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Progressive Indian Cuisine Spots In India
There You Go Again, Breaking My Dill.
Silly puns aside, Desi ingredients and regional cuisines are on a roll. They’re squeezing into beakers, gracing blackboards in hipster cafés and sexing up brass thalis on very expensive tables across India. Purists will balk and the bourgeoisie will sulk at Indian progressive cuisine, but it's only imitating a worldwide trend of returning to indigenous ingredients. What’s not to love, homies!
On two India-bound trans-Atlantic flights last year, I’ve been asked the same question by two wonderful air hostesses. Each time, I cringed visibly.
"What on Earth is a Hindu meal?"
"Vegetarian? Satvik? Bland chana and basmati with orangey plops of paneer?"
If the simple fact that all Hindus aren’t vegetarians isn’t as widely known as it should be, what chance does the wonderfully complex and varied world of Indian cuisine stand outside home — nay, state — shores? To be fair, I’ve had some unexpectedly lovely Desi khaana up in the skies, a spiffy dal aboard South African Airways and Etihad’s fluffy pulao. But every time a well-meaning non-Indian chirps, “Oh, I love Indian food,” and proceeds to dissect his favourite chicken tikka masala, my heart deflates. I want to engage him in conversations on vaalachi usal and ragi mudde, undhiyo and dhuska, and here we are, after decades, still flapping around in curries, vindaloos and biryanis.
Bombay Canteen Choriz Pau Bunny Pa?o
Three years ago, while urban India was still in the throes of Norwegian salmon and foie gras dinners and gorgonzolla-smothered artisanal bread brunches, I recall meeting Gresham Fernandes, the 30-something group executive chef of Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality (they own Smokehouse Deli, Mocha coffee shops and the terribly hip social chain of restaurants across Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru). Gresham, tattooed and supremely chill, was just off to Copenhagen, and we spoke for over 30 minutes on Noma and then Peruvian cuisine and, somehow, our globe-trotting talk swerved around to dill. A dill devotee — friends suspect a hidden Danish lineage — I’ve grown up on shepu bhaji, a simple stir-fry with garlic and chillies. I remember him being gung ho about it at a time when a hot young chef would have brushed aside any talk of homely sabzi roti as infra-dig.
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The dill talk came rushing back last month when a friend raved about methi theplas topped with Goan pulled pork vindaloo and crispy shards of pork skin. This peculiar — but impressive — combination is to be devoured at The Bombay Canteen, Mumbai’s hipster mecca du jour. Despite their scary pricing and the cocky reservations staff, nostalgia wafts off their Desi-cool menu — from mandeli (golden anchovies, popular on India’s West coast) and murabba to pui saag and kothu roti.
The Bombay Canteen's Tandoori Pork Bada Pao Sandwich
The Bombay Canteen is hardly the first restaurant to celebrate local ingredients, spanning the length and breadth of the Indian subcontinent. Twice Michelin-starred Mumbai boy Vineet Bhatia’s Ziya — at the Oberoi in Mumbai, which turned five this year — has been serving up beetroot-chana dal upma, asparagus korma and apple gojju for a long time. In Delhi, chef Manish Mehrotra douses his bajra khichdi with parmesan, chucks avocados into his anar raita and whips up divine kathal tacos at his wildly popular Indian Accent. Zorawar Kalra’s Farzi Café, pulling in Gurgaon’s young and restless by the droves, promises to trip the sentimentalist on their rooh afzah crème brulée and woo the skeptic with a dashing Karela kalamari. The Kalras’ flagship Mumbai outpost, the upscale Masala Library, is notorious for its theatrical flourishes — sending chaat riding out on a mini cycle-rickshaw and reducing diners to frisky children at the end of a meal with its signature paan-flavoured candy floss.
Masala Library's Signature Amuse bouche – sev puri on the go
A little flamboyance never hurt anyone. Indian cuisine in particular, I’d like to think, is progressive and inherently open to kinky pairings. We’ll survive and thrive while dunking truffles in kadhi, sticking syringes into a raan or dehydrating chaas. With our man in Bangkok (Chef Gaggan Anand) catapulting his progressive Indian restaurant to the top of Asia’s best, Desi experimentation is the call of our times. Meanwhile, I’m still on the hunt for a rad, Millennial version of my humble shepu!
Masala Library's pista paan coconut ice cream rose foam
Image Credits:
Bombay Canteen food images from homegrown.co.in.
Masala Library images courtesy of masalalibrary
Aparna Pednekar
Author
Aparna is an India - based travel writer for leading lifestyle and fashion publications. She's also a gemologist and jewelry designer. New cities, new food, cats, dogs, snakes, hours of walking and driving fuel her incurable ADD.
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