TOP CHEF AWARDS 2014: Delhi Gourmet Club to Honour Bukhara's Executive Chef J.P. Singh with Lifetime Achievement Award

Out of the 17 awards to be given
away today at the Top Chef
Awards 2014, the only one
disclosed so far is the Lifetime
Achievement Award to be
conferred upon Executive Chef
J.P. Singh of the Bukhara.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

THE DELHI Gourmet Club's Top Chef Awards 2014 kicks off in less than ten hours today (July 22) with just one award, out of the 17 being given away, being disclosed by the founder-members of the Facebook group (in the interests of transparency, I must say I am proud to be one of them). It is the Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be given away by the chief guest, Parvez Dewan, Secretary, Tourism, Government of India, to J.P. Singh, the man at the helm of ITC Maurya's (and indeed, India's) top-grossing Bukhara restaurant.

This is one of the three awards that were decided by the jury, headed by Manjit Gill, Corporate Chef, ITC Hotels, and Founder-President of the Indian Federation of Culinary Associations. The idea to honour Singh and Bukhara, which is celebrating its 35th birthday in the first week of August, came from Varun Tuli, owner of the much-awarded Yum Yum Tree restaurant and now also a very successful A-List caterer. Being an observer at the jury meeting, I was surprised by how the decision was wholeheartedly accepted by all the other members, including Manish Malhotra, who has pioneered a style of cooking that is taking Indian cuisine in a direction that is completely different from that of Bukhara.

The other members of the jury were Chef Bill Marchetti, eminent food critic Marryam Reshii, Chef Girish Krishnan (JW Marriott, New Delhi Aerocity), Chef Mickey Bhoite (Le Cirque, The Leela Palace New Delhi), Neeraj Tyagi (The Claridges) and Magandeep Singh (India's first French-certified wine sommelier). Top Chef Awards Delh-NCR 2014 is being co-presented by Pullman Gurgaon Central Park, powered by Le Cordon Bleu-G.D. Goenka University, and supported by Elle & Vire, Delverde, Torani, Granini and Nestle Professional.

Some months back, the Delhi Gourmet Club,
represented (above, third and extreme right) by
Rocky Mohan and yours truly, honoured Bukhara
for serving the best seekh kebabs in Delhi-NCR.
Bukhara's No. 2 Purshottam Singh and ITC
Maurya's Senior Executive Chef,
Manisha Bhasin, received the award.

A graduate of the famous Dadar Catering College (Institute of Hotel Management, Dadar), J.P. Singh has spent all his life in the hotel chain that was created by ITC's first Indian chairman, Ajit Narain Haksar, primarily as a vehicle to earn hard-to-get foreign exchange during the high noon of the licence-permit raj era. A passionate foodie, Haksar was also responsible for creating Bukhara in the then-uncelebrated Maurya Sheraton in 1978. It was he who poached Madan Lal Jaiswal (J.P. Singh still can't get over his colourful language!) from a now-defunct hotel named President on Asaf Ali Road, at the intersection where New Delhi meets Purani Dilli, which was famous for its tandoori preparations.

Jaiswal was given the task of running Bukhara, which he did with great flourish (he even opened the New York Bukhara), till he died in a car crash. It was under Jaiswal that Chef JP, which is how everybody knows Singh, joined Bukhara in 1991, and like everyone and everything associated with the restaurant, continues to be a part of it -- like the 17 chefs working with him, including Purshottam Singh and Balkishen, who has travelled the world, from New York to Ajman to Hong Kong, with the Bukhara brand. Prem Rajput, the maitre d' who would charm his guests into coming back — again and again, and Jaiswal formed quite a formidable team. Together, they scripted the early success story of the Bukhara.

Interestingly, Jaiswal's 'gurubhai' Todar Mal was the leading light of The Oberoi's Mughal Room, which Haksar almost disabled by poaching a dozen chefs from what was then Delhi's premier Mughlai-Punjabi restaurant in a five-star hotel. Haksar wanted to move the centre of gravity from the contemporary market leader (and not the caricature of the original that it has become today), the colourful Kundal Lal Gujral's Moti Mahal, to Bukhara.

In Bite the Bullet, his autobiography, Haksar devotes some pages to the Bukhara, where he says he got the idea of people eating with their hands and wearing aprons, instead of spreading a serviette on the lap, after seeing a BBC TV drama based on the life of Tudor King Henry VIII. If English royalty could eat with their hands, why couldn't we, he reasoned with himself, and the practice has been in vogue since the day the Bukhara opened its doors. The practice has even survived one of the early (and rare at the Maurya) European manager's attempts to do away with it! Apparently, his argument that international visitors were being put off by the practice found no takers in the higher echelons of the ITC.

According to Haksar, the seating (which I find highly uncomfortable -- conspiracy theorists insist the design is driven by the idea of making people leave as soon as they finish eating!) and decor were inspired by a World War II film set partly in the North-West Frontier. There was a scene in it, Haksar writes, where British officers were seen dining at a rugged local eatery. The image stayed in Haksar's mind when he was planning Bukhara with Rajinder Kumar, the architect who became famous after the Maurya came up. Haksar borrowed the idea of the glass-fronted kitchen (which was a novelty in its time), or so ITC insiders whisper, from Rama International, a hotel that ITC managed for Iqbal Ghei and Pishori Lal Lamba in Aurangabad.

Bukhara started as a 60-seater and its entry, oddly, was through Amrapali, the 'coffee shop' that was subsequently renamed Pavilion. The strange layout had an adverse effect on the image of Amrapali, for there would always be a little crowd of Bukhara diners awaiting their turn hanging about in the 'coffee shop' or ordering starters from their favourite restaurant. Thanks to the 1982 Asian Games, when the hotel underwent a major refurbishment, this layout was changed in favour of what we see now.

Chef JP, who was toying with idea of becoming a doctor before listening to his heart and training to be a chef, joined ITC Welcomgroup in 1981 from the lowest end of the pecking order -- as management trainee at Mumbai's Ambassador Hotel and then, Demi Chef De Partie at the Sea Rock Sheraton, which was bombed in a terrorist attack in 1993. He was a Chef de Partie (CDP) at the Patna Maurya before he joined Bukhara, where he's now the hands-on executive chef -- even as he and his team feed more than 400 people a day, and make more money than any other restaurant in the country (Rs 8 crore a month, one hears from the competition!), his constant exposure to the tandoor has no effect on his even temper.

Like his temper, Bukhara thrives on consistency. The restaurant's mutton supplier has been at it for more than 25 years and so have the vendors respectively supplying the tomato puree for its celebrated Dal Bukhara and the brass vessel in which it is cooked on charcoal fire; its sole fillets unvarying weigh 300gms and its jumbo prawns, sourced from one of the ITC subsidiaries in Visakhapatnam for as long as anyone can remember, uniformly weigh between 80-120gms. Similar weight specifications are followed for capsicums and potatoes, and a mutton leg piece meant for a raan is never used for a burra! The butter and cream content of the Dal Bukhara, moreover, has never been allowed to exceed 6 per cent of the total portion size. Consistency of quality and an even-tempered chef -- you can't get a more winning combination.

Gaggan's is Asia's No. 3 & Continent's Best Indian Restaurant; Indian Accent Rises 12 Notches, But At No. 29, Behind Bukhara's No. 27

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WHEN I last met Gaggan Anand, the high priest of Progressing Indian Dining, at his namesake restaurant in Bangkok last year, he said it was his dream to reach the top of the World's 50 Best Restaurants -- in the footsteps of his icon Ferran Adria, at whose laboratory he had mastered the techniques that make his kitchen special. He was then at No. 66 on the hallowed world list -- the only Indian restaurant to make it to that pantheon of greats -- and I thought he had a long way to go.

The winners pose for the photo-op on the Asia's 50 Best
Restaurants awards night at Capella Hotel in Sentosa,
Singapore, on Monday, February 23.

Not anymore. Gaggan, a Kolkata-born Taj alumnus who made Bangkok his home in 2007, is today at No. 3 of the Asian's Best 50 List, which was unveiled at a glittering awards ceremony at the Capella Hotel in Sentosa, Singapore, on the night of Monday, February 23. He's up by seven notches from his 2013 ranking, next only to the list leader, Australian expat David Thompson's Nahm (also in Bangkok), and the No. 2, Yoshihiro Narisawa's eponymous Tokyo restaurant. That makes Gaggan's, without doubt, Asia's Best Indian restaurant.

That's also where the good news ends. For, India's Best, Bukhara at the ITC Maurya, figures 24 notches below Gaggan's, at No. 27. And Indian Accent, which is the closest to Gaggan's in style and deserving of a far better ranking, is at No. 29, thankfully up by 12 notches from its No. 41 in 2013. I still cannot fathom how you can have Bukhara, the last outpost of predictable dining that hasn't changed as long as Mount Everest has been around, Gaggan's, Indian Accent, Nahm and Narisawa on the same list.

I also wonder why Zorawar Kalra's Masala Library (Mumbai), which is Indian Accent's most serious challenger, Abhijit Saha's Caperberry (Bangalore), Rahul Akerkar's Indigo (Mumbai), the magician Vikramjit Roy's gastronomical laboratory, Pan Asian at the ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, or the brilliant Mickey Bhoite's creative playground, Le Cirque at The Leela Palace, New Delhi, not on the list. The Indian jury seems to be terribly out of sync with the country's changing reality, or it's too five-star-centric, that too stuck between ITC and Taj.

India is represented by six mostly uninspiring restaurants -- Dum Pukht at ITC Maurya, New Delhi (No. 30), which has lost its creative sparkle; Varq at The Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi (No. 32), which has quietly given up any claims to leadership on the Progressive Indian front; Wasabi by Morimoto at Taj Mumbai (No. 36), which is without doubt one of India's finest restaurants; and the has-been Karavalli at the Gateway Hotel on Residency Road, Bangalore  (No. 40).

India, like a patchy middle-order batsman, has been fumbling in the lower end of the list. Bangkok also has six names on the list, but the rankings of its restaurants, starting with Nahm and Gaggan, are far more impressive. Singapore leads the list with eight restaurants, followed by Japan with seven and Hong Kong with six.

Hong Kong's Fook Lam Moon, the unpretentious traditional Chinese restaurant that opened in Wamchai in 1948, has been the most spectacular climber, going up by 29 notches on a list where most restaurants have slipped. Barring Indian Accent, which has seen its ranking climb, the other Indian restaurants on the list have fallen behind -- Bukhara by one, Dumpukht by 13, Varq by two, Wasabi by Morimoto by 16 and Karavalli by five. The Best Indian Restaurant is now at No. 26, compared with No. 17 (Dumpukht) last year. But Indians at least have the consolation of savouring Gaggan's spectacular rise.

Chefs Share Seekh Kebab Secrets as Delhi Gourmet Club Honours Bukhara, Chor Bizarre & Kwality

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

WHAT’S the secret of the perfect seekh kebab? I asked this question of three chefs, all winners of the Delhi Gourmet Club’s Best Seekh Kebab of Delhi/NCR title, and none of them was as forthright as Pradeep Khullar of Chor Bizarre.

Delhi Gourmet Club's seekh kebab jury members with chefs
Purshottam Singh (right) and Balkishen (left) at the Bukhara

Yours truly giving away the first runners-up certificate to
Pratik Sinha, General Manager, Chor Bizarre, and Master
Chef Pradeep Khullar. To my left is Rocky Mohan, the
captain of the jury, and behind us is the inveterate
travelling gourmand Rajeev Gulati

Kwality scion Divij Lamba and Master Chef Bernard Mandal,
flanked by the men who run the restaurant and seekh kebab
jury members, hold the certificate for the second runner-up.
 All images by Ajay Gautam

The bright young chef, who looks as if he never eats the food he cooks, said it was the right proportion of a goat’s kidney fat (250 gm for every 750 gm of mutton mince) to give the seekh kebabs their sheen and bound and Amul processed cheese to act as the binder. “Without these two key ingredients, it is impossible for us to conceive our seekh kebabs,” said the genial chef, whom I had some time back given the trophy for the best roghan josh at Food & Nightlife magazine’s Delhi’s Most Delicious Awards. The other Chor Bizarre secret is to use ginger and garlic paste, instead of using these whole, to produce those juicy temptations that inveigle you to keep eating till you lose track of time.

The Delhi Gourmet Club’s demanding jury led by Rocky ‘Mr Old Monk’ Mohan, though, ranked Chor Bizarre at No. 2, with Bukhara’s meaty seekh kebabs (70-80 gm apiece, I was told, which makes a plate of four a complete meal) besting the Old World Hospitality restaurant by just two points. The styles of the two kebabs are distinctly different — Bukhara’s were mutton-first, chunky Frontier-style beauties, whereas Chor Bizarre were smoother, softer, more gentrified. They’re like the village woman made famous by Nawaz Sharif acquiring an urban gloss. It’s because less fat (not more than 20 per cent) goes into the Bukhara seekh kebabs to maintain their rusticity.

At Bukhara, we missed the on-tour-to-Kolkata Executive Chef J.P. Singh, who, it is said, has fed more heads of state than we can count on our fingers many times over, but we had the good fortune of meeting his able deputies — Purshottam Singh, whose professorial looks and athletic frame (he used to run up to the top of the ITC Maurya’s Towers block every day when he was younger) doesn’t give away his profession, and Balkishen, who has travelled the world, from New York to Ajman to Hong Kong, with the Bukhara brand since the time of the legendary Madan Lal Jaiswal, the brilliant chef who passed away in a car crash. They are the architects of a brand that feeds over 400 people a day and makes more money than any other restaurant in the country.

At No. 3, and a good eight points behind Chor Bizarre, was Kwality. Being a lover of gloss and glam, I am a great admirer of Kwality’s to-die-for succulent seekh kebabs, so I was quite heart-broken by the No. 3 spot, but when the tussle involves 15 formidable restaurants (shortlisted from 30 by members of the Delhi Gourmet Club), final rankings can spring surprises.

I couldn’t resist asking Divij Lamba, the Kwality scion who’s a Cornell and Yale alumnus and has done stints at the Brookings Institute and the Senate Office of Hillary Clinton, how the restaurant always manages to get its seekh kebabs right. He gave the credit entirely to the success of his chefs in not deviating from the age-old recipe followed at the restaurant. Kwality’s Master Chef Bernard Mandal, a man of few words and a welcoming smile, nodded in approval. Beyond learning that the main ingredients were love and care, I couldn’t gather more from the Kwality team, which included the company’s CEO, Prashant Narula.

ITC Maurya’s General Manager, Anil Chadha, asked us who the members of the jury were and how they were chosen. Well, Rocky Mohan, who being the author of four acclaimed cookbooks knows his seekh kebabs better than most, put together the jury comprising a mix of food enthusiasts who had eaten around the world and professionals who took the trouble of visiting each of the 15 restaurants unannounced and assessing the seekh kebabs, at their own expense, on four criteria: quality of the meat; taste; add-ons; presentation.

The judges were Mohit Balachandran, AD Singh’s national business head who’s also famous as Chowder Singh on blogosphere; inveterate travelling gourmand Rajeev Gulati, who’s in the pharmaceuticals distribution business; corporate lawyer Sanhita Dasgupta-Sensarma; restaurateur (Angrezee Dhaba) Rajat Pahwa; young hospitality professional Nikhil Alung; self-employed businessman and hobby cook Vikram Bali; and Yogesh Magon, who’s in the liquor business.

They knew their seekh kebabs well and though they had generally good things to say about most of the places they went to (their big surprise was Kebabs and Curries at Greater Kailash-I, but sadly, it was at No. 8, below the Connaught Place restaurant, Embassy, which is better known for its Dal Meat and Chicken Pakodas), they were unanimous in their expressing their shock at the decline in the standards of two Defence Colony institutions, Colonel’s Kababz and Moets, which rubbed shoulders at the bottom of the heap.

Such exercises are important because they give followers of groups like the Delhi Gourmet Club a user’s guide to the delicacies they all crave for. As the dining world is moving towards giving greater credence to peer reviews, the Delhi Gourmet Club’s hunt for the best seekh kebabs in Delhi/NCR is the right step in the direction of giving these reviews a prejudice-free structure.