Why Noon is destined for greatness..

 (Plus a rant about India’s food “experts”) 

My recent lunch at Noon at BKC was a solo visit, meant to be a quick lunch before heading to work. I had just three dishes and two cocktails by myself as soon as I landed and it wasn’t an elaborate or long tasting. But that quick meal was enough to reinforce what I felt when I ate there last year. 

There is no restaurant in India doing food that is as new and exciting. It is creative, it is original, it is cohesive and most of all it is tasty. I know that things like foraging and fermentation have become fashionable, but more often than not, they are nothing more than lip service, inessential and superficial, meant to tick all the boxes in a game of buzzword bingo. But at Noon the level of research and depth are remarkable, and they have a point… to create a world class bank of knowledge and understanding of these techniques, with the intent and ability to then turn that knowledge into dishes that are new and unlike anything we have ever seen before. 

Khambir Roti/Thangthur, Skotse/Charred Tiger Prawns/Umbok

The current menu is focused on seasonal ingredients from Kashmir and Ladakh which would make sceptics think this is just a Masque/Prateek Sadhu imitation. But it’s not. It takes Prateek’s groundbreaking work and takes if further and deeper. In many ways this is Prateek’s evolutionary successor far more than Masque‘s current menu under Varun Tolani is. 

The meal I ate uses the wild garlic called Skotse, rare and unusual traditional varieties of rice, wild Himalayan caraway and more… all ingredients we have almost never seen in a restaurent before. The fermentation programme is wider than anything I have ever seen. They have over 25 different ferments including miso, kefir, Shoyu, mead, garums, fermented fruits and more. 

These ingredients are then used to create dishes that take inspiration from local dishes but are actually something completely new. They take both umami and seasonality and push them to the limit but never going over the edge, like a culinary trapeze artist.

Whiskey. Prune Ume Vinegar 

The drinks are equally fantastic and original, again playing with seasonal Indian ingredients, umami flavours using their own house-made tinctures, shrubs, infusions and bitters. Last year I knew that Louness’ bastenga negroni at Bomras was the best drink I would have all year as soon as I tasted it. I felt the same way about the whiskey cocktail with prune ume vinegar I had at Noon. I may have a better cocktail this year, especially considering I’m spending the summer in Paris but I seriously doubt it. 

It’s hard being both the most underrated restaurant and the most underrated bar in the country but I feel that Noon has managed this (un)impressive feat. But it’s not the fault of the restaurant or its owner/chef Vanika Choudhary. A failure to be a good marketer is not a reflection on the ability of a chef or the quality of her food. 

Smoked Himalayan trout/pumpkin Kasundi/buckwheat sourdough/pumpkin kasundi butter 

However it it is a failure on the part of our so called food experts/critics/writers when we fail to recognise, encourage and celebrate something so new and original and outstanding. I have seen Noon get criticised as pretentious or over-complicated. I have seen people struggle with the fact that the flavours are new and unfamiliar. I get it. But isn’t it the job of so-called experts to help people understand and navigate what is new? It’s like saying that Picasso was bad because cubism deconstructed depth and composition or Joyce was bad because Ulysses broke the rules of sentence and narrative structure.

I am obviously not trying to compare Noon to Joyce and Picasso but I am merely calling out the inability or inclination of India’s food experts to recognise, understand and celebrate what is actually new and important. It is our job to see that for all their current excellence, places like Noon as well as their contemporaries Navu and Ekaa are like the arch though which you can glimpse the undiscovered world. They are just going to get better and better, and when they find their fullest expression we will gaze at wonder and be grateful we saw it early and helped share it with the world. 

But our food experts never fulfil this important responsibility. I know Niyati and Ekaa have had some positive media in the last six months, but when they started out, it was nowhere near enough. Noon gets zero media support. Navu doesn’t exist in the eyes of our food experts. 

And I am angry because I’ve seen this again and again for over a decade. I’ve sat at an empty Manor Hotel while guests walked out of Indian Accent because it didn’t serve butter chicken. I’ve sat with Prateek Sadhu and Aditi Dugar brainstorming about how we could get people to eat at Masque because it was struggling and because India’s biggest food writers and PR persons were actively slagging them off while paying customers like me and Monisha Advani were trying to tell the world it was the best restaurant in India. 

And what angers me is the hypocrisy of these experts. I have also seen these very same people who claimed that Prateek Sadhu didn’t make Mumbai’s top 10 chefs suddenly race to worship at the alter of Masque when the restaurant’s brilliance couldn’t be denied and its reputation was going global, making facile excuses like how Prateek’s food had evolved and was no longer joyless, to hide their biases and ignorance.

I’ve seen these food writers and experts sit and celebrate mediocre restaurants across the country in the last four months because of the big names involved, because of backs that needed to be scratched, because of the clout of the owners or chefs and publicists behind them, because of freebies that were doled out.

In such a dishonest, corrupt environment it’s no wonder that we celebrate mediocrity and familiarity, overhype the buzzy, and ignore what’s actually special.

Over the years I have learnt to trust my judgment over the supposed experts and over the social chatter and buzz (with less than five honourable exceptions like Anoothi Vishal and Sid Mewara who stay honest and unfiltered). I was right about Indian Accent. And Masque. And Disfrutar. And Den. And Atomix. And La Colombe. And countless others. Over four continents. 

I don’t care if everyone says I’m wrong or if this next statement sounds arrogant rather than angry. But when I say a restaurant is special, that it is destined for greatness, I have never been wrong. And Noon is destined for greatness. I’m not saying it is guaranteed to be the next Masque. But it will certainly be seen as one of India’s absolute best restaurants. I don’t know Chef Vanika Choudhary. I haven’t been comped a single rupee at Noon. I have no agenda here. But a place this special deserves all the support and recognition in the world.

I ate (with the explanations from the restaurant): 

Smoked Himalayan Trout, Pumpkin Kasundi | Buckwheat Sourdough | Pumpkin Kasundi Butter. Pumpkin kasundi - pumpkin, skotse, wild mustard from ladakh are fermented for 4 weeks with Ambemohar rice koji to achieve a deeply umami flavour. Buckwheat Sourdough is made with whole buckwheat groats from Ladakh, they are soaked overnight and then fermented for 48 hours. 

Khambir Roti | Thangthur, Skotse | Charred Tiger prawns, Umbok. Khambir, a rustic wholewheat sourdough from Ladakh. Khambir at Noon is made with khapli wheat and cooked on the coals. Thangthur, a rustic yogurt based dip usually made with weeds in Ladakh. Here we have used dried tender buckwheat greens from Turtuk, also called Yatpa in Balti language. Skotse, foraged wild onion chives from Fulak, Ladakh.Umbok, a rare herb foraged from Fulak & Tukla, Ladakh.

Coconut ice cream, Kerala Vanilla/Puffed Amaranth Crumble/Lacto-fermented strawberries/Wild Mustard/Nolan Gur Garum 

Coconut Ice Cream, Kerala Vanilla | Puffed Amaranth Crumble | Lacto-Fermented Strawberries | Wild Mustard |Nolen Gur Garum. Nolen Gur, a winter speciality is date palm jaggery. Graum, a fermented fish sauce is the oldest form of food preservation, originated in Greece and Rome. Nolen Gur Garum is our take on a plant based version, fermented for 3 months, made with Ambemohar rice koji, smoked sea salt and nolen gur from one of our chef’s home in Maliapota, West Bengal.

Cocktail details 

Noon 

Homemade Prune Ume Vinegar, Irish Whisky 

Spiced Mahua 

Homemade fermented Mahua flower with spices, Mahua liquor, egg white