Kehar Singh is holding a cake, and, for a fleeting moment, he seems to have forgotten where to take it.

The oldest brother in Maryland’s first family of Indian food can be excused—no less than three parties in his Ambassador Dining Room are celebrating birthdays at the Tuscany-Canterbury restaurant on this warm April evening. After serving dessert to the proper table, he heads to another, where he extends his right hand and delivers a pat-on-the-back bro-hug with his left to a regular whose family also chose palak paneer and pakora over pizza to commemorate their milestone. It’s the kind of embrace basketball players exchange before tip-off, not the standard greeting a proprietor dishes out to diners in his upscale restaurant.

The next day, 25 miles south in the bucolic suburbs of Fulton, Kehar’s brother, Binda Singh, strolls around the bar at Ananda, shaking hands with all the customers as if they’re in a receiving line. As always, he’s immaculately dressed—even the white handkerchief peeking out from the breast pocket of his black suit jacket is perfectly folded.

The brothers each ooze charm, but in different ways. The same can be said about their restaurants.

“Running a restaurant is like having a party at your house every night,” says Kehar, 49, who, like your favorite uncle, always seems to be smiling. “Nothing makes us happier [than] when guests are walking through the doors. That’s the greatest honor there is. Somebody thinks you’re good enough to spend time with you. There are hundreds of restaurants around people can go to. They chose this one, and that gives us honor and a certain responsibility to meet their expectations.”

At the Ambassador, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, and now at Ananda, which opened to critical acclaim and adoring crowds two summers ago, the Singhs take that as an opportunity, not a burden.

“I was talking to my father, who’s 80, about who Binda reminded me of in Baltimore history,” says Larry Yumkas, an Ananda regular who lives “300 yards” from the Maple Lawn restaurant. “The only thing I could think of was the Pimlico Hotel in its heyday. When you walked in, Lenny Kaplan was there to greet you. He knew every customer and made you feel special. It’s a really unique skill that Binda has.”

Eight years younger than Kehar, Binda, a sharp dresser with an even sharper jaw line, is the baby of the family and its most stylish and charismatic member. He mostly handles operations at Ananda, while Kehar spends the majority of his time at the Ambassador. They’re not the only siblings responsible for the family’s success, however. Their sisters, Kinday and Boli, run the kitchens in Howard County and Baltimore, respectively. No one gets hung up on job titles. (In fact, both brothers brag that their sisters are good cooks.) “It doesn’t matter whose name is on it, we all own everything,” says Kehar, who arrived with almost nothing when he became the first Singh to make it to America 31 years ago.

The aromas of curries and masalas, of succulent chicken, lamb, and fish cooking in a tandoor oven, are undeniably enchanting. More than any other ethnic cuisine, the smell of Indian food transports the imagination to the land from which it originated.

It was in a farming village in the northwestern part of the world’s second-most populous country that the Singh family sprouted. Sarwan and Darshan’s five children (a middle brother, Sokha, is now a cheese-maker in Toronto) grew up dreaming not of a life of prosperity in might-as-well-have-been-mythical America—they just hoped for some time off their feet.

“The kind of life you live—it’s hard,” says Binda, who’s sitting at a table with Kehar and Kinday in Ananda’s handsome dining room. “There’s never a moment you can just chill. It’s on 24/7. Sitting down is a luxury.”

Back in their village, clover and root vegetables grew in the winter, and cotton, sugar cane, rice, and wheat thrived during the rest of the year. “Farming crops was the easy part,” Kehar says. “It’s the damn livestock that never takes a day off.” Water buffalo, goats, oxen, cows, and pet dogs were staples on the farm. “Don’t forget the monkeys,” Binda says, chuckling.

They all laugh, the fond memories fresh in their heads. It was a laborious childhood, but not an unhappy one. Waking up at 4 a.m. to work the fields and tend to the animals was the only life they knew.

The Singhs are Sikhs, and their religion requires sharing of surnames and preaches truthful living and equality of mankind. Much of their free time in their town of Bundala, in the Punjab region, centered around their temple.

“We grew up barely making ends meet,” Kehar says. “Just like everywhere else, poor people love God a little more than anybody else. We were always cooking at the temple, making sure God’s been pleased.”

“D.C. was a $35 fare, and Baltimore was $12,” recalls Kehar. “So I ended up in Baltimore.”

That task often fell on the shoulders of the girls. Kinday, who, like Boli, speaks primarily Punjabi, says she’s been cooking as long as she’s been on her feet. She started with lentils—which are difficult to botch—and learned to prepare dishes using regional ingredients like toasted sesames, limes, and chilies.

Few people from their village near the Pakistani border ever traveled, let alone to the United States. When then-17-year-old Kehar made the monumental decision to seek a “better life” in the U.S., he had a somewhat delusional idea of what he would find.

“You heard of a country being so rich, you think you just have to show up and you’re rich,” he says. Imagine his surprise, then, when he arrived in Houston, unable to speak much English, with few possessions to his name. Oddly, money wasn’t growing on the trees.

Following a few months in Texas, Kehar boarded a flight east. When the plane landed at Baltimore/Washington International Airport, he hopped into a cab. “D.C. was a $35 fare, and Baltimore was $12,” he recalls. “So I ended up in Baltimore.”

He got a room at the Belvedere Hotel on Chase Street and was hired as a busboy at an Indian restaurant in Mount Vernon. He didn’t know a soul in town, harbored no dreams of opening his own restaurant—and couldn’t have been happier. “That comes from our religious philosophy,” he says. “No huge pipe dreams. One step at a time. The times you are in are the great days, not what is going to be next.”

After five years working at what was then the Harbor Court Hotel, he opened Banjara, an Indian restaurant in Federal Hill. When the last customers shuffled out after his first day in business, he returned to BWI, this time to pick up Binda, who was just 15.

“When you grow up on a farm, you’re always dirty,” Binda says. “Every day [Kehar] would change his shirt, he told me. I thought that must be pretty great. So you start to build ideas in your head. I showed up, and the next day I was at the restaurant washing dishes.”

Banjara became a success, and the brothers bought other businesses, including a nightclub and gas stations. In the mid-1990s, the family decided to help fund a community center back in Punjab that provided needy kids with schooling and food. It’s now run by the government, Binda says.

“It’s such a small community, and my father knew that early education is the only way out of poverty,” he says. “That’s all he would push all day long. The only way you can get ahead is education, and nobody could take that away from you. We wanted to get these youngsters in school or get them some sort of discipline.”

Meanwhile, Binda began looking for a location for a second restaurant. He noticed an ad in The Sun for the Ambassador, a long-vacant restaurant in an apartment building near The Johns Hopkins University. The moment he stepped inside, he knew his search was over.

“The whole look reminded us of old buildings back home,” he says. “Most beautiful old buildings back home are the temples or the old bank. All the woodwork, that English Tudor look, it totally worked for us. The only thing we did in the dining room was paint it. Although restaurants are commercial spaces, if they feel commercial, you have failed. [Customers] must feel at home. There must be anticipation when you get out of your car. You want to go a little bit farther and see what is beyond those walls. There must be a little bit of mystery.”

With its garden setting, roaring fireplaces, and genteel nod to Colonial India, the restaurant, set inside a ’30s-era apartment building, exudes romance. Two decades later, it’s hard to remember that the Ambassador Dining Room wasn’t always a Baltimore landmark.

“Before we opened the door, I remember this vividly, a phone call came in,” Kehar says. “It was a man on the other line and he told me, ‘I heard you bought the Ambassador and it’s going to be an Indian restaurant. I just want to tell you, people around here don’t like Indian food.’ I said, ‘Oh, OK. Have you had it?’ He said, ‘No, I’ve never had it, but I know I don’t like it.’”

Thankfully, more open-minded Baltimoreans did, and, to this day, they continue to flock to the Ambassador. The Singhs’s philosophy for the restaurant can be summed up in three words: Keep it simple. “The accessibility to the freshest ingredients in this country is mind-boggling,” Kehar says. “We are not trying to reinvent the wheel here. What we are doing here, it’s being done thousands of times every day in India.” As business flourished, the brothers brought Boli over in 2008 and Kinday in 2011. (Their parents also now spend half the year in town.)

Amazingly, the Ambassador’s popularity hasn’t waned. Among its biggest fans is Stewart Greenebaum, whose real estate firm was developing 600 acres in Howard County into the planned community of Maple Lawn. He wanted the Singhs to open a second restaurant there (they sold Banjara in 2000), and providentially, the family was itching to design and own its own property. A match was made.

In Ananda (the name is Sanskrit for “bliss”), they created a modern, sleek-looking restaurant that retains the Ambassador’s old-world grace but feels bolder. That’s also reflected in the menu, which features some nontraditional Indian dishes like tandoori beef tenderloin and Himalayan-style roasted duck. From the start, it attracted throngs of locals and national praise. GQ magazine included Ananda on its list of 25 best new restaurants of 2015.

Last year was a banner one for the brothers, who starred in an M&T Bank commercial that captured their playful warmth toward each other and their customers. There was no script and little direction, just two men standing in a studio discussing their unlikely journey, unshakable bond, and unrelenting optimism about life.

“It’s surreal and very humbling. I never thought I could be on TV,” says Binda, whose family didn’t even own one when he was growing up.

“Love, respect, honesty,” Kehar says in the ad. “Those things matter.” At Ananda and the Ambassador, they’re ingredients in every dish.

Just one bite in to my artfully arranged seasonal salad with three towers of watermelon supporting a carefully perched piece of feta, and I find myself fantasizing about moving to the Maple Lawn community where Ananda is located. Clearly, the locals appreciate it. On a Sunday evening, the Indian restaurant is buzzy with diners, many of whom I hear cooing to owner (and serious dreamboat) Binda Singh that they love having such a special spot within waking distance of their own Howard County ’hood.

Located just a few miles south of Columbia, Ananda is the sequel to Baltimore’s popular Ambassador Dining Room, which is tucked away in the quaint Hopkins-adjacent Tuscany-Canterbury neighborhood. The operations are family affairs—Singh and his older brother, Keir, co-own both restaurants, while their sister, Kinday, runs the kitchen at Ananda. For years, the family had been seeking a spot to expand their brand, before settling on this stately stucco structure, which was two years and $3 million in the making.

It’s no easy feat to recreate the romantic elegance of the Ambassador—with its garden setting, roaring fireplaces, and genteel nod to Colonial India—set inside a ’30s-era Tudor-Gothic apartment building. But Ananda (which means “bliss” in Sanskrit) manages to be even more magical. In addition to two seating areas—a more formal dining room with reclaimed stained-glass windows from a Bolton Hill mansion, as well as a recreation of the Ambassador’s year-round veranda with glass garage doors—there’s a stunning marble bar area and two private dining rooms for parties. Also worth noting, in addition to dinner service, Ananda is open for lunch and has a so-called daily “bliss hour” (from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.) for small plates and cut-rate specialty cocktails (put the Mumbai mule on your drink list), plus wine and beer.

While Ananda’s menu echoes the Ambassador’s lineup, the dishes—northern Indian in origin—are cleaner and even more refined. There’s also an ostensible farm-to-table focus thanks to the restaurant’s relationship with Howard County growers. In addition to expertly prepared Indian staples such as lamb vindaloo, chicken korma, alu gobi, and palak paneer, also on offer are house specials such as a moist halibut cold-pressed in organic coconut milk and enrobed in banana leaves, a kerala cake (lump crabmeat tossed with local Silver Queen corn and toasted mustard seeds), and kulu kofta (tender, braised spring lamb, which gets its zing from diced Vidalia onions and a good kick of garlic).

Crab Malabar; Ananda co-owner Binda Singh. —Photography by Scott Suchman

For the sake of comparison, we started our meal with the bengan khas (baby eggplant simmered in fresh tomatoes and topped with a creamy yogurt-and-mint sauce and served with garlic naan for dipping), our go-to dish when dining at the Ambassador. The flavorful eggplant dish did not disappoint and was every bit as delicious here. The avocado-and-roasted-corn salad with red peppers tossed in white balsamic vinaigrette is also deserving of a shout out. It was a nice, light way to start the meal and highlighted the traditional fruits and vegetables of India. We also sampled the onion bhajia, thinly sliced sweet onions flash-fried in a spicy chickpea batter. It was less to our liking, slightly greasy and a bit bland, but the only misstep to an otherwise impeccable meal.

Our entrees were spectacular, too, including the crab Malabar, a traditional coastal Indian dish with colossal hunks of crab seasoned with a symphony of Indian spices, and a vegetable-centric, but surprisingly hearty, jalfreezi with cauliflower, broccoli, peas, sugar snap peas, and potatoes. The smoky reshmi kebab—moist breasts of free-range chicken marinated in yogurt, lime juice, and pistachios, and cooked in the tandoor oven—was the first dish to disappear. (In fact, we liked it so much, we immediately placed a second order to go.) Another greatest hit was the grilled shrimp adrak. A mint, mango, and avocado chutney added texture and brightness and was served on the side. Desserts (consider the creamy house-made rice pudding or the peach-strawberry crumble, if it’s on the menu) were equally exemplary.

As has always been our experience at the Ambassador, the service was unerring. Our waiter, an 18-year Ambassador veteran, was both knowledgeable and passionate about the place. “I wait for the sun to come up so I can get here,” he offered when asked about his new gig. We share his sentiments completely.

Anyone interested in a ’40s fixer-upper in Baltimore County?

ROBBIN HAAS

Chef/owner, Birroteca, The Nickel Taphouse

The Brewer’s Art: The Baltimore Spring Water, its version of a gin and tonic.

The Food Market: Its lobster mac and cheese.

Tapas Teatro: The baby octopus and potatoes.

Pho Dat Thanh, Towson: Pho.

Zorba’s Bar & Grill: The lamb chops.

BINDA SINGH

Co-owner, Ambassador Dining Room

The Food Market: The scallops are amazing.

French Kitchen at Lord Baltimore Hotel: The vibrant beet salad.

Atwater’s: I’m guaranteed to find something I like.

Stone Mill Bakery: The delicious tuna salad.

Cinghiale: The best hand-made pasta in town.

SERGIO VITALE

Chef/co-owner, Chazz: A Bronx Original, Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano

The Food Market: Buffalo pickles—and everything else.

The Capital Grille: Marconi’s salad.

Shoo-Fly Diner: The “adult” slushies. (The apple-cider is dangerously good.)

Broadway Diner: The patty melts.

Andy Nelson’s Southern Pit Barbecue: The pulled pork.

BRIGITTE BLEDSOE

Corporate executive chef, Miss Shirley’s Cafe

Hamilton Tavern: Best burger, hands down.

Thames Street Oyster House: The raw bar, lobster roll.

Fusion: A great, unknown sushi spot in Cockeysville.

Christopher Daniel: The appetizers and EJ, the best bartender/server.

Pappas Restaurant: The crab cake, Old Bay wings.

CHRIS BECKER

Chief operations officer/executive chef, Bagby Restaurant group

Linwoods: Chef Jay Rohlfing’s cooking.

Maggie’s Farm: Fried-oyster steam buns, whiskey lemonades.

Joung Kak: Kimchee soup.

Thames Street Oyster House: The lobster roll.

W.C. Harlan: Late-night drinks.

KARIN AND BUD TIFFANY

Co-owners, Peter’s Inn

Cinghiale: For its consistency.

Poncabird Pub: Old-school, banging, crazy view.

The Food Market: Great brunch, luscious libations.

Hersh’s Pizza & Drinks: Its clever menu.

Tortilleria Sinaloa: Huevos con carne.