#blahvsfood: Rannaghor @Sienna is in the conversation for the best restaurant in India.
This is the longest review I have ever written. But honestly, this was a meal of such luminous beauty, that I couldn’t find it in me to edit courses while writing about it. Sienna was already one of the very best restaurants in India. But with Rannaghor, it has gone to a whole other level.
Let me be honest. Naar and Palaash have an unfair advantage because the moment you leave the city you surrender to the experience. It’s hard to compare them to any other tasting menu.
But when it comes to a city, the tasting menu is a harder thing to pull off. You’re playing a constant tug of war with the city, the job, the home, the meeting you’re coming from or the children you’re going to, the presentation you need to review or the call you need to return.
And yet, Rannaghor at Sienna achieves the impossible. It transports you into a world of its own, and for the short and sweet two hours that you’re there, what you get is a meal, an understanding of Bengal through multiple lenses, a sense of intimacy and conversation, and a tasting menu experience that compares with the best in the world.
And they do this while also having something new and original to say, showing us what real Bengali food truly is… the food that is eaten across the state by diverse communities and unshackling it from the Bengali bhodrolok food we have grown up with. The food of the Santhals, the food of rural agriculturalists, the food of Bihari migrants… they all find voice and representation at Rannaghor. As such it is a richly woven tapestry, celebrating Bengali food with a breadth and depth that has never been showcased before.
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| Ucchey Ol |
Of course, Sienna has been doing this for a while, ever since Chef Auroni Mookerjee stepped into the kitchen and changed Bengali food forever. But at Rannaghor, under chefs Avi and Koyel, this journey has reached its apogee. Without the constraints of creating this food while balancing an à la carte menu, there is a degree of freedom that I haven’t seen before and both chefs seem to be having fun… cooking serious food but not taking themselves too seriously.
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| Bacon Cheese (but not really) |
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| Ghee Bhaat |
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| Kopi Kidney |
This was followed by two dishes that just blew me away, inspired by Bankura, a relatively arid region, where vegetables are often preserved and dehydrated. The first dish had dehydrated cabbage, mutton kidneys, cabbage gel and sattu foam. Bengalis often talk about nose to tail or root to branch eating. But outside of fish, this approach to food is rarely practiced by the upper “castes”. Offal is always reserved for the historically repressed communities. And even the history of eating every part of a vegetable is born out of deprivation, like impoverished widows being forced to eat vegetable scraps.
To take the food of deprivation and aridity… a whole humble cabbage that has been dehydrated, the goat offal that is often thrown away.. to take that food and create something so elevated is an act of seeing, and while there will be people who speak of appropriation, this is the opposite… to finally acknowledge and represent people who have been invisibilised for centuries.
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| Googli Beej |
The next course (also from Bankura) with freshwater snails, took this approach to a whole other level. These were not plump and juicy escargot. These were small pond snails consumed by the Santhals as a source of cheap nutrition. This was served with a sauce of preserved winter vegetables and Mahua flowers, to give it a toffee like sweetness.
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| Chuijhaal pipre |
I didn’t even know that Bengal had such a large tribal population but the dwellers of forest have a relationship with the land that transcends man made boundaries. The Santhals live across all four eastern states and their presence in Bengal was represented in multiple dishes including a dish of Chuijhaal (a native Bengali pepper) custard, curry leaf oil and ant chutney.
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| Maach Dal |
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| Maach Pata |
We then had a Maach-Dal course of Garfish, masoor dal and fermented chilly sauce. The team at Sienna will hate my saying this but the smokiness and depth of this Dal would put Bukhara to shame and I would happily have mopped this up with a naan. After a very French course of Rohu head terrine with orange reduction and local leaves, it was time for a short break and then on to the mains.
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| Duck Kochu |
We started with aged duck, bone and radhuni sauce, with white taro puree. The sauce had cardamom notes, reminiscent of a Malabar Muslim curry. It was a sauce that did justice to the glistening, thinly sliced, flawlessly cooked duck with a perfect layer of skin.
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| Mangsho Rezala |
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| Aam Pachak |
After a raw mango sorbet with chilli sauce that had an almost leathery feel thanks to the use of raw mango peel, it was time for a Rezala risotto with mutton neck roulade, bone-marrow butter and shaved goat heart. This was better and more fragrant than any biryani or pulao, but had the warmth and soul of a khichudi.
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| Tepari Beetroot |
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| Horlicks Caramel |
Finally, it was time for dessert. We started with a home style fruit and cream of gooseberry jam, beetroot jam, basil oil and cream.. a bit like a tropical trifle pudding. This was followed by an absolutely joyful dessert of Horlicks ice-cream, horlicks caramel, Milk powder crumb. I loved Horlicks as a child and found this addictive enough to have two portions even after a full tasting menu! And then we finally wrapped with a petit four of Shor bhaja, malpua with kalimpong cheese and honey custard, potol mishti, and monohora with gur glaze and plum jam. It was almost like a final act of audacity and creativity to send us off.. after all, who serves ridge gourd in a petit fours?
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| Petit Fours (including a Potol mishti) |
And with that I came to the end of what was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in India. There are many great restaurants in this country and some exceptional tasting menus. But when it comes down to it, this is how I rate Rannaghor by Sienna.
Flavour 10/10.
Philosophy 10/10
Meal design 10/10
Cohesiveness 10/10
Relevance/rootedness 10/10
Storytelling 10/10
Technique 10/10
Significance 10/10
Cocktail pairing 9/10
What the founders Rewant and Shuli have created with chefs Avi and Koyel is extraordinary. I know it’s hard for a restaurant in Kolkata to win the kind of national and global recognition that a place in Delhi or Mumbai can. But if any place deserves to do so, it is the Rannaghor at Sienna. Because this is as good a tasting menu as you’ll get anywhere in the world. And for me, it’s in the conversation with Naar and Palaash as India’s best restaurant.
The meal:
- Ucchey-Ol: Bitter gourd achaar, elephant food yam and bandel cheese foam, juktiphool
- Bacon-Cheese: Dhakai ponir sandwich, katla bacon, pineapple jam
- Ghee-Bhaat: Crispy rice sandwich tulaipunji rice, horse-gram, caramelised whey and ghee sauce
- Kopi-Kidney: Braised dehydrated cabbage, mutton kidneys, cabbage gel, sattu foam
- Googli-Beej: Freshwater snails, preserved winter veg, sauce from roasted peels, mahua flowers
- Chuijhaal-Pipre: Chuijhaal (piper chaba), curry leaf oil, ant chutney
- Maach-Dal: Garfish, masoor dal and fermented chilly sauce
- Maach-Pata: Rohu head terrine, bagane-moshla, orange reduction
- Duck-Kochu: Aged duck, bone and radhuni sauce, white taro puree
- Aam-Pachak: Raw mango sorbet, raw mango peel and chilli salt
- Mangsho-Rezala: Rezala risotto, mutton neck roulade, bone-marrow butter, shaved goat heart
- Tepari-Beetroot: Cape gooseberry jam, beetroot jam, basil oil, cream
- Horlicks-Caramel: Horlicks ice-cream, horlicks caramel, Milk powder crumb
- Mishti-Dokan: Shor bhaja, malpua with kalimpong cheese and honey custard, potol mishti, monohora with gur glaze and plum jam
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Desserts:
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