An apology to Manish Mehrotra and Indian Accent

September 25, 2022

An apology to Manish Mehrotra and Indian Accent

The sorbet that needs no introduction

I have to admit, I have done Manish Mehrotra and Indian Accent a disservice over the last few years. Maybe it was because I’ve been visiting Indian Accent ever since its first year and got so used to its brilliance that I took it for granted. Maybe it’s because the work that Prateek Sadhu and Masque were doing was so genre breaking that I found it hard to not be thrilled by the new. Whatever the reason, I kept talking about Indian Accent’s greatness in a way that felt a little historic rather than current. Like acknowledging its eternal greatness but skimming over its current relevance.

Well this is the moment to humbly apologise because I went back to Indian Accent for the first time since the pandemic and was completely blown away. Except for the dal and kulcha, every single dish was one I had never had before. Some of the dishes were stellar. The rest were spectacular.

The two big differences I noticed were Manish’s immersion into the flavours and textures of chaat and chaat-like snacks along with the engagement with Bihari food that fans like me have waited a long time for.

The most extraordinary rendition of chaat and chatpata

I had spoken about Manish’s experimentation with chaat a few years ago and it now feels as though that journey has found full expression. His ability to take the complexity of chaat (one of Indian food’s greatest achievements) and distill the essence of it, to compress it into one mouthful, and still retain that intense burst of flavour, the interaction of textures, of sweet and sour and tangy and chatpata and spicy… this is an achievement that is as great as the spherical yoghurt or olive of a decade ago, shorn of the gimmicky frills.

Bihari tash mutton, bhunja

I have also loved seeing Indian Accent change from being a largely North Indian influenced restaurant in its early years to something that is more pan-Indian. The fish moilee that Manish introduced around 2016 continues to be the single best moilee I’ve eaten in any restaurant including in Kerala. Over the last few years, I’ve seen Manish turn his gaze eastwards, initially towards Bengal and it’s slightly better known elements like mustard oil and ghondaraj lime. Now he’s going back to his childhood in Patna and introducing Bihari dishes like a tash meat cooked in mustard oil that felt like a more refined cousin of the better known champaran mutton (my guess is because of the use of yoghurt but I’m not sure because I’m an ignoramus when it comes to cooking).

Tofu medu vada, sambar cream, Pearl onion chutney

We also ate the single best medu vada I’ve ever had, made with silken tofu, sambar cream and Pearl onion chutney. Manish took the essence of a great medu vada..the crunch on the outside, the airiness on the inside, the layered heat of a sambar.. and recreated it in a way that was luxurious and imaginative, a homage that tasted better than the object of its veneration.

Coconut and palm sugar cassata, passion fruit aamras, raspberry

For dessert, Manish gave us a take on cassata that wasn’t yet formally on the menu. He took the Italian classic that we grew up with and decided to make it unapologetically, unabashedly Indian with elements like passion fruit aamras and coconut and palm sugar. The dish feels triumphant, a culinary act of reverse colonisation that is destined to be an instant classic much like the Daulat Ki Chaat was.

At the end of the meal that felt more like an ecstatic religious experience than dinner, I had to sit and reflect on why that meal affected me so deeply. And I realised that it is because for all his fame and success, for all his skill and brilliance, Manish Mehrotra is a child at heart. And he takes that child’s sense of joy and playfulness and wonder and imagination and brings it to every dish. This isn’t sexy or cool food. This is food that is playful and unselfconscious and fun and exuberant and joyful. This is food that is full of love and warmth and generosity. And in many ways that’s what India is. India, at its core, isn’t a sexy and cool country. But at its best, we are a country and people of love and warmth and joy and generosity.

At a time when the idea of India and what it means is questioned, the answer lies in the food of Manish Mehrotra. It is a joyful celebration of how we take little influences and ideas and the products and produce of every part of India and create something that is infinitely richer, more beautiful and more unique than they could ever be on their own.

Manish Mehrotra’s food is the manifestation of the country we love in the most beautiful, harmonious way possible.

And that is why we need to celebrate him. Because Manish Mehrotra is India’s greatest ever chef.