Maya Gohill Is a Calgary Artist. She Also Designed the Restaurant That Just Won Best Designed Restaurant in Canada. And She Owns It.
Calcutta Cricket Club at 340 17 Avenue SW in Calgary has become one of the city's most distinctive dining rooms — a West Bengal-inspired Indian restaurant designed by local artist and owner Maya Gohill, whose vision for the space she once described as '1960s Indian social club meets The Golden Girls.' The restaurant has earned national recognition for its design, has built a devoted following for its kati rolls, curries, and biryani, and continues to operate as one of Calgary's proudest independently owned dining destinations.
August 16, 2026 · By Justin Plosz · Calgary, Alberta · Business · 8 min read read
The Designer Is Also the Owner: Maya Gohill and the Calcutta Cricket Club
Most restaurants hire a designer. Maya Gohill is both the designer and one of the owners of Calcutta Cricket Club — a distinction that shows in every corner of the room at 340 17 Avenue SW in Calgary.
Gohill is a Calgary-based artist whose work spans multiple mediums. When Calcutta Cricket Club was conceived, the vision for the space was always hers: a dining room that drew on the warmth and specificity of a 1960s Indian social club while carrying a colour sensibility and layered character that she once described as meeting The Golden Girls halfway. It is a precise and specific aesthetic, and it works — because it is the vision of someone who inhabits the space as an artist, not as a contractor hired to execute someone else's brief.
The result is a dining room that does not look like any other restaurant in Calgary. Warm colours, patterned surfaces, art on the walls that feels curated rather than installed, and a light quality that makes the room feel like an event at any hour of service. The design has earned national recognition — the Best Designed Restaurant in Canada award — and it has made the restaurant one of the most photographed dining rooms in the city. But the design is not the point. The point is what the design serves: a meal.
The Cuisine: West Bengal Comes to 17th Avenue
The menu at Calcutta Cricket Club is anchored in the food traditions of West Bengal — one of India's most culinarily expressive regions, and one that does not always receive the attention it deserves in Canadian Indian restaurant culture, where North Indian and Punjabi traditions have historically dominated.
Kati rolls are the signature: warm flatbread wrapped around spiced fillings — paneer, chicken, lamb — with sauces and fresh ingredients that make each roll a complete thing. The curry program explores the depth of Bengali sauce work — mustard, turmeric, and a spice profile that is different from the North Indian standards most Calgary diners already know. The biryani is a centrepiece dish, layered and aromatic, built for the table.
The kitchen cooks for people who may be encountering West Bengali food traditions for the first time and for people who grew up with them — and it holds both audiences without flattening the food to serve the unfamiliar. That is the harder thing to do, and it is what separates Calcutta Cricket Club from a restaurant that simply uses Indian ingredients to produce something approachable.
Best Designed Restaurant in Canada: What the Award Means
Winning Best Designed Restaurant in Canada is not a local recognition — it is a national measure of a space against every other restaurant that opened or was operating during the award cycle. For a restaurant on 17th Avenue in Calgary, the award says something about how far a specific, considered vision can travel when it is executed without compromise.
The award draws attention to Maya Gohill's design work in a way that matters for the city as well as the restaurant. Calgary has a reputation for energy-sector pragmatism that can undersell its creative culture. Calcutta Cricket Club — designed by a local artist who owns the place — is an argument that Calgary produces design talent of national calibre, and that the right hospitality project is the right stage to prove it.
For the restaurant itself, the recognition has amplified what was already a word-of-mouth destination. The space fills on weekend evenings. It is the restaurant Calgarians bring out-of-town guests to when they want to show them something the city is doing better than anywhere else. That is a function the space earned by being genuinely exceptional, not by winning an award — but the award made sure more people knew where to look.
Brunch, Dinner, and the Full Week on 17th Avenue
Calcutta Cricket Club operates across a full weekly schedule that includes both dinner service and weekend brunch — a programming decision that opens the restaurant's food and atmosphere to a different rhythm of the city.
Brunch at Calcutta Cricket Club is not a secondary service. The same kitchen standards and the same design environment that makes the dinner room one of Calgary's most notable tables also makes it one of the more interesting ways to spend a Saturday or Sunday morning on 17th Avenue. The Bengali culinary framework translates well to brunch-hour food — spiced, warming, layered — and the cocktail and drink program has the range to serve both morning-adjacent and full cocktail needs.
Dinner runs Monday through Sunday, with Friday and Saturday service extending to midnight. The combination of a proper late service on weekends, a brunch program on Saturday and Sunday, and a kitchen that delivers food worth coming back for has made Calcutta Cricket Club a restaurant with genuine staying power in a neighbourhood that sees a lot of competition.
Calcutta Cricket Club is located at 340 17 Avenue SW, Calgary, AB, T2S 0A8. Phone: (403) 719-1555. Hours: Monday–Thursday 5–10 pm, Friday 5 pm–midnight, Saturday brunch 11 am–3 pm and dinner 5 pm–midnight, Sunday brunch 11 am–3 pm and dinner 5–10 pm. Instagram: @calcuttacricket. Website: calcuttacricketclub.com.
Key takeaways
- Calcutta Cricket Club is a West Bengal-inspired Indian restaurant at 340 17 Avenue SW, Calgary, AB — designed and co-owned by local Calgary artist Maya Gohill.
- The restaurant has won Best Designed Restaurant in Canada, recognized nationally for Maya Gohill's vision of a space she has described as '1960s Indian social club meets The Golden Girls.'
- The menu centres on West Bengal culinary traditions: kati rolls, curries, and biryani — a regional focus that distinguishes CCC from most Canadian Indian restaurants.
- Weekend brunch runs Saturday and Sunday 11 am–3 pm. Dinner service runs seven days, with late-night Friday and Saturday service until midnight.
- Phone: (403) 719-1555. Instagram: @calcuttacricket. Website: calcuttacricketclub.com. Address: 340 17 Ave SW, Calgary, AB T2S 0A8.
Frequently asked questions
- Where is Calcutta Cricket Club located in Calgary?
- Calcutta Cricket Club is at 340 17 Avenue SW, Calgary, AB, T2S 0A8. Phone: (403) 719-1555.
- Who owns and designed Calcutta Cricket Club?
- Calcutta Cricket Club is co-owned and designed by Calgary artist Maya Gohill. She designed both the original 17th Avenue location and the restaurant's second Calgary location, earning the Best Designed Restaurant in Canada award for her work.
- What kind of food does Calcutta Cricket Club serve?
- Calcutta Cricket Club serves West Bengal-inspired Indian cuisine, including kati rolls, curries, biryani, and sharing dishes. The menu draws on the food traditions of West Bengal rather than the more common North Indian and Punjabi traditions found in most Canadian Indian restaurants.
- What are Calcutta Cricket Club's hours?
- Monday–Thursday 5–10 pm. Friday 5 pm–midnight. Saturday brunch 11 am–3 pm and dinner 5 pm–midnight. Sunday brunch 11 am–3 pm and dinner 5–10 pm.
- Has Calcutta Cricket Club won any awards?
- Yes. Calcutta Cricket Club won Best Designed Restaurant in Canada — a national recognition for the interior design work of co-owner and Calgary artist Maya Gohill.
- How do I follow Calcutta Cricket Club on social media?
- Follow Calcutta Cricket Club on Instagram at @calcuttacricket. Find menus and reservation information at calcuttacricketclub.com.
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