#blahvsfood answers the big question.. does Raga by Gaggan live up to the hype?

Sometimes you don’t need to overthink it.

I’ve seen so many Instagram reels and private chats ask some version of the same question… does RaGa live up to the hype?

The short and simple answer is yes. Unequivocally.

You don’t get showers of petals from heaven and winged angels serving you, so if that’s your benchmark you maybe disappointed.

But if you want incredibly tasty food, imagination and inventiveness, and a level of technique that is unsurpassed in India, that’s what you get.

And honestly, it’s not a surprise. We as Indians have a legendary crab mentality. But Gaggan Anand is who he is for a reason. He is unarguably one of the world’s greatest chefs. And Rydo is not any ordinary professional. He has been Gaggan’s creative partner and collaborator for a decade now. Raga was always going to be brilliant. 

I honestly don’t feel the need to review Raga. When it comes to food writers or critics, this is food that is so ambitious that domestic awards are an irrelevance. This is a restaurant that’s going to aim for the world’s top 100 from the get go. It will be there on the Asian list by 2028 and the global list by 2029 at the latest. 

That’s not a prediction. 

It’s a promise. 

You can bank it. 

Like at Gaggan itself, when you eat twenty two courses, not every dish is equally spectacular. But I literally had one course in twenty two that was underwhelming. A good ten to fifteen were good to great. And at least five to eight were unforgettable. To me that’s insane. I’ve done a lot of tasting menus in my life. But that’s a success rate that’s every bit as good as the original Gaggan.

Let’s talk about the unforgettable dishes for a bit. 

Pink blossom 

The Pink Blossom is the best iteration of Gaggan's yogurt explosion yet, made with Pink Guava and with a lingering cracking candy surprise that creates a sense of excitement and surprise and Willy Wonka like joy right off the bat. 

Jhalmuri cookie

Then came what looked like a walnut, felt like a cookie, and that turned out to be the most authentic and intense jhalmuri when you put it in your mouth! To me this dish was worth the price of the meal alone, one of those mouthfuls where you remember the feeling of amazement years later. The mustard oil hit, the play with textures, the sudden moment of recognition and familiarity… this is my favourite of all Gaggan’s dishes that I have ever had.  

 

Aloo bonda sandwich 

Golden egg

This whole section was inspired by street food and every single dish was extraordinary. What looked like a golden egg in a nest turned out to be a Panipuri in a white chocolate egg shell wrapped in edible gold leaf sitting on a crispy potato nest. The Aloo Bonda Sandwich came with a bread made with dehydrated onion juice and toasted in butter, that dissolved in your mouth faster than a cloud, so that your mouth was filled with the unrestrained and familiar flavours of aloo Bonda, tamarind chutney, green chutney and crispy garlic chutney.

Bhetki paturi

The mains go away from this Roald Dahl mode and become much more focused on using technique to distill pure flavour. The Betki Paturi was pure soul, but no Bengali home ever cooked a fish so perfectly. There was a lovely nod to Gaggan and Rydo’s Bangkok roots with the use of basil and Kaffir lime leaf, ingredients that surprisingly enhanced the authenticity of the Bengali flavours and let them breathe and shine rather than turn it into some random fusion exercise. 

Who Killed The Goat?

The mutton course had a similar approach. The tabak maaz had slow cooked pulled Goat ribs mixed with a shorba reduction, along with  a bunch of peppercorns that are found mainly in India (timur pepper, green peppercorns, szechuan peppercorns and long peppercorns). This was then served like a tempura, with a barely-there batter, creating all the tender, fatty beauty of a great tabak Maaz with none of the heaviness. There was also a nalli nihari which maybe the lightest Nihari I’ve ever had, cooked in a marrow sauce without the slightest hint of oil, just a meaty, gelatinous bowl of happiness. The one play with form in the mains was the Brain pepper fry.. a molded goat bheja made of cauliflower and in the flavours of cauliflower Chettinad! 

 

Lick It Up

Fields of Green and Gold

Two final dishes I needed to highlight, both desserts. Like with the sphere, this version of Lick It Up was the best I’ve had, with cookie butter, coconut pandan and pomegranate reduction with black salt. And finally a light and airy Saffron soft serve, inspired by kesar and pista kulfi, with salted pistachio cream, crystallized pistachio, crispy pistachio sponge and pistachio soil. I genuinely don’t have the words to explain why I loved this dish so much. It just felt like the meeting point of childhood memories and nostalgia with the promise of something new and undiscovered, the simplicity of the past meeting the potential of the present. 

I just realised I have described nine or ten dishes instead of the five to eight I meant to. But honestly, that’s how exceptional this meal and those courses were. This piece would feel incomplete without sharing those dishes and how they felt. 

If you look at these dishes, one of the common threads is technique. The state of the art kitchen (including an ice cream maker from Carpigiani used for just one course!) means that this restaurant has the ability to imagine and create dishes that no other restaurant in the country can. However, the technique is never an end goal in itself, but directed towards achieving a higher level of either flavour or surprise and wonder.

Zorawar Kalra hasn’t made a single compromise when it comes to the equipment in the kitchen, in ensuring that Gaggan and Rydo’s ideas aren’t stillborn because of a lack of equipment or capital. He is clearly determined to make sure that Raga has the potential and opportunity to someday be compared to the Disfrutars of the world. Time will tell if this ambition comes true, but at the moment, all I can do is applaud the uncompromising nature of this approach. Zorawar, Gaggan and Rydo are all in and I absolutely love it! 

It’s not just equipment. Every single element of this restaurant has been thought through with the idea of being world class. The glassware is from Schott Zwiesel in Germany. The crockery is custom made in Japan. The interiors have a post industrial meets luxury vibe highlighted by a striking gigantic chandelier from Turkey like an octopus’ limbs spread across the roof. The whole space is split into two with the kitchen and the diners across each other, like a live performance, and the lighting is deliberately brighter in the kitchen rather than the seating area because the kitchen is the star of the show. 

This kind of detailing, this level of obsessiveness… these are the ingredients for greatness, and I think India’s food scene should really be grateful to Gaggan and Rydo for finally opening here and to Zorawar for convincing them to do so. 

Keep in mind this is menu one. My experience of tasting menus is that the first menu is always pure theory and brainstorming. The second one is usually a reaction to consumer feedback, listening to diners when the rubber hits the road. It’s usually the third menu when a great chef has understood the audience, taken his or her original ideas, adapted and refined them, and come up with something that has philosophical coherence and a stronger voice and not just great flavours. 

Considering that Raga is already this brilliant and that menu two launches as early as November, I can’t help but be excited about the Raga that is to come and I look forward to going back to what will become one of the world’s great restaurants. 

I ate:

Narangi - Valencia orange infused with tequila, smoked chillies and black salt

 

Gulab Khatta

Gulaab khatta - An alcoholic sorbet of rum, mangosteen, hibiscus, and tamarind made with liquid nitrogen (LN2) 

 

Pink Blossom - Raga's first iteration of Gaggan's yogurt explosion made with Pink Guava.

 

Monsoon Glass Papad

Monsoon Glass papad - Ingredients of the monsoon season (cucumber, green grapes and burnt green chilies) made into a chutney and pickles. Served with a sago papad.

 

Jhalmuri Cookie - An unbaked cookie of Jhalmuri based on mustard oil.

 

Golden egg - A coriander & mint Panipuri in a white chocolate egg shell and edible gold leaf with a crispy potato nest.

 

Pyaz Kachori

Pyaz kachori - A fried kachori filled with onion chutney and onion kalonji masala in a shape of an autumn 🍁 leaf

 

Aloo Bonda Sandwich - A gluten free bread that is made only with dehydrated onion juice and toasted in butter. Filled with aloo Bonda, tamarind chutney, green chutney and crispy garlic chutney.

 

Charcoal Mirchi - A crispy deep fried Bhavnagri chili filled with chili cheese (amul cheese and Roquefort) coated with a tempura made out of vegetable ashes. Served together with smoked red pepper chutney and yellow chilies chutney.

 

Earth & Grains - A chicken shorba cappucino. Chicken consomme infused with roasted rice, ginger, lemon and coriander roots. Served together with a potato espuma, toasted rice powder, and crispy puffed buckwheat. 

 

Cold Curry

Cold Curry - Confit Kerala prawns with its head butter. Served together with coconut and curry leaf sauce, curry leaf Kaffir lime oil, and red chili oil. Finished on the table with a coconut snow. A dish that twist the presentation of a curry that is usually seen as an overcooked stew. This time we plate it beautifully and ask our guest to mix everything to eat it like a curry.

 

Smoke and Ruby 

Smoke & Ruby - Grilled chicken wing with tamarind glaze and stuffed with a chicken sheekh kebab, finished with a salad of sawtooth coriander and chilies

 

Betki Paturi - A Bengali fish preparation consists of mustard oil, coriander, green chilies, lime and cashewnut. Topped with yellow chilies, basil and Kaffir lime leaf.

 

Who killed the Goat- A tribute of a Goat by using different parts and preparations.

1. Tabak maaz - Goat ribs that are slowly cooked until tender, pulled the meat from the bones and mix with the reduction of its shorba, and peppercorns that are found mainly in India (timur pepper, green peppercorns, szechuan peppercorns and long peppercorns).

2. Nalli nihari - Goat shanks that are slowly cooked until tender and its marrow starts to disintegrate. The marrow is then used to make the sauce which gives the gelatinous feel.

3. Brain pepper fry - A molded brain 🧠 of a goat in the flavours of cauliflower chettinaud.

 

Forest Harvest - A claypot rice cooked to order topped with sweet corn, spinach and sesame oil. Served together with Morels from Kashmir, and methi maatar malai.

 

First dew - A palate cleanser with raw mango sorbet, sour cream, passion fruit and mango granita, and falooda made out of mint juice.

 

Lick it up - A drawing of a melting stick of ice cream made to test your tongue skills. The stick is made out of cookie butter, coconut pandan and pomegranate reduction with black salt.

 

Fields of Green & Gold - A Saffron soft serve with salted pistachio cream, crystallized pistachio, crispy pistachio sponge and pistachio soil.

 

Mithaas - A box of sweets to finish off the night.  It contains

1. Mahabat ka sharbat made with rose and yuzu.

2. Lemon Almond Malpua

3. Pineapple curry and chili

4. Al Paan liebe - Raga's version of paan with sour cherries, white chocolate and mukhwas

Al Paan liebe