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naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Notes -
It is not just that. The food is creatively bankrupt too.
It is not surprising, because India has only ever had "professionally meticulous" culinary cultures in 2 places : Royal Mughal chefs and mothers who care a lot.
The former has leveraged this to the point where Mughal food is defacto fancy Indian food. It spurred the invention of dishes like Butter Chicken, Tandoori & Dal Makhni in the 20th century, but the entire cuisine has had a lazy 21st century. Nothing about the invention of the aforementioned dishes needed validation from French techniques. It as entirely grounded in innovating within the Indian landscape.
The latter is the underexplored bit. There are incredible painstaking home dishes cooked by women of the family that were never sold for money, but took the same amount of effort as any crowning jewel in a fine restaurant. Many of these are already 'farm to table' sort of recipes and need specific regional mixes to work. (eg: our village red chilli powder has 28 ingredients. Just the base chilli powder)
All Indian fine dining I've seen boils down to:
Mughlai / Punjabi / well-executed-classics : Atul Kocchar, Junoon,
British colonizer food / Mumbai Irani Cafe food - Dishoom
Expensive western seafood done in Indian coconutty curries. (The one bugs me the most. Get your head out of your asses and stop cooking mild Lobster & King crabs. You are bastardizing the entire cuisine by using the wrong fish. People struggle with Saba Miso too, but the Japanese don't swap out the Mackarel !)
Straight up just French restaurants with Indian ingredients.
None of these are bad per-se. At their best (top 5 in the world), the well-executed classics are worth the money spent. But, it's what I would feel like if all European fine-dining was Pasta & Pizza. After some point, it wears on you.
Now for the positives.
I am liking what I am hearing from Roni Mazumdar and his restaurants. His NYC restaurants are all excellent executions of classics. If what he is saying is to be believed, then I am hoping he funds a restaurant that caters for less common Indian cuisines.
On the french restaurant with Indian ingredients side, Gaggan comes close to practically turning that whole thing on its head by asserting his own strong personality as a chef. It has a "It is French, it is Indian, it is my food, fuck you" attitude, that I adore. He has been AWOL for a few years, I am really looking forward to what he comes out with.
Regional cuisines are sneaking into $$ sign restaurants. Kathakali in Seattle does a marvellous job of executing malabar cuisine and sticking to it's guns with what's a tiny menu by Indian standards. I haven't been to Annapurna Marathi cusine in the bay area, but it is just nice to see a spot focusing on a narrow regional cuisine.
There is a model to follow : East Asians. Japanese chefs have managed to carve out space for very narrow and deep explorations of Japanese ideas, implement them uncompromisingly in a manner that is aesthetically Japanese & win fine-dining accolades for it. From Shinto Omakase, to Soba shops to Niku Udon spots. The key is to give up the obsession with a French aesthetic. Modern reviewers only care about obsession & care in general, and not so much whose standards they live up to.
Yo, Thanks so much for this reco.
The food looks amazing. I love the inclusion of actual home-style Indian ingredients like okra & sabudana. The presentation is in touch with Indian nostalgia, esp with the dessert on a stick. And I can see some underappreciated regional favorites like Dhokla, Galoti kebab & roomali roti on there.
They make paneer out of buffalo milk ! It warms my heart to see that.
Totally visiting it next time I'm in London. (why did you lot have to #brexit. I really don't want get a new visa. I might still swing by to see my favorite club play football, but maybe next year when we're actually doing well XD )
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