THE NEW PECKING ORDER
The
conservative Chennai of yesteryear is changing and how… and the result is some
of the most innovative, entertaining dining that you can find anywhere in
India. Adieu Delhi and Mumbai; Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad may be the new
dining and wining capitals
A
drag act, a woman playing Senorita on the sax, rivers of champagne, a jampacked
dance floor, a couple of hundred people sampling international cuisines, snazzy
drinks and socializing on seven vertical levels… When The Flying Elephant,
Chennai’s most anticipated restaurant, launched at the Park Hyatt a couple of
months ago, with a big-bang party unlike any other you may have seen play out
in Delhi or even Mumbai, it only helped reinforce one startling fact: The
sleepy, conservative Madras of yesteryear has changed. And how.
A few weeks prior to that launch, Louis Vuitton had finally, officially, announced its entry into what used to be India’s most unchanging metro. (That party ended in the swimming pool, we are reliably told.) And even firmly rooted Chennaiites nod their heads, not really in despair, when they say that, yes, monogrammed luxury now has a place in the notoriously low-profile, non-flashy city, where it has traditionally been “difficult to make out who has money and who doesn’t because no one thinks twice before stepping into a hotel or a store in their flipflops, very unlike Delhi, where everyone is dressed to attract attention.”
And just this month, as the 500-600 dressed-to-kill celebrities, film stars, society souls as well as guests from Mumbai and Delhi turned up for the launch of Westin hotel in Velachery — once regarded by old-timers as the boondocks — you could have been excused for thinking that you had landed up at a particularly in-demand do in Mumbai, India’s most raved about party city — until now.
Chennai is clearly changing and so are its tastes — whether they be sartorial, cultural or foodie. In the city, where winters are still reserved for classical music and dance, where the local elite and NRIs-in-shorts have typically hung out at places such as the quiet and peaceful Amethyst (café and store), where books and Kanjeevaram sarees have been the mainstay of retail, things are beginning to look a little different. Twenty four-hour bars (inside hotels since they are the only ones allowed the liquor licence) are buzzing, there are jams outside spanking, new malls, and restaurants are experimenting with some of India’s most innovative F&B concepts.
If you think that Delhi and Mumbai are the food capitals of the country, think again. All the real experiments seem to be happening elsewhere. Chennai, of course, with its big cultural churn, heads the pack. The Flying Elephant has to be the most unique restaurant in India at the moment. A seven-level vertical space designed by the acclaimed George Wong, it features six interactive kitchens and bars across different levels. If The Flying Elephant is a multi-sensory, complete unwind space that treats food as part of larger entertainment, ITC Grand Chola’s Royal Vega, just across the road, is firmly focused on food.
As the country’s first and only high-end, luxe vegetarian restaurant, it is a kind of Dum Pukht for the vegetarians, if you please. The restaurant’s big success lies in how it has been able to “exoticise” vegetarian food so that people are willing to spend five-star bucks for a taste. Prodigious amount of research has gone into the restaurant and Ayurvedic principles are followed in preparation and service (for instance, your meal begins with a bit of sweet since that is supposed to stimulate digestive juices; dessert portions, on the other hand, are small and optional as “after a well balanced meal, your body does not really need sweet”, as corporate chef Manjit Gill says). But the food per se is not regional or community-specific. Instead of “authenticating” it in this manner, the restaurant is clear that all the recipes are recreated. There are sangria kofte inspired by the Thar, chaman or cottage cheese preparations inspired by Kashmir, a pinched old-Delhi bread that is now disappearing from even traditional homes. But in the end, the flavours are all unique and, well, “reimagined”.
Ottimo Cucina Italiana, the Italian restaurant at the ITC Grand Chola, is also unique: Featuring an open kitchen bang in the centre of the restaurant with a flamboyant Italian chef equally on display. A grappa bar, artisanal cheese and pasta complete the picture. Newer concepts are in the offing: A speciality grills restaurant opening at the Westin will serve up more than north Indian kebabs. Apart from pan-Asian grills, this one may have south American ones too: Brazilian churrascaria in Chennai, any one?
FULL PLATE IN BANGALORE
Bangalore, with its cosmopolitan mix, has been dabbling with the quirky and the cutting edge for quite some time. Some really lovely cafés apart, there are all manners of small restaurants, dessert places and bars that you can safely spend your evenings in: From Buried Alive, an only-desserts parlour that makes everything from scratch and has some of the most luscious pavlova around to tiny Vietnamese home-style places to the popular Biere Club, possibly the best craft brewery in the country. A popular and casual destination for executives post work, the Biere Club has now added a “chophouse” on the first floor with steaks and grills. You could be forgiven for thinking that you are really in Silicon Valley!
Yet one of the most interesting restaurants to take shape in Bangalore — and perhaps anywhere in India — is in its up and coming suburb of Whitefield. Likethatonly is a whimsical, almost magical space that reminds you of a tropical rainforest at one moment and a kitschy, irreverent design studio at the other — what with a bathtub at the entrance (instead of the serenity pools most restaurants of the ilk go for), spaces that will let in real butterflies, old bric-a-brac (some of which is sourced from flea markets) and customised crockery that reflects a sense of fun inherent even in the menu.
The food is equally creative: Asian flavours are the inspiration but you could be eating anything from seven spice salmon atop a local yam puree to a Sake poached pear and roquefort salad to even a Caesar salad with shichimi powder! The drinks are equally unconventional: Mary Pops In is a smoked Bloody Mary, and “Lotta”, well, comes in a lota, a potent brew!
BLIND TASTING IN HYDERABAD
Hyderabad has always been a foodie city. But aside from the old biryani/haleem restaurants, it is all-you-can eat buffets in the city that have typically tended to do well. That value consciousness may be a part of the old culture, but even Hyderabad is opening itself up to change with newer, trendier experiences. The café culture is thriving in the city as are some seriously, well-researched restaurants.
Kebab Theatre at the Lemon Tree hotel in Hitech City is one of them. From Arabic style kebabs served on a bed of rice with nuts to first-rate chaplis from Lahore, from the Iranian chelo to Avadi galauti and Hyderabadi sheekampuri, this one traces the journey of the kebab in its many forms through various regions. The curries are kept to a minimum, as the grills take centrestage. But one of the most surprising concepts that are now to be found in Hyderabad is “Dinner in the Dark”.
Since the early 2000s, “dark” restaurants — where diners eat and drink in absolute
darkness; the loss of vision heightening the other senses — have been trendy in various parts of the world. From Germany to the Netherlands, London to Hong Kong, culinary experimenters have been keen to go on this kind of adventure, where you can perhaps smell and taste better even if you can’t make out what you are eating. Dinner in the Dark (part of the global Dialogue in the Dark initiative) at Inorbit Mall Hyderabad is a similar experiment. One does not quite know how it will do beyond the curiosity value. But what is undoubtedly also surprising is that the concept should have come to Hyderabad first, instead of the other meccas of fine dining in the country. But like we said, the old pecking order may just be changing
A few weeks prior to that launch, Louis Vuitton had finally, officially, announced its entry into what used to be India’s most unchanging metro. (That party ended in the swimming pool, we are reliably told.) And even firmly rooted Chennaiites nod their heads, not really in despair, when they say that, yes, monogrammed luxury now has a place in the notoriously low-profile, non-flashy city, where it has traditionally been “difficult to make out who has money and who doesn’t because no one thinks twice before stepping into a hotel or a store in their flipflops, very unlike Delhi, where everyone is dressed to attract attention.”
And just this month, as the 500-600 dressed-to-kill celebrities, film stars, society souls as well as guests from Mumbai and Delhi turned up for the launch of Westin hotel in Velachery — once regarded by old-timers as the boondocks — you could have been excused for thinking that you had landed up at a particularly in-demand do in Mumbai, India’s most raved about party city — until now.
Chennai is clearly changing and so are its tastes — whether they be sartorial, cultural or foodie. In the city, where winters are still reserved for classical music and dance, where the local elite and NRIs-in-shorts have typically hung out at places such as the quiet and peaceful Amethyst (café and store), where books and Kanjeevaram sarees have been the mainstay of retail, things are beginning to look a little different. Twenty four-hour bars (inside hotels since they are the only ones allowed the liquor licence) are buzzing, there are jams outside spanking, new malls, and restaurants are experimenting with some of India’s most innovative F&B concepts.
If you think that Delhi and Mumbai are the food capitals of the country, think again. All the real experiments seem to be happening elsewhere. Chennai, of course, with its big cultural churn, heads the pack. The Flying Elephant has to be the most unique restaurant in India at the moment. A seven-level vertical space designed by the acclaimed George Wong, it features six interactive kitchens and bars across different levels. If The Flying Elephant is a multi-sensory, complete unwind space that treats food as part of larger entertainment, ITC Grand Chola’s Royal Vega, just across the road, is firmly focused on food.
As the country’s first and only high-end, luxe vegetarian restaurant, it is a kind of Dum Pukht for the vegetarians, if you please. The restaurant’s big success lies in how it has been able to “exoticise” vegetarian food so that people are willing to spend five-star bucks for a taste. Prodigious amount of research has gone into the restaurant and Ayurvedic principles are followed in preparation and service (for instance, your meal begins with a bit of sweet since that is supposed to stimulate digestive juices; dessert portions, on the other hand, are small and optional as “after a well balanced meal, your body does not really need sweet”, as corporate chef Manjit Gill says). But the food per se is not regional or community-specific. Instead of “authenticating” it in this manner, the restaurant is clear that all the recipes are recreated. There are sangria kofte inspired by the Thar, chaman or cottage cheese preparations inspired by Kashmir, a pinched old-Delhi bread that is now disappearing from even traditional homes. But in the end, the flavours are all unique and, well, “reimagined”.
Ottimo Cucina Italiana, the Italian restaurant at the ITC Grand Chola, is also unique: Featuring an open kitchen bang in the centre of the restaurant with a flamboyant Italian chef equally on display. A grappa bar, artisanal cheese and pasta complete the picture. Newer concepts are in the offing: A speciality grills restaurant opening at the Westin will serve up more than north Indian kebabs. Apart from pan-Asian grills, this one may have south American ones too: Brazilian churrascaria in Chennai, any one?
FULL PLATE IN BANGALORE
Bangalore, with its cosmopolitan mix, has been dabbling with the quirky and the cutting edge for quite some time. Some really lovely cafés apart, there are all manners of small restaurants, dessert places and bars that you can safely spend your evenings in: From Buried Alive, an only-desserts parlour that makes everything from scratch and has some of the most luscious pavlova around to tiny Vietnamese home-style places to the popular Biere Club, possibly the best craft brewery in the country. A popular and casual destination for executives post work, the Biere Club has now added a “chophouse” on the first floor with steaks and grills. You could be forgiven for thinking that you are really in Silicon Valley!
Yet one of the most interesting restaurants to take shape in Bangalore — and perhaps anywhere in India — is in its up and coming suburb of Whitefield. Likethatonly is a whimsical, almost magical space that reminds you of a tropical rainforest at one moment and a kitschy, irreverent design studio at the other — what with a bathtub at the entrance (instead of the serenity pools most restaurants of the ilk go for), spaces that will let in real butterflies, old bric-a-brac (some of which is sourced from flea markets) and customised crockery that reflects a sense of fun inherent even in the menu.
The food is equally creative: Asian flavours are the inspiration but you could be eating anything from seven spice salmon atop a local yam puree to a Sake poached pear and roquefort salad to even a Caesar salad with shichimi powder! The drinks are equally unconventional: Mary Pops In is a smoked Bloody Mary, and “Lotta”, well, comes in a lota, a potent brew!
BLIND TASTING IN HYDERABAD
Hyderabad has always been a foodie city. But aside from the old biryani/haleem restaurants, it is all-you-can eat buffets in the city that have typically tended to do well. That value consciousness may be a part of the old culture, but even Hyderabad is opening itself up to change with newer, trendier experiences. The café culture is thriving in the city as are some seriously, well-researched restaurants.
Kebab Theatre at the Lemon Tree hotel in Hitech City is one of them. From Arabic style kebabs served on a bed of rice with nuts to first-rate chaplis from Lahore, from the Iranian chelo to Avadi galauti and Hyderabadi sheekampuri, this one traces the journey of the kebab in its many forms through various regions. The curries are kept to a minimum, as the grills take centrestage. But one of the most surprising concepts that are now to be found in Hyderabad is “Dinner in the Dark”.
Since the early 2000s, “dark” restaurants — where diners eat and drink in absolute
darkness; the loss of vision heightening the other senses — have been trendy in various parts of the world. From Germany to the Netherlands, London to Hong Kong, culinary experimenters have been keen to go on this kind of adventure, where you can perhaps smell and taste better even if you can’t make out what you are eating. Dinner in the Dark (part of the global Dialogue in the Dark initiative) at Inorbit Mall Hyderabad is a similar experiment. One does not quite know how it will do beyond the curiosity value. But what is undoubtedly also surprising is that the concept should have come to Hyderabad first, instead of the other meccas of fine dining in the country. But like we said, the old pecking order may just be changing
ANOOTHI
VISHAL TCR130504
1 comment:
Thank you. I just wanted to know where to ship it since I know now to keep producing it
Buffet Lunch in Chennai
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