I am Nuriyan and here is the story of The Kurze created by a journalist-expat who longed for her national cuisine and started making Kurze (a traditional Dagestani dish) at home, dreaming of opening a small place to introduce its culture through food to Estonians. There were no shortcuts on the path to realizing this dream, but along the way a team came together and now we are living our success.

My homeland is Dagestan, where more than thirty indigenous small nations live, each with its own spoken and written language. I belong to two of them: my mother Atikat is Lakk, and my late father, Sultan, was Chechen.

The same Dagestani dish can vary depending on which nationality prepares it. Even though we don't understand each other's languages, we are all united by Khinkal (no, it's not khinkali) – the main dish representing all the nationalities of Dagestan.