(Plus a few thoughts on Goa’s inspiring food scene)
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| Chef Pablo Miranda |
Antonio@31 is one of those places that makes me question my choices about where I live. It’s impossible to have a place like this in Bangalore. Whether it’s the liquor license costs or real estate, you can never have a place this intimate and charming that’s still so buzzing with food and drink that has thought and roots and soul but also skill and craft and technique.
The decor uses no fancy material, blue tarpaulin sheets and ribbon strips of coloured cloth hanging from the roof of the passage way. Brightly painted walls and chalk murals. But moment you step in, you feel like you’re transported into a neighbourhood bar in Lisbon or Rio or Bilbao, the kind you stumble into on a serendipitous evening when your feet have led you far away from the tourist traps to neighbourhoods where no one speaks a word of English and where you have the nights you remember when you are old.
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| Urrack and kokum |
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| Mushroom Rissois |
The place was created by Chef Pablo Miranda and his brother Marco, local Panjim boys who missed having a local bar serving local food that wasn’t a dive bar like Joseph’s. If you’re drinking have the urrack and kokum cocktail, all spice and intensity and with lovely balance.
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| Bone marrow |
And for food, we really didn’t have a single bad dish. Yes it’s neighbourhood Goan food but with the refinement that you would expect of a chef with Pablo’s background. The roasted bone marrow is a star dish, especially for those of us who have had to make our way to places like St. John’s in London just to have a good marrow. This is topped with a chilli and onion paste, pickled onions and crispy garlic, and served with poee bread so it becomes a real Goan dish rather than a European one. The mushroom rissois come with truffle oil (and please spare me the gyan about how truffle oil is a scam unless you’re willing to pay for real truffles).
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| Crispy baitfish |
There are more rustic dishes as well if that’s what you prefer like the crispy baitfish, a much loved Goan bar snack or a grilled prawn balchao. There is also a snapper ceviche that is less refined than the versions you would get at Mahe or O’Pedro but which doesn’t suffer in comparison, because the curry leaf and coconut milk give its body a sense of depth and vigour and identity that is unique to itself.
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| Snapper ceviche |
I have to go back to try dishes like the aad mass ossobuco but I really came out of my meal feeling energised and inspired by Goa’s food and drink scene. Whether it’s Chefs like Picu and Sandeep and Pablo and Bawmra or Anumitra, classic places like Bhatti Village and Anand Seafood, drinks with people like Bulund and Arijit and Pankaj, street food from ros omlette to choris pao, people like Hansel Vaz bottling incredible feni, there is something very very special happening in Goa. People who write about food and have a big city centric perspective on it really should go check it out because I can’t think of any other place in india that is seeing so many people doing so many interesting things with food and drink. I wouldn’t even begin to compare it to Bangalore, a city whose food scene is provincial in comparison. But Delhi and Mumbai had better watch out… because at this rate Goa may soon become the epicentre of India’s food movement.
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| Stuffed chicken wings with hot sauce |
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| Grilled prawn balchao |
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