#blahvsfood goes to Avartana

March 16, 2020

#blahvsfood goes to Avartana

I had heard amazing things about Avartana at the ITC Grand Chola in Chennai. There are people who say it is the best restaurant in India. Unfortunately it falls outside the Delhi-Mumbai-Goa-Bangalore axis and so a lot of people who travel to eat don’t get around to trying to it. I had started to increasingly feel that I can’t take myself seriously as an eater if I hadn’t been to this much heralded restaurant almost 3 years after it had opened.

So I finally planned a trip to Chennai specifically to eat at Avartana and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed. I can see why people compare it to Indian Accent or call it a South Indian Indian Accent but such a comparison would do a disservice its originality and excellence.

Tomato rasam

Vermicelli yoghurt with preserved lemon

Avartana is South Indian food reinterpreted and reimagined in a new way. But it remains faithful to the original flavours, giving it a sense of tradition, roots and authenticity that surprised me and made me very happy. I’m married into a South Indian family and over the last two decades I’ve become indoctrinated enough to be as fastidious as any South Indian towards what the cuisines are “supposed to” taste like. Even in this most demanding of environments, Avartana succeeds. From the peppery rasam with the intense umami of tomatoes to the sourness and hint of fermentation in the curd rice (actually made of vermicelli) every flavour felt real, the sort you would find in a Tamil or Kannadiga home, even if it looked completely different.

Uthukuli butter Morel with Malabar parotta and butter toffee

Slow roasted pork belly with Coorg vinegar masala, barley and ghee candle

One of the things that make Indian fine dining different is how the mains are often more memorable than the starters. In most tasting menus abroad, the real joy often comes in the canapés while the mains showcase the product/produce/technique more than flavour or creativity. My absolute favourite dishes. At Avartana the main courses hit the high notes time after time.

The Butter Morel with Malabar Parotta and butter toffee was fragrant and intense. The slow cooked pork belly with Coorg vinegar masala and barley was a marvel. It had a candle made of ghee that melted into the podi making that classic podi with thuppa combination that can take anything from idli to rice to meat and make it magical.

Chicken rice with Aubergine yoghurt

There was also a Chicken rice with Aubergine yoghurt that felt like a Chettinad version of the Singaporean classic, redolent in spice and wrapped in a leaf, but subtle, so you could actually taste the soft boiled and fermented rice and chicken in every spoon, with the spice playing the background notes that add depth instead of overwhelming the main ingredients, much like the soy and sauce in a Singapore chicken rice play a supporting role.

This is an extraordinary restaurant, well worth traveling to, a restaurant that showcases and celebrates the cuisines of an underrepresented part of India. I respect the fact that it doesn’t do some sort of generic “South Indian food” but actually traverses five southern states looking for specific dishes from diverse communities and different districts and regions. Places like Avartana, Kappa Chakka Kandhari and Bengaluru Oota Company are forging new and unique paths forward for the cuisines of South India and that is something that every food lover should celebrate.

We ate: