RESTAURANT REVIEW: Sumptuous Treat for the Senses in a Green Getaway

This review first appeared in Mail Today, Delhi/NCR. Copyright: Mail Today
http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=11102013

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

The grandeur of Kiyan’s architecture, the beauty of the manicured greenery around it and the novelty of the menu make eating here a complete treat for the senses

INFOBOX

WHAT: Kiyan @ Dusit Devarana New Delhi

WHERE: Samalkha, NH-8 (Take a U-turn from under the Rajokri flyover)

DIAL: 011-33552211

PRICE PER PERSON (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 1,800 (veg) / Rs 2,300 (non-veg) +++

Check whether the resort hotel has got its alcohol licence

WHERE in this teeming city of ours can you have a meal watching a family of ducks waddle past you, the mother leading the way with Nazi steps, on a placid pool of crystal clear water amid acres of trees and shimmering green grass?

Nishant Choubey, formerly of Olive
Beach and Cibo, has crafted a plated
menu that brings into play the best
of contemporary techniques and
international ingredients

The world’s first Dusit Devarana, the spa resort brand created by Thailand’s Dusit Thani group of luxury hotels, has opened on one of Delhi’s busiest roads, the one leading to the Gurgaon toll plaza, flanked by Rajokri and Samalkha. But once you step inside, away from the bustle of traffic and the drone of landing aeroplanes, you are transported into a world of meditative silence and eye-warming greenery. It’s like being in a showpiece farmhouse.

Kiyan thrives in the heart of this oasis. The all-day restaurant, guarded by three monumental pillars inspired by ancient Sumerian architecture, is special because it will be the first to serve only individually plated, four-course meals — three options: European, Pan Asian and Indian — priced between Rs 1,800 and Rs 2,300 per person plus taxes. It’s the kind of restaurant where you don’t have to spend ten minutes pondering over the menu and then order just what you had asked for the last time you went there. It takes the tedium out of ordering and creates room for pleasant surprises.

The chef steering the restaurant, which I see becoming a major magnet after this Durga Puja-Navratra season winds down, is the young and creative Nishant Choubey, who earned his spurs at Olive Beach and then Cibo, when it was still a restaurant worth visiting. Choubey and his younger team (I was particularly impressed by bakery chef Anand Panwar’s 11-grain breads and baguettes) have created a multi-layered dining experience where each dish stands out for its combination of tastes and textures.

They surprise us with the care they take to choose their ingredients — artisan whole wheat flour from Germany for the breads, Ponni rice for the idlis, 65-day-old chickens (poussin) whose meat with skin on melts in the mouth, Spanish black pork sausages (sobrassada), home-made ricotta cheese pasta (gnudi) and even clementine (a variety of mandarin oranges) that grows only in May and June at the resort’s organic farm in Rajokri. There’s a sense of refreshing newness in this roster of ingredients.

I knew I would come back to Kiyan when I had its Andaman lobster wok-tossed with Madras shallots and served on a bed of ‘samundri bhaat’ (a memorable seafood khichdi). The novelty of the preparation combined with its deceptive simplicity just blew my mind. Likewise, the combination of foie gras (100 per cent goose liver — thank God for it!), Himalayan red salt and wine-poached prunes was so delicately balanced that the muscular robustness of the foie gras (I wish, though, it was sautéed a little gently) wasn’t overpowered by the sweetness of the prunes.

My personal wow moment, though, was the tomato soup, imbued with the power of fleshy confit tomatoes, their gentle tartness complemented by the bitter-sweet citrusy notes of the clementine foam. The other must-haves are the black cod with miso glaze and baby bok choy (a no-brainer if the fish is right and is just gently seared), zesty mushrooms (shimeji and enoki) and feta cheese wrapped in wafer-thin phyllo pastry sheets, and the gnudi that comes with a delectable spinach cream. And yes, whether it’s on the menu or not, you must ask for (no, demand, even threaten the management with dire consequences) the toffee pudding. It beats every other toffee pudding I have had in my life. Writing about it makes me hungry and makes me want to set off for Kiyan at once.

Dusit Devarana Opens Softly in Delhi, But Its Michelin-Star Restaurant Will Come Later

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

INDIA’S first Dusit Devarana, the Thai luxury hotel label brought to the country by the Bird Group, has opened its doors for early birds to come and enjoy the pleasures it has to offer in this retreat guarded by 1,000 ancient trees.

Delhi, though, will have to wait for the much-awaited opening of Kai, the Mayfair Chinese restaurant with one Michelin star owned by Bernard Yeoh, who was in Malaysia’s trap shooting team for the 2004 Athens Olympics. Kai will be Delhi’s first Michelin-star restaurant.

Dusit Devarana New Delhi’s all-day restaurant, Kiyan, will be the first to offer only fixed menus to address the diffidence of diners when they’re handed weighty menu cards. Executive Sous Chef Nishant Chaubey has promised to be around to take care of any special request that a particular diner may have outside the menu. The restaurant uses only organic vegetables and free-range meats sourced from farmers it has been working with for the last couple of years.

You may miss the hotel in the rush of traffic racing towards Gurgaon, unless you notice its aquamarine boundary wall peering out of a slip road. Once in it, you can unwind at its bar named Iah with an al fresco verandah, where you can have single malts, New World wines and boutique beers with nouvelle nibbles. The bar, according to the hotel’s marketing pitch, is targeted at young and contemporary Indians.

Interestingly, the mini bar in each of Dusit Devarana’s expansive rooms will stock unusual items such as Spanish olives and truffle-flavour biscuits sourced by the Barcelona-based Indian importer of high-end food products, Juberfam Mittal. That will be another first for the Dusit.

A promotional picture of Kiyan, Dusit Devarana New Delhi's
all-day restaurant, which will serve only set menus

But all eyes are on Kai (www.kaimayfair.co.uk), the first Indian foray of the Michelin-star restaurant at 65 Audley Street, Mayfair, near Park Lane, a part of London frequented by the Indian A-List. Around since 1993, Kai got its Michelin star in 2009 and was voted London’s Best Chinese restaurant by Zagat’s Survey in 2003-5. Kai’s style of food, according to information I have gleaned from Wikipedia, is renowned for its balance between the traditional, comfort recipes and the more modern interpretations of Chinese food, utilising ingredients from other cuisines. This is one restaurant Delhi badly needs to raise the bar for its favourite Chinese cuisine.

Dusit Devarana New Delhi, the top brand of Thailand’s Dusit Thani Group (www.dusit.com), which has been in the business since 1949, will be the Bird Group’s flagship hotel in the country. The Indian travel industry’s largest technology provider, the Bird Group (www.bird.in) will also roll out Dusit D2 at the Aerocity coming up in the neighbourhood of New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport, the Dusit Devarana hotels in Jaipur and Rishikesh, and the Dusit Thani in Goa, which are under various stages of development. All eyes will be on Dusit Devarana New Delhi once its opens its doors formally to a city that has been wondering why it’s taking so long to get operational.