILK bars to turn their Mandazi Milk Bread into an ice cream bar, garnished with a streak of crumbled pistachio and rose petals.
Their pakora dish, a crispier rendition of the Indian staple, similarly pays homage to the oft-overlooked fritter, plated elegantly with a sleek smear of crème fraîche and mint chutney.
More than just the food, though, the real mission behind Rakabi is to foster a sense of community: something that, in a city whose population continues to grow while becoming increasingly segmented, is always welcome.
"Growing up as South Asian, first-generation Canadians, we both felt pressure to blend in and hide parts of ourselves," Ahmed and Amarshi tell me. "Rakabi has been a way for us to share our stories and also create space for others who can relate to these experiences."
The word rakabi translates to "serving dish" in Urdu, a perfect expression of what their Rakabi is: the vessel upon which Ahmed and Amarshi's personal histories, creativity and passions are served.
If you're antsy to get a taste of what Rakabi's all about, you're out of luck for the rest of 2025. The duo are taking a bit of time off from the concept for likely the rest of the year, travelling to get fresh inspiration (and much-needed rest) to come back better than ever in 2026.
Beyond that, though, the sky is the limit. Even a full-blown restaurant isn't off the table in the future, but that won't be for a while yet.
"Opening a brick and mortar has always been at the back of our minds but it's not something we're actively pursuing right now," Ahmed and Amarshi assure me.
"For now, we just want to keep up the momentum and see what happens!"
You can keep up with the latest on Rakabi by following the pop-up on Instagram.
Arshia Mufti, via @rakabi.rakabi/Instagram
