By Sourish Bhattacharyya
THE much-anticipated opening of the
Masala Library by Jiggs Kalra, the ‘Progressive Indian’ restaurant being
launched by Zorawar Kalra, son of
the Indian fine-dining maestro, is set for October 5 at its chic address — First
International Financial Centre, the green building where Citibank has relocated
its India headquarters, at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai.
Zorawar Kalra has been in the news
since he sold his stake in Wrapster
Foods, the joint venture company that ran the highly successful Punjab Grill restaurants, to his old
business partners, Dabur scion Amit Burman
and Rohit Aggarwal of Lite Bite
Foods. After exiting Wrapster, Kalra formed a new joint venture, Massive
Restaurants, with Gaurav Goenka of Mirah Hospitality to roll out the upper-end
Masala Library, the middle-market Made
in Punjab, which it making its debut at The Hub at the DLF Cyber Park in
Gurgaon, and a chain of chic mithai shops.
Speaking from his about-to-open restaurant
in Mumbai, Kalra said Masala Library will showcase ‘Progressive Indian’
cuisine, which combines authentic flavours with nouvelle presentation styles. It
will also have a lot of molecular gastronomy happening — “not as a gimmick,”
Kalra assured us, “but as a genuine flavour enhancer”. He added: “Each dish on
the menu has a story. A lot of thought has gone into each one of the items. We
started with 100, but have retained just 70 of them.”
He then gave a foretaste of the
explosion of creative gastronomy that awaits us at the Masala Library by
describing the dish named ‘Steamed John Dory, Flavours of India’. The fish in
this preparation will be served on a platter designed like an artist’s palette
with eight differently flavoured relishes representing the kitchens of the different
parts of the country. So you can have one central ingredient in eight different
ways in one serving! Or, as Kalra puts it, “You can taste the whole of India in
one dish.”
The menu has Lal Maas, Mutton
Vindaloo and Meen Moily to cater to those who like to walk on the much-treaded
road, but the sauciest San Marzano tomatoes
from Italy go into its butter chicken (“these are not tart and can be smoked
very well,” Kalra explained), or the essence of peas are turned into pea pods
using the reverse spherification process, or the hearty rarha meat is given a vegetarian twist by substituting mutton with
soy, or for those weary of the boring hara-bhara
kebab, Kalra’s chefs have created the pesto kebab served with parmesan papad.
Care to sample innovations? Then, your
must-have list must include the foie gras crème brulee, prawn balchao kulcha, trio of Bhindi Jaipuri, Papad ki
Subzi and Hand-Pounded Choorma (“savour a multitude of flavours from just one
dish,” Kalra explained), and ghewar
cheesecake with almond chikki. Kalra
and his team also have their share of fun with the menu. One of the dessert
items, for instance, is Childhood Memories, which takes us to the time when as
children we used love eating mud, chalk and other unmentionables. To recreate
the experience, this dessert platter has flower pots with brownies mimicking
the mud, water cans brimming over with chocolate sauce, edible chalk, and ice-cream
biscuits shaped like another childhood favourite, Parle-G.
Will the pricing be over the top?
Kalra assures us it won’t be. The nine-course tasting menu is being priced at
Rs 1,900++ (vegetarian) and Rs 2,100++ (non-vegetarian) per person. And if you
order a la carte, you can have a
soul-satisfying meal for Rs 1,500++ per person. Not a bad deal for a restaurant
in the financial hothouse of the country that promises to take Indian fine dining,
so far dominated by establishments such as Indian
Accent, Varq and Masala Art, to another level of excitement,
evolution and excellence.
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