India – Food & Travel Guide

(A shorter version of the article was published in Business Standard on July 4, 2009)

Monsoon Raga Malhar and a tangy mint chutney, with crisp fritters, on a rainy day. Jaijaiwanti, with its sweet notes, and a delicate phirni, fragrant with rose. Malkaus, Indian Classical music’s somber, mystical raga, and, well, a complex Bordeaux wine …. Culinary metaphors have sometimes been used to describe music. But if music and food are kindred souls, it is in more ways than one. Which is why identifying the “best” in either field can be so tough—– nay, impossible. Who, for instance, would you say is India’s “top” musician: Bhimsen Joshi, flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, “modernist” Shubha Mudgal who blends elements of the classical with the pop, or Michael Jackson, whose appeal transcends geographical, cultural and class boundaries, not to mention mortality? Go on, take a call.

Similarly, who would you brand India’s top chef? Hemant Oberoi, Ananda Solomon, Imtiaz Quereshi, or Sanjeev Kapoor? The last, mind you, no lightweight contender with his huge middle-class connect despite some disparaging noises in elite circles. Choices are never easy.

And, yet, dear reader, we set out to do the impossible. Present before you our own numero uno, chef no 1, the face of India’s skills with the skillet, and its culinary ambassador: someone who combines innovation with grounding, experience with enthusiasm, stature with goodwill, and personal brilliance with a willingness to share and teach —- for indeed, these are the criteria to judge culinary prowess on, as put down by the country’s top chefs, who have rated their peers for us as well as identified the most important traits (see box) that separate the men from the boys (for, of course, this is a heavily male-dominated field) and mere chefs from super chefs.

Besides which, there may be another secret ingredient too to both great food and great chefs: Goodness! Fine cooking, like art or music at the highest level, touches the realm of the mystical, which is why there are so many beliefs which have nothing to do with the chemistry of mixing correct ingredients in correct proportions floating around in the kitchens: The belief about “good hands” is something that most professional chefs swear by. The legendary Imtiaz Quereshi, for instance, in his most omnipotent days as master chef at the Dumpukht would be asked to just “touch” a particular dish by his juniors to ensure perfect flavour. That’s a story he told me once. Then, there is the belief about a “good heart”. Corporate chef Manjit Gill, ITC Hotels’ top boss, explains: “Having observed so many chefs, I firmly believe in it,” he says, “a chef has to be a good person too. He should be calm and happy, not negative or that eventually affects his food.” Never mind Gordon Ramsay and emulating the manners of a football pro. Besides, even ancient texts list this as an important pre-requisite. Apart from being born in a good family and having “auspicious body marks”, the fifth century Pak Shastra, for instance, also says that a “Chef is calm, controlled, generous and has a pure smile.”

On the other hand, is it enough for a great chef to be merely “good”? India, of course, has been largely immune to the cult of the celebrity chef. Let the Gordon Ramsays, Alain Duccases, Marco Pierre Whites and Ferran Adrias thrive elsewhere. In the absence of rating agencies like the Michelin guide and a comparable level of media interest driving celebrityhood, chefs have usually been low-profile creatures here. But the dining scene in India is fast changing. And with a new breed of “lifestyle restaurants” that serve up not just good food but an entire experience, it has become vital for a chef to be a successful marketer too, with sufficient people-skills, that vital “X” factor, which will catapult him and his restaurant into the super league. That’s another point to ponder.

Finally, if there is a grey area between a “chef” and a “consultant” or “concept-creator”, there is another one between “chef” and “cook”. Nelson Wang, the Mumbai restaurateur credited with “founding” Indian-Chinese (and the Manchurian), names Jaffer Bhai of Dilli Durbar in Mumbai as one of his picks for the “top chef” tag. “Their biryani has remained consistent for the last 30 years, I don’t know how he has taught his assistants because when I cook a dish and when the chefs I have trained cook it, there is a difference,” reasons Wang. Jaffer Bhai’s incredible offerings may be rivaled by the qorma at Karim’s or kulchas at a street stall in Amristar. But you will not find any of those men mentioned here. It isn’t because we are trying to be an elite newspaper. But because our pick is restricted to “chefs”, not “cooks”, and that is a distinction that needs to be made and understood in India.

A “chef” is a chef not just because he can follow a recipe to perfection but because of his larger understanding of cuisine and its cultural context. He is someone who can research regional roots, bring a recipe to the mainstream, adapt it, give it a creative edge, and therefore take it forward. Above all, he is someone who makes not just a superb meal but influences the very way we eat. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s presenting the top five nominees, in reverse order:

5. Madhu Krishnan: Executive Chef ITC Bangalore

Being a woman in the rough and physically-demanding hotel kitchen is not easy, to excel there, even tougher. Recognised by her peers as a truly exceptional chef, Krishnan’s big moment, undoubtedly, was when she set up the West View at the ITC Maurya, New Delhi in the late 1990s. It was a brave thing to do at that time. “She introduced this whole concept of fresh ingredients, lightly cooked, and managed to bring in the best of ingredients like scallops and different cheeses, olives and Parma ham at a time when no one was doing it and people were not ready to accept anything raw and uncooked,” says food consultant Marut Sikka.

Despite being ahead of its time, West View retained its band of followers and was to be a precursor of much of the “new world” dining so trendy today. Krishnan moved on to her next assignment at the Grand Maratha, where again, she was able to set and maintain high standards as executive chef. “Her biggest quality is her enthusiasm,” says Ritu Dalmia, chef and restaurateur, Diva, “she is very hands on.” Sikka adds: “She has never turned in a bad meal and that shows a commitment.” Sure. On the other hand, she seems to have restricted herself. Hopefully, in her new role at the new ITC property in Bangalore, Krishnan will be able to shine brighter.

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4. Bakshish Dean, Executive Chef, The Park, New Delhi

Which is the best Indian restaurant in India? If you don’t agree with either Bukhara (overrated) or Dumpukht (“too heavy” despite its elegance), you will probably agree with Fire at The Park, New Delhi. All credit should go to Dean, who has been able to bridge the gap between contemporary sensibilities and traditional recipes, without compromising on taste and authenticity. So his Haleem is still first rate even if it has been refined infinitely from what you would eat at Nizamuddin, not to mention Hyderabad.

Trained in “Continental” cuisine, Dean is remarkable in the finesse he has brought to contemporary Indian food — traditional recipes, well-researched, but prepared in a healthy fashion and presented imaginatively. His forte is food styling but to that he has lately added a new focus in research. Each time a new menu has to be introduced, for instance, Dean is known to ask members of his team and the hotel staff to get one dish each from their homes that “their mothers make well”. These are then refined and finally selected. “Hotel chefs get so much foreign help. But he has been able to single-handedly raise the level of The Park’s F&B,” says consultant Sudha Kukreja, herself an untrained but instinctive chef par excellence.

This, despite rising from the very bottom of hotel hierarchy without the benefit of much exposure: Sixteen years into his career, last summer was the first time that Dean was able to plan a trip abroad (to Spain), solely in pursuit of his culinary passions — “to see how things are done”. Yet, despite his modest beginnings — from a less-than-middle class Punjabi-Christian family, he joined first the Oberoi, Mumbai, and then moved quickly to the Taj, Mumbai, as a non-management trainee, thus beginning at a level even lower than at which a typical IHM graduate would begin — he has come a long way indeed.

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3. Ritu Dalmia

Till Diva came along, almost a decade ago, Indian diners had just two choices: Head to a restaurant within a hotel or to a Pandara Road-style “family” diner for a heartier, less expensive meal. Italian food was not something that people were really comfortable with. Al dente pasta was deemed “uncooked”, Nirula’s good enough for cheese and ham pizzas, and La Piazza, the snobbish destination for just a few. Dalmia changed all the rules and “lifestyle” restaurants came into being: Some even boasting of better food than star hotels.

Ten years down the line, Dalmia remains steadily at the helm — remarkable in itself given the tough nature of the business — and continues to cook out of passion, using the best ingredients (Diva has one of the best wine list in any restaurant in the country), while ruing the fact that her food costs are inordinately high and profits lower. ‘Chefs tend to become mercenaries and pen pushers and we burn out,” she says by way of casual conversation. Not she.

“Hats off to her, that she can say I don’t care about the cost, I will only have the best,” says Manu Chandra, executive chef, Olive, Bangalore and Mumbai, who would have been still a teenager when Dalmia first set up Diva. For me, however, she makes it to the list because of sheer talent and because she still cooks a lot herself — unlike, say, Indigo’s Rahul Akerkar, a worthy contender no doubt. In fact, forget Italian, try her Oriental spread at one of the new spa cafes that she also runs — a recreation of flavours she tasted on the streets, “it is not Thai food,” she will warn you — and you will understand her talent.

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2. Imtiaz Quereshi and Ananda Solomon

How is it possible to overlook the contribution of either of these master chefs? Quereshi, of course, has redefined restaurant food in India even if he stuck to just Muslim food from UP, while Solomon brought the luscious traditions of the Western coast—food from Malvan, Sindhu Durg, his native Mangalore … the entire Konkan belt—into the mainstream. As such they are masters par excellence and if “good hands” is the measure of a great chef, both Quereshi and Solomon are gifted with “light fingers”, a term Solomon uses.

For someone who has always upheld the special taste of his mother’s fish curry, Solomon says that “just like a gardener needs to feel the soil with his hands, so should a chef, even at the highest level, be ready to dirty his hands.” And he is quite clear about his exacting standards: “A chef’s office”, he says, “should never be larger than his kitchen.” Both the Konkan Café and the Thai Pavillion credited to Solomon have been winning concepts, and have stood the test of time well. And if you eat at The President, vouches The Park’s Dean, it is impossible to get a bad meal.

Quereshi’s legend, as everyone knows, grew with Dumpukht. But beyond being gifted, what also set him apart was the fact that he was always ready to work in unusual ways, experimenting, remembers consultant Marut Sikka. “There are so many chefs of that generation who would say that this recipe can only be done like this, not Imtiaz.” What’s more, every hotel kitchen in India—and abroad—possibly has a chef from the khandan, carrying on the legacy, most notably Ghulam Quereshi, the present master chef at Dumpukht, Imtiaz’s son-in-law.

1. Hemant Oberoi

A super chef for the last two decades — someone who has fed prime ministers and visiting presidents with as much aplomb as Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities and corporate heavyweights— last year, saw Oberoi’s most successful outing ever. Not only did he introduce Varq, the contemporary Indian brand at the Taj with some superlative creations (martaban ka meat, tandoori scallops, parmesan naan), but he also launched Wasabi in Delhi, with an incredible vegetarian spread — almost 50 per cent of the menu is vegetarian and can be credited to Oberoi—that has made the Japanese restaurant, in fact, a popular haunt for high-profile, vegetarian corporate leaders. “He was always much ahead of his time,” raves Bakshish Dean, who trained under him at the beginning of his career. “At that time (in the early 1990s) he would make us work on things like pasta with Oriental sauces, we used to wonder why? The work that he did then came into the market 10 years later.” Dean also remembers Oberoi as a very people’s person—something that has no doubt helped him along. “He would speak to a Punjabi in Punjabi, Maharashtrian in Marathi, Gujarati in Gujarati…” says Dean, calling Oberoi a great teacher.

The son of a station superintendent in Ferozepur, Oberoi strayed into the profession, much to the shock of his family, after first setting his sights on a career in medicine, and then in the armed forces. He counts the Punjabi khana cooked by his grandmother as his most flavourful memory and that just shows up the contrast between the man now and then. “I call him gold fingers,” says Nelson Wang, restaurateur and Oberoi’s friend, for whom the chef cooks personally when he visits the Zodiac Grill in Mumbai—another of Oberoi’s defining concepts.

It is not as if India’s top chef does not have his detractors: They question his “real talent”, call him more of a media creation, point to the fact that some of his concepts like the Masala series fizzled out, and sneakily add that with all the resources at his disposal (“fly to Paris to check out a single recipe”) he should be doing what he is. On the other hand, it is a measure of the man’s influence that no one wants to be quoted saying as much.

That Oberoi has been able to drive the Taj’s F&B to the very top and has been consistently delivering over a quarter century is a measure of his worth. And, finally, the fact that so many of his students and protégées have gone on to redefine culinary niches across India—and abroad—means that no one comes close to his stature.