By Sourish Bhattacharyya
SUMIT GULATI
has hospitality in his DNA, which is why it is a pleasure to be invited by him.
And if the dinner is in the company of Sumit's fellow Les Roches alumnus Samrat
Banerjee, whose guest management skills were as much responsible for Indian Accent's success as Manish Mehrotra's wizardry with the ladle
(and of course the brilliant marketing and communications of Mukta Kapoor), the pleasure could only
get doubled.
Sumit and Chiquita Gulati, the couple behind Gulati's Spice Market behind Select Citywalk in Saket. They met at Les Roches, Switzerland's leading hotel management school. |
This blog post, however, is not a
self-indulgent piece on a memorable dinner with two friends, but a tribute to the
passion with which Sumit, with professional help from Magandeep Singh and his talented deputy, Gurjeet Singh Barry, is promoting wine as an accompaniment to good
food at Gulati's Spice Market, Saket. Sumit has proved one more time that an
intelligently priced, and engineered, wine menu can become a conversation point
among guests, giving a restaurant a renewed marketing boost (and additional
revenues to boot!), when its food by itself ceases to be a novelty. We have known
this before, but the hospitality industry doesn't see the simple logic of this
proposition, blinded as it is by its love for the bottomline. And remember,
Sumit, unlike our five-star hotels and many privileged restaurants, doesn't get
to buy his wines duty-free.
Sumit is from the family that owns
the famous Pandara Road restaurant
that carries his family name. His grandfather, Faqir Chand Gulati, uprooted by Partition at the age of 24 from
native Gujranwala, used to sell chhole-bhatura
from a bicycle at India Gate. He must have been popular because when Jawaharlal Nehru mooted the idea of the
Pandara Road Market in 1959, he was
the first to be asked to move there and set up his dhaba, which eventually grew into the restaurant we love.
Gulati, the restaurant, earned its
reputation from its unforgettable kadhai
chicken, but in the 1970s, it turned vegetarian because Faqir Chand's brother
(and business partner), Krishna, came under the influence of a religious teacher.
Business plummeted, so Faqir Chand and Krishna worked out an arrangement that many
of us, who have grown up with Gulati, must personally be grateful for. Krishna
opened Krishna Sweets, whose
multi-flavoured kulfis and piping hot
gulab jamuns, sold today by his
grandsons, are must-haves after any meal at the market's many restaurants.
The restaurant is now presided over
by Faqir Chand's son, Vinod Gulati,
who joined it in 1976 right after getting his B.Com. degree from Bhagat Singh
College and managed its transformation from a dhaba to a modern eatery. There was a time when he was an expert at
making kadhai chicken at time when he
wasn't needed at the till, but now, he's better known as the president of the market
association who got NDMC to transform it into a visual showpiece. His
restaurant, after a recent expansion, is a 140-seater that feeds 700-800 people
a day and its hugely popular lunch-time buffet is a hit among Delhi High Court lawyers.
"It's like catering for a marriage daily," says Sumit.
As the scion of a family that has
created a Delhi landmark, Sumit could have easily settled into the comforts of
managing a business that is running on auto pilot. He teamed up with his wife
Chiquita (his Les Roches sweetheart from Mumbai) and launched Gulati's Spice
Market with a pan-Indian menu behind Select
Citywalk at a building known as Southern
Park in 2008.
It may not be attracting a blaze of
publicity, but Spice Market, as I realised during the course of our dinner that
started with an unforgettable jamun-spiked
shikanjwi, has maintained the Gulati
commitment to food you can never complain about, while being inventive at the
same time. The restaurant justifiably is well-known for its dum-cooked murgh zafrani kabab, Rajputana sooley,
patthar ke kabab, dahi ke kabab, tandoori kathal and a host of other specialities, including my personal
favourites -- Hyderabadi kachche gosht ki
biryani, laal maas and of course,
kadhai chicken.
I was happy therefore to see the
restaurant buzzing with guests on a Tuesday. Sumit says he easily manages two
seatings -- first, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., which is when the expats, especially Japanese
and Korean executives from the Mitsui and Hyundai offices upstairs, and American
guests at the neighbouring Svelte, Hilton Garden Inn and Sheraton New Delhi hotels;
and second, from 8:30 p.m. onwards, when resident Delhiites start streaming in.
I wish now more people come in for the fantastically priced wine list.
Gulati's Spice Market is the first
restaurant in Delhi-NCR to introduce 187ml bottles (for Rs 400 each), including
the zesty rose, Torres Da Casta 2012
(Garnacha + Carinena; Rs 450), or the hearty red, Torres Coronas Tempranillo 2010, which a couple would find handy,
especially if one is into wine and the significant other isn't. There are many 375ml
bottles to choose from, including my favourites: Sula Chenin Blanc 2013 (Rs 450; white); Torres Vina Esmeralda (Moscatel + Gewurtztraminer; Rs 950); and Sula Satori 2013 (Merlot + Malbec; Rs 450).
If yours is a table of four (or even
two with good absorption power), I would recommend that you order a full bottle
(750ml) of Sula Riesling 2013 (Rs
1,000) or the refreshing newcomer to Delhi's wine scene from South Africa, Marianne Natana 2011 (Sauvignon Blanc +
Chenin Blanc; Rs 1,700). Among the reds, you'll be spoilt for choice, but my
picks are: Fratelli Cabernet Franc +
Shiraz 2013 (Rs 950); Fratelli Sette
2010 (a real bargain at Rs 1,900); and Castello
Banfi Chianti 2012 (another good bargain for Rs 1,700). The stars of list,
though, are the Domaine Schlumberger Les
Princes Abbes Gewurtztraminer 2012 (Rs 3,300), which Sumit and Chiquita
discovered on their first anniversary at the Orient Express, Taj Palace, and Joseph Drouhin La Foret Pinot Noir Burgundy
2010 (Rs 2,500). If you're in the mood to celebrate, these are the wines
you must ask for, otherwise you can always savour the other wines lined up on
this compact and competitively priced wine list.
Spice Souk
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