#blahvsfood wrap of 2019: 3 observations from India’s restaurant scene

This was a strange year in many ways. As I spent the year going through a process of realisation and healing I found myself feeling very distant from the life I had been living and the emotions and motivations that governed it. My life was simpler as I seemed to see myself and the world with more clarity, with greater understanding. I found myself questioning some of the reactions and comments, the partisanship and biases, the binaries of winners and losers, my entire worldview as well of those around me. I found that I asked myself more and more, was I kind? Did I seek to understand? Did I avoid judging or labelling? These thoughts started affecting every aspect of my life. I found that I sought depth and honesty, courage and the ability to be true to oneself... and in food as in life, I was drawn to people and places that demonstrated that. 

Although I didn’t travel as much to eat as in other years, I spent a lot of time with people in the food business this year. Food has always been my escape from the politicking, intrigue and downright nastiness of the industry I used to be a part of. However, seeing the food business close up made me realise that it isn’t about one particular industry. It is us. I was saddened by the manipulation and meanness I saw, the pettiness and the politics, the egos and the insecurities. I saw fellow chefs make fun of great chefs like Vikramjit Roy and Prateek Sadhu and try and disparage legends like Manish Mehrotra claiming they were no longer relevant or innovative. I witnessed PR people actively disparage great restaurants to mediapersons just because they weren’t their clients. I saw famous food writers describe a restaurant as tasteless despite not having eaten there for several years and therefore not having experienced how the food and philosophy had been dramatically transformed. I had people tell me not to go to a restaurant because it was shit even though they had never been there or just been there once. I had restaurants that were doing amazing work that wouldn’t get reviewed because they wouldn’t formally invite the right reviewers, hire the right publicists, dole out the right freebies, list on the right platforms. 

I was truly astounded by how many people in the food business believe they are entitled to a free meal, without respecting the challenges faced by restaurants trying to survive, as well as their wafer thin margins. Food influencers, food writers and publicists collude to run what is effectively an extortion racket, a parasitic horde that blackmails restaurants into giving meals for free. There are a few genuine food writers in the country who actually help a restaurant learn and grow, who help readers appreciate and understand food. But literally 99% of them just squeeze restaurants for freebies. 

I understand if it’s a launch or a special occasion but if we truly love food and the food business we must respect the cycle that goes into bringing that food to our tables... from the farmers to the suppliers to the kitchen staff to the serving staff to the chef and the owners. Every single meal we eat in a restaurant is the result of the work, effort, sweat, dreams and sincerity of many people, and the least we can do is recognise that effort and pay for it and treat all these people with the respect their work deserves. 

Every time someone goes in expecting a freebie, they must recognise that there is literally no such thing as a free meal. Someone always pays for it and in this case it is the people who actually put in effort and have something to lose who pay for it. Between the food aggregators and the food influencers, restaurants are caught in a pincer like grip and crushed till they are barely surviving. 

If there is one thing I would hope for next year, it is that that food influencer community approaches their industry with more humility and respect, because unless you’re one of a handful of people with real reach like a Vir Sanghvi or Rashmi Uday Singh or Marryam Reshii, you shouldn’t have a false belief in your own importance. Pay your bills. It’s the least you can do. 

Having said that, I just wanted to highlight three trends I saw last year. This is not a ranking or a best of. There are many great restaurants I don’t mention below. Places I wasn’t able to visit, including Ishara, Avartana, The Bangala and Villa Maya. There are also restaurants I love like The Table that I don’t discuss because this isn’t a list of my favourite places or meals... just what I feel are the things I noticed this year. So without further ado, here we go...

SOURNESS:

I spent some time in Kerala in February and couldn’t help but wonder why it is that sourness is such a big part of the food in Indian home cuisine but not in restaurants. Then I went to Delhi to eat some of the dishes Manish Mehrotra was developing and I was reminded again why he is India’s greatest chef. He was creating a bunch of dishes with sour elements, the best of which was the stuff he was cooking with raw mango, and it made me realise that like all great artists, he was moving to a place of even greater authenticity in his cooking and that sour flavours would soon find more prominence in Indian Accent.

There are other great chefs like Naren Thimaiah at Karavalli who are also reintroducing these classic Indian flavours to their guests. It’s not just raw mango.. from Kachampuli to tamarind to Kokum, we are seeing more and more people use traditional Indian souring agents in their restaurants.

The most inspired use of sour I tasted this year however was a dessert by Prateek Sadhu at Masque. Kabuli Chana ice cream , gondhuraj lime granita and aged banana honey. Months later, I can still remember and almost taste the sense of surprise and wonder, the caramel sweetness cut by the the tart sourness, the intermingling of sweet, sour and acidity in a way I couldn’t even begin imagining. When masters like Manish and Prateek are integrating sour into their cooking, you know that over the next two summers this flavour will just explode. 

THE EVOLUTION OF REGIONAL FOOD:

This year saw the regional food movement continue to grow and evolve. Inspired by the success of places like Bombay Canteen, Comorin, Toast and Tonic, Permit Room, Social and Farzi Cafe you see more and more causal restaurants and bars including local dishes in their menu. You see regional food festivals like this month’s street food festival in Delhi or the tribal food conclave near Jamshedpur thronging with delegates and casual visitors. You see a new generation of young chefs like Megha Kohli and Vanshika Bhatia spend time actually traveling and spending time understanding regional cooking and showcasing them in their restaurants, inheriting the mantle of giants like Manish Mehrotra, Prateek Sadhu and Thomas Zachariah. You see it in North Eastern cooking making its presence felt in places as diverse as ITC Royal Bengal and Thirsty City 127, not as tokenism but front and centre. A place like Whiskey Samba, known more as one of the great drinking places in India, hosted incredible Oriya and Meghalaya food pop ups, places where I ate dishes I never imagined being served in a mainstream restaurant. Finally, you see the growth in places like Oota Bangalore that focus on food from specific communities, serving food that is meticulously researched, documented and authentically sourced and prepared. 

There are a few places however that I really feel the need to highlight specifically. Karavalli was a pioneer in many ways but it is finally getting the recognition it deserves, standing alongside places like Bukhara and Dum Pukht as truly iconic Indian restaurants. I do hope that the food community realises that the low profile Chef Naren Thimaiah is a national treasure, a legend like Imtiaz Qureshi, and someone who has carried the torch for coastal Indian cuisine (the western coast) for over a quarter century.

Bengaluru Oota Company is proof that if you build something with honesty, passion, conviction (and a generous dollop of talent) you will find success. They have broken every rule of how to build a restaurant. You have to book a day in advance. You only get a multi course set menu. You get food from the two communities of its founders. There’s no alcohol. For a long time it wasn’t even really a restaurant. But today, it is an essential place to visit if you visit Bangalore, essential in the truest sense of the word if you really seek to experience the “essence” of Bangalore. 

I was also blown away by Kappa Chakka Kandhari in Chennai. We all think we know Kerala cuisine, but I now realise that all we knew and know is the stereotype of Kerala cuisine. Appams and stew, Malabar parathas, beef fry and biryani are to Kerala food what dosas, idlis, vadas and saambar are to Karnataka cuisine. Iconic dishes that stop us from exploring and discovering, from truly experiencing the depth and diversity of the cuisine. Regional food has always struggled to find the balance between authenticity and appealing to a wide group of customers. That is why the most authentic local restaurants are often hole in the wall places, where students and migrant workers eat the food of home. Kappa Chakka Kandhari shows that more formal restaurants can break free from the tyranny of being accessible, much like Indian Accent showed that you can create an Indian restaurant that didn’t serve butter chicken. This will be profoundly influential, showing a path forward for restaurants that seek to cook authentic regional food.

Finally, I want to talk about Masque. Because Masque is a regional restaurant, a Kashmiri restaurant. And it is one of the world’s great restaurants. It is one of Indian food’s great tragedies that the domestic food community fails to recognise what an extraordinary restaurant Masque is. When it comes to putting Indian food on the world map, it is the most important restaurant to have opened in India in a decade. Like Bukhara and Indian Accent before it, it transforms the world’s understanding of what a fine dining Indian restaurant could be, in fact what Indian food can be. I ate a brilliant meal at Odette, which won the award for Asia’s best restaurant earlier this year and then ate at Masque two months later and in all honesty Masque was immeasurably better.

In most countries, a restaurant like this would be eulogised. I’ve eaten at many of the world’s great restaurants and it is so easy to see the parallels between what Prateek is doing at Masque and places like Den, Quintonil, Central and Atomix.. places that are transforming our perception of the food from Japan, Mexico, Peru and Korea respectively. It makes me wonder why Masque doesn’t get the recognition in India that it should. Is it because our writers and influencers don’t have the exposure to understand the sophistication and subtlety of the cooking and place it in its global context? Is it biases and jealousy? Is it ahead of its time (which is why it’s always packed by foreigners)? I honestly don’t know. I’ve been meaning to write a longer piece about Masque and its brilliance for a while but as someone who isn’t a professional writer I fear I don’t have the ability to do the restaurant justice. But I have to, and soon, because a chef who has been touched by genius and a restaurant with such courage deserves all the support it can get.  

COURAGE:

This brings me to the final trend I saw this year, one that fills me with hope, inspiration and happiness. There has never been a time in Indian food where I have seen so many people with so much courage, fearlessly pursuing their passion to make great food, to learn, to grow, to create and to touch people’s lives. I’ve already mentioned people like Manish Mehrotra who takes Indian Accent to new frontiers while also creating something completely different in Comorin. I’ve spoken about Divya and Vishal from Bengaluru Oota Company or Regi Matthew from Kappa Chakka Kandhari. I have spoken of Vanshika Bhatia from Together at 12th who at age 26 is fearlessly creating an Indian cuisine that cannot be categorised or put in a box. But the list is large and it’s impossible to mention all the people bravely creating their own path. 

There’s Hussain Shahzad, the crown prince of Indian chefs, cooking food that can only be described as Goan inspired, because it goes far beyond any specific cuisine, with the only common threads being the inspiration behind it and the consistent brilliance. 

Vikramjit Roy has gone and created his masterpiece in Kimono Club, a place that wouldn’t be out of place in Mayfair next to Hakkasan and Zuma.

Vinesh Johnny is making desserts that would be appreciated in Paris, moist and balanced like nothing I’ve had in India.

Yangdup Lama is creating bars with intimacy, sophistication, great cocktails, a sense of community and real conversation, giving India its first taste of what a speakeasy can actually feel like. 

Meanwhile Ashish Dev Kapoor keeps reshaping our understanding of what a bar can be, upending formats and business models from Whiskey Samba to Kimono Club to Wine Rack. Pravesh Pandey is doing the same in Bangalore from the gigantic Big Brewsky to the revivalist Bob’s Bar. 

Also in Delhi, Sujan Sarkar has finally brought his unique vision home with the first Indian outpost of Rooh. A place like Rooh scares me. It’s so brave and so uncompromising in its creative vision that it’s like watching a trapeze artist, but that is why I sit on the carpet, a paying consumer, while Sujan soars though the air seeking to touch the sky. 

Riyaaz Amlani feels like the man who can do anything... from the Social and Smokehouse empires to Gresham‘ Fernandes’ unforgettable meals at St. Jude’s Project, French bars and bistros, Indian restaurants, and even leading the rebellion against the Evil Empire... he is “The King of the World”.

This is by no means an exhaustive list or a comprehensive one. In the midst of all the challenges, financial, regulatory, structural, an underdeveloped market, discount-seeking consumers, there are hundreds of brave people who are transforming Indian food, one plate at a time. It feels a bit “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. But I want to end by focusing on the good, because there has never been a better time for Indian food. Where there is courage and conviction, the ability to dream and the willingness to work hard and make those dreams come true, the future will always be bright. So I hope that all of us who love great food, love great restaurants and love this industry approach the next year with more humility, more respect and more kindness. These brave people bring us happiness and joy, they make our memories more special, they make our days brighter. They deserve all the support and all the kindness we are capable of. 

POST SCRIPT:

A few people, chefs and restaurants I wanted to thank for the truly extraordinary work they do, and who I haven’t mentioned above. 

• Seefah: The journey is slower than you deserve but I do believe that finally all of India is starting to realise how brilliant you are. I urge you to cook more Chinese though, there are far too few people who can cook authentic Chinese like you do in India. 
• Gauri Devidayal: If more people in this business had your warmth, generosity and courage, Indian food would be in a very different place.
• Aditi Dugar: You are superwoman. When I go to Masque it still amazes me that anyone had the courage to follow through on this dream. You deserve more and it will happen.
• Alex Sanchez: You are a gift, not just to Colaba but to this country’s food scene. I can still taste that tortellini en brodo, one of my dishes of the year
• Manu Chandra: I had just one dish that you cooked this year (one I cannot name). But it was enough for me to wish that I had more opportunity to eat when you cook yourself and not just at your restaurants.
• Lings Pavilion reminded me that people have been cooking the food for their communities authentically for decades now. It’s just that the world is only now catching up
• Megha Kohli, your future lies in Indian food. Follow that star to the very end.
• Anoothi Vishal, from Kappa Chakka to your secret recommendations, I would always trust you blindfolded 
• Tresind impressed me with the depth of its flavour. I don’t know Himanshu at all but he’s created a great restaurant 
• Saurabh Udina impressed me not just with his continuing progression but with his humility and openness to feedback from a layperson like me. It’s a sign of confidence and security. I push you Saurabh because for all your immense success I feel there is more to come and more you can achieve, so I will keep doing so.
• Gautam Kutty: You truly are one of India‘a great chefs. The shutting down of Smoke Co doesn’t change that. No one in India knows meat like you and whatever you do next will be magical
• Marryam Reshii thank you for the insights, the conversation but most of all thank you for Nooshe Joon
• Finally, this was the first year in ages that I didn’t eat with Gresham or Bawmra. I feel their absence and I promise that I will see you both next year and break bread with you

Thank you 2019. Thank you for the meals. Thank you for the memories 🙏🏼