DINING OUT: Startup Dreams Meet Fun Food At The Village

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

QUICK BYTES

WHERE: Hauz Khas Social, Hauz Khas Village (entrance next to Delhi Art Gallery)

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 1 a.m.

DIAL: (+91) 7838652814

HOW MUCH (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 800 for two, minus taxes and 10 per cent service charge
STAR RATING: 3-1/2*/5

HAUZ KHAS SOCIAL in not just another new dining space in a city teeming with options; it's a new experience altogether. It's the first hangout of the young -- in the capital of Delhi's Youngistan, Hauz Khas Village -- where bootstrapping start-up entrepreneurs can work through the day, satisfy their hunger pangs as they go about their day's business, and unwind at the end of it by stepping into the bar and ordering an unbelievably priced quarter to be shared with friends and co-workers.

The vibe at Hauz Khas Social is
such that you'd want to unwind
with an Aacharoska (above) or
a Screw Social Driver (below)
after a day spent with your
laptop and your colleagues,
your lunch being the humble
Social Staff Meal Du Jour

It's like working in your office cafeteria after some invisible magic wand has transmogrified it into 8,500 sq. ft. of social space, cheek by jowl with Firuz Shah Tughlaq's medieval madarsa, yet loaded with contemporary amenities such as WiFi and an app that lets you order food or select your music playlist, with the kind of edgy personality you'd associate with New York's Meat Packing District. Unfinished bare walls, naked bulbs, recycled furniture, skeletal clamp lights, plush leather sofas and signs in classical fonts hand-painted by street art guru Hanif Kureshi fall in place seamlessly to turn conventional restaurant design wisdom on its head. Anti-design is the Social's design statement.

The menu mirrors this sense of newness, yet it elevates conventional coffee shop and bar offerings into conversation pieces. Serious thought has been invested into it by Mumbai-based restaurant entrepreneur Riyaz Amlani, who's also famous for his Salt Water Cafe, Smoke House Deli and Mocha brands, his food and beverage honcho, Sid Mathur, and the Social's head chef, Gaurav Gidwani. Together, they have walked the fine line dividing fun food and kitchen gimmickry, without falling into the welcoming iron clasp of the latter.

For the Aacharoska, the classical cocktail with an Indian twist (and my personal favourite), for instance, they tried out 28 different lime pickles with mixologist Shishir Rane before settling for the Maharashtrian variant. The cocktail, served in a martaban (as you'd expect pickles to be), as a result, doesn't have the cloying sweetness that ruins such concoctions -- and that is especially true of the Deconstructed Moscow Mule, which comes (as it did at its birthplace, the Cock 'N' Bull restaurant on the Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles) in a copper mug with a pipette of ginger juice to balance the ginger ale's sugar punch. The Screw Social Driver, meanwhile, arrives in a beaker (specially ordered from Dava Bazaar, an area in South Mumbai famous for medical and scientific instruments as well as lab chemicals) with a real screwdriver in tow to remind you of the drink's origins -- it was apparently invented by American engineers in the Middle East in the 1940s, as they secretly mixed vodka into cans of orange juice with a screwdriver, the only equivalent of a cocktail shaker they had at an arm's length.

The food menu, similarly, is studded with surprises. You can order the Pakistani street food staple, anda shammi burger (with the buns being replaced by pao and the shammi being plumper than the usual), or make your heart work a little extra after you've had the fried bacon-wrapped peanut butter-jam sandwich squares served with vanilla ice-cream, or have a regular daal-chawal lunch for Rs 150 by ordering the Social Staff Meal Du Jour (notice the inverted snobbery!), or a Paneer Makhni/Butter Chicken/Andhra Mutton Biryani.

Each page of the food menu is studded with nibbles that will bring back cherished memories, like the cutting chai with khari biscuits, which are essentially puff pastries served in Mumbai's Irani cafes; or Bombay Bachelors, the typically Mumbai sandwich with sliced veggies and masala aloo bhaji topped with mint chutney and sev; or The Ramesh & Suresh -- deep-fried Five Star bars served with hot chocolate fudge and vanilla ice-cream -- named after the two characters who appears in the commercial for the well-known chocolate brand. But in all this unusualness, there's a unifying strand -- good taste. It never goes out of fashion.

Zorawar Kalra Set to Unveil Farzi Cafe in Gurgaon & Woo Market for $8m Cash Infusion

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

IT IS difficult to be Jiggs Kalra's son because of the gastronomical legacy you carry on your shoulders, but Massive Restaurants Managing Director Zorawar Kalra wears his heritage with elan. As he gets ready to open his newest concept restaurant, Farzi Cafe at the Cyber Hub, Gurgaon, reinventing the coffee shop culture with the tools and techniques of molecular gastronomy, Zorawar is carrying forward his father's tradition of innovating with imagination.

With Farzi Cafe, Zorawar Kalra is all
set to firmly establish himself as the
young and credible new face of
Modern Indian cuisine

Jiggs Kalra turned the salmon tikka and galauti kebab into national favourites; Zorawar Kalra is pushing the envelope with boti kebab tacos, dal-chawal arancini, karela calamari and anda bhurjee with chilli con queso (or molten cheese dip spiked with chillies) -- all invented dishes that may seem to a traditionalist to be straight out Mad Hatter's tea party, but which, without doubt, will bring the young back to the cuisine they had forsaken because it had become too predictable to tickle their taste buds.

And as he goes about giving Modern Indian cuisine a new direction with his talented team of Varun Duggal, the strategist, and Himanshu Saini, the star chef who (with Saurabh Udinia) has made Masala Library the go-to restaurant of Mumbai, Zorawar is working to a five-year business plan loaded with ambitious targets. He had set out with an infusion of funds from Gaurav Goenka's Mirah Hospitality, which has also made big-ticket investments in Riyaz Amlani's Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality and the Rajdhani restaurants, but with this  money exhausted by his first round of projects (including Made in Punjab), Zorawar is going back to the market to raise $8 million (Rs 48 crore at the present exchange rate) to finance his expansion plans.

Zorawar's plan is to take Made in Punjab to Tier-II cities, with 15 of them up and running in the next three or four years, open at least eight Farzi Cafe outlets in the same period, starting with the next one in Dubai, and go international with Masala Library with a network franchisees extending all the way to Dubai. "I am looking at Massive Restaurants notching up a turnover of Rs 225-250 crore at the end of five years," Zorawar said in an interview with the Indian Restaurant Spy.

Money does matter, but it's food that gets Zorawar most excited. He seems to be firm believer of the old restaurateur's adage, "Good food gets good money." Farzi Cafe, he says, has been an idea he has carried with him for eight years ("the first cafe in the world to showcase molecular gastronomy"), but it took shape only over the last six months, after extensive food trials.

Zorawar's vision was given a shape and form by the highly talented Himanshu, Manish Mehrotra's former protege who first came into the limelight when he won Chicago/New York restaurateur Rohini Dey's much-publicised 'chef hunt' last summer with his sarson da saag quesadilla served with butter milk foam. It was in that moment in the spotlight that Himanshu made a couple of telling comments that foretold his future. “There is a thin line between fusion and confusion," he said. "Once that is sorted, half the battle is won." He then went on to pay a tribute to his original guru: "You can’t think straight with food. Every dish must be prepared  like a story. That’s what I learnt from Manish Mehrotra.”

Farzi means 'fake', but it could also be an illusion, which is what Zorawar wants to serve on the plate -- a dish that doesn't taste the way you'd expect it to from it looks. The cafe's bar menu has a dozen molecular gastronomy-inspired cocktails and its tapas selection is crowded with surprises, from spare ribs spiked with the world's hottest bhut jolokia chillies and a double- deck galauti burger to tandoori lamb served with maple-soy sauce and whisky sour cream and a Philly cheese raan hot dog.

For the mains, some of the options are Thai green curry khichdi, roomali roti ravioli with eggplant mozzarella bharta and poha Pad Thai with wok-tossed red snapper. A couple of the desserts seem straight out of science fiction -- phirni oxide, for instance, or Bailey's lollipop prepared on Zorawar's favourite new toy, the anti-griddle, which can reduce the temperature of any liquid to minus-30 degrees Celsius in a flash -- but there's also the Parle-G cheesecake or the Cassata Indiana served with Magic Pops. It's as if Zorawar and Himanshu just let their imagination go on a free ride on the wild side.

Diners in Mumbai have savoured the creative repertoire of Zorawar's team, but at Cyber Hub, sadly, he's invariably measured by the day's lunch buffet at Made in Punjab, which not only is a steadily popular restaurant, but also has an a la carte menu studded with gems. Farzi Cafe, I hope, will allow him to be judged for what he and his young, talented and turbo-charged team are really worth.

FORTUNE COOKIE: How Delhi Became India's Gourmet Capital

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

DELHI is experiencing an efflorescence of dining like it has never seen before. Today, it can lay claim with justification to the mantle of being the country's 'gourmet capital' -- a crown that Mumbai regarded as its birthright.

Rahul Akerkar (right), seen unwinding with his
star executive chef, Jaydeep Mukherjee, is yet
another established Mumbai restaurateur (after
AD Singh, Riyaz Amlani and Jay Singh) who
has recognised the potential of Delhi, which
he describes as a "well-heeled, well-travelled,
consuming market". 

I am using 'gourmet' not in the stuffy sense of the word, but to signify an informed interest in good food, irrespective of its provenance, whether from a hole in the wall that has stood the test of time or from a white-tablecloth restaurant that is the rage of the season. Delhiites like to eat and spend good money on food (as Mumbai's favourite restaurateur Rahul Akerkar of Indigo once described the city me, "Delhi is a consuming market, a well-heeled market"). And can they be opinionated about food and hold forth on it (mostly intelligently) for hours!

Go to Facebook and you'll see in abundance this side of Delhi. And just as you start thinking that you've seen the last of the food groups on Facebook, another one pops up with its own fan following. There are people who deride these culinary churnings as exercises in narcissism, as outpourings of extremely boring people who live in some la-la land, but isn't that true of people who are passionate about politics, films and sports?

Delhi's long march from the days when it used to be derided as the Republic of Butter Chicken is being reflected in the new wave of restaurants thriving across the city and now, increasingly, Gurgaon. I remember AD Singh, the brain behind the national success of Olive Bar & Kitchen, saying to me in 2004 that "Delhi goes to a restaurant to eat; Mumbai, to see and be seen." He was very nervous, in fact, before opening Olive Bar & Kitchen in Mehrauli, despite the success of its philosophy of laidback fine-dining in Mumbai, because he was certain Delhiites would judge the new restaurant primarily on what they got to eat, not the looks or the vibes. The city's fabled love of good food, and the lengths it can go to be adventurous, is mirrored in the new restaurants mushrooming all over, powered by imaginative young restaurateurs such as Zorawar Kalra, whose Farzi Cafe is the most anticipated restaurant launch scheduled for July.

Delhi was the country's first city to have a Spanish and a Thai restaurant with expat chefs -- Esmeralda (1986) and Thai Pavilion (1992), respectively, at The Oberoi -- but these turned out to be flashes in the pan. Its love for the unfamiliar and the authentic, this time round, is here to stay and get more intense as more restaurants open to cater to this gastrolust.

Delhi today has in Indian Accent the country's finest 'Inventive Indian' restaurant. It has India's first and only conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, which was started by Varun Tuli, whose calling card is his commitment to his calling, some eight or so years ago after he had just returned from higher studies at an American university. Delhi has also become the second home to regional cuisines -- from stalwarts such as Oh Calcutta, Punjab Grill, City of Joy, Saravanah Bhawan and Delhi Karnataka Sangha to newbies like Carnatic Cafe (New Friends Colony) and Yeti: The Himalayan Kitchen (Greater Kailash-II, M-Block Market), to the north-eastern quartet of Jokai (Assam Bhawan), The Nagaland Kitchen and Rosang Cafe (Green Park Extension), and Dzukou (Hauz Khas Market), to the Cyber Hub Gurgaon's quartet of Made in Punjab, Soda Bottle Opener Wala, Dhaba by Claridges and Zambar, and Bernardo's, Delhi-NCR's lone flag-bearer of Goan food a little farther away.

This passion to go regional now expresses itself even in global cuisines showcased in the city. Before Neung Roi opened at the Radisson Blu Plaza, Mahipalpur, did anyone care about the geographical divisions of Thai cuisine? Or did anyone have the foggiest on Emilia-Romagna till Artusi opened at the city's new foodie destination -- M-Block Market, Greater Kailash-II -- and popularised the region's cuisine? Today, we have what no one would have wagered on not even five years ago -- a thriving French restaurant (Rara Avis), a second outlet of the Spanish eatery Imperfecto, two more chef-driven restaurants to give the grande dame Diva company (Nira Kehar's Chez Nini and Julia Carmet De Sa and Jatin Mallick's Tres), and a neighbourhood Japanese restaurant (Guppy by Ai). Welcome to the Gourmet Capital!

FINE DINING UNDER THE METRO

IT'S A great feeling to be able to sit below a Metro line and have a fine meal without being shaken by the rattle and rumble of trains, looking out to a garden shielding you from the bustle of one of the city's busiest commercial complexes -- Nehru Place. I was at Fio Cookhouse & Bar, smacking my lips after a soul-warming portion of broccoli raviolo soup, in Epicuria, the country's first community food mall inside a Metro station.

Fio Cookhouse & Bar, without
doubt, is the finest restaurant
at the successful Epicuria
food mall at Nehru Place 

The brainchild of entrepreneur Vivek Bahl, Epicuria has transformed the Nehru Place Metro station into a destination. And with four lead attractions besides Fio -- the hugely popular nightclub Flying Saucer, Starbucks, Karim's and India's first Benihana (despite mixed reviews!) -- it has brought home the idea of dining at a Metro station. Epicuria, thankfully, will soon have three or four clones across Delhi, starting with the Airport Metro station at Connaught Place.

Fio at Epicuria turned out to be a real discovery, for I had last visited the original restaurant at the Garden of Five Senses in Said-ul Ajab, and was piqued by its attempt to balance Indian and Italian menus. The combination seems to have worked for its owner, Vineet Wadhwa, a 1980 graduate of the Institute of Hotel Management, Pusa (New Delhi), who spent his green years in the hospitality business under the tutelage of A.N. Haksar, ITC's first Indian chairman.

At Epicuria, Fio is a tad more Italian with a food library look. Its collection of culinary books neatly stacked in towering racks accentuate the sense of walking into a retreat where food for physical sustenance competes with food for the mind. After 11, though, the place transforms into a party zone for the hip and young where new genres of music rock the scene.

I haven't checked out Fio's desi menu, but sharing the chef's table, I was won over by the peri peri olive chicken noisette and the petit roesti (a nifty cocktail snack) loaded with butter beans, portobello mushroom, artichoke, caramelised onion and cheese phyllo, followed by the basil lime steamed fish with balsamic butter, the forest mushroom risotto with asparagus broth, and finally, the unforgettable Viennese chocolate mousse.

A BEEHIVE OF ATTRACTION

A NUMBER of tall buildings have natural beehives, but it takes a manager who thinks out of the box to turn one into a tourist attraction, which is what has happened to the beehive thriving on the ledge overlooking a glass pane on the 11th floor of Pullman Gurgaon Central Park.

To draw attention to the beehive, the hotel has put up a plastic sign on the window, which tells us, among other things, that a beehive can produce up to 27 kilos of honey in a good year. I doubt if anyone has ever attempted to extract honey out of the beehive tucked away in a corner of the hotel's exterior wall that even a spiderman would find hard to negotiate, but it has become a tourist magnet.

Not a guest passes by without shooting a picture of the beehive, or taking a selfie with the beehive appearing to rest like a crown on top of the head. Touches like these can make even anonymous corners of hotels become conversation points.

This column first appeared in Mail Today on June 19, 2014. Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

GURGAON'S FINEST: Zorawar Kalra, Sodabottleopenerwala, Bernardo, Amaranta, Zambar & Many More

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

I HAD never considered Gurgaon to be anything more than a culinary desert till the Cyber Hub came up and became Delhi's go-to destination.

My only Gurgaon favourite was Cilantro, especially because of the wines on offer with its Sunday brunch, and then, in chronological order, Spectra (Leela Ambience), MoMo Cafe at the Courtyard by Marriott, Eest at The Westin (not my favourite!), La Riviera (which has lost much of its old glory after the fire that broke out some months back) and Sen5es at the Pullman, and Amaranta at The Oberoi gave me occasional reasons to cross the border to satiate my curiosity about our neighbour's foodie islands. With the opening of Cyber Hub, my jaunts to Millennium City have become frequent and taken me to restaurants beyond India's answer to Clarke Quay, and I have discovered that Gurgaon has well and truly evolved gastronomically.

When my friend Pawan Soni announced the Indian Food Freak Awards to recognise Gurgaon's best restaurants (indeed, a creditable initiative!), I decided to do my own quiet recce, exchanging notes over FB Mail with certified foodies of the Delhi Gourmet Club, F&B professionals and chefs. I compared their recommendations with my notes and realised that my favourites more or less reflected the popular opinion.

Here, then, are my personal awards, and if you find five-star hotels being poorly represented on the list, it is because most of them haven't impressed me. The future clearly belongs to standalone restaurants powered by passionate entrepreneurs and powerhouses of young talent. I would have loved it if the Indian Food Freak Awards were given out at Cyber Hub amphitheatre as a tribute to the future of Delhi-NCR's culture of dining out.

Restaurateur of the Year: Zorawar Kalra, Massive Restaurants

He's a tribute to his father, India's first and foremost food impresario Jiggs Kalra, and the tradition of Indian fine-dining he upheld. After creating Masala Library in Mumbai, a Michelin star-quality restaurant, Zorawar rolled out Made in Punjab, demonstrating the ease with which he can operate across formats.

In his next project, Farzi Cafe, next door to Made in Punjab, I believe he's marrying Masala Library's finesse with Made in Punjab's mass appeal. It takes an imaginative and versatile entrepreneur to think across so many formats. He may be younger, but if he maintains his standards and his success rate, he'll  be in the league of AD Singh and Riyaz Amlani.

Restaurant Concept of the Year: Sodabottleopenerwala

Marrying quirky ambience with food you can never tire of, Sodabottleopenerwala, under Mohit Balachandran's able leadership, has made us fall in love with Irani Cafe cuisine.

Discovery of the Year: Anahita Dhondy, Sodabottleopenerwala

She can land any international modelling contract with her porcelain looks, but this Taj product believes in sweating it out in the kitchen and producing Delhi-NCR's most addictive Parsi food. Bring on the Marghi Na Farcha.

INVENTIVE SPIRIT: Amaranta rewrote the
rules of serving rasam  at a Stag's Leap
Winery dinner for the Delhi Gourmet Club.

Gurgaon's Pride: Bernardo, Super Mart I, DLF Phase IV

Crescentia Scolt and Chris Fernandes have had to wage a long struggle to keep Bernardo afloat, moving from one location to another because of the real estate market's vagaries, but their to-die-for authentic Goan spread, which is better than what you get in Goa, has ensured their diehard loyalists keep following them wherever they go.

Corporate Chef of the Year: Ravi Saxena, Dhaba by Claridges, Cyber Hub, DLF Cyber City

I've seen him from the time he turned around The Imperial's Tuscan restaurant, San Gimignano, and it's heartening to see his transformation from an European fine-dining specialist to the creator of a growing chain of restaurants that exudes youthful energy even as it serves the classics that have been responsible for Dhaba's runaway success at The Claridges.

F&B Executive of the Year: Varun Duggal, Massive Restaurants

Zorawar Kalra's right-hand man, he combines sharp business instincts, a deep understanding of the restaurant trade and a warm personality that gets him friends and new clients with ease.

Best Modern Indian Restaurant of the Year: Amaranta, The Oberoi, Udyog Vihar, Phase V

Here's a restaurant that has achieved the impossible by consistently delivering the best fresh fish and seafood preparations from the coastal states with a contemporary twist, despite being in the heart of India's dusty plains. A tribute to the epicurean perfection that Executive Chef Ravitej Nath seeks to achieve in this laboratory of creativity, Amaranta can never let you down.

Sodabottleopenerwala combines a quirky design
with impeccable authenticity in its efforts to
popularise Irani Cafe cuisine and give it a
permanent new home in Delhi-NCR

Best North Indian Restaurant of the Year: Made In Punjab, Cyber Hub, DLF Cyber City

It's often unfairly judged because of its buffet, but you must order from its a la carte menu to understand why Palak Patta Chaat, Salmon Tikka, Beetroot Tikki and Railway Mutton Curry haven't tasted better anywhere else.

Best South Indian Restaurant of the Year: Zambar, Cyber Hub, DLF Cyber City

Arun Kumar TR's return with an all-new Zambar has been the best thing to have happened to Cyber Hub in recent months. The decor turns all notions of a South Indian restaurant on thjeir head and the menu is refreshingly different -- dig their Cauliflower Bezule, Andhra Chicken Vepedu, Squid Rings with Seafood Filling and Pork Sukka to understand why.

Best Small Restaurant of the Year: Pintxo, DLF Galleria Market, DLF Phase 4

Besides introducing a new word into our vocabulary, which means 'small snacks' in Basque country, Pintxo has proved that a restaurant can be a hole-in-the-wall and yet have an army of admirers, because what really matters is the food you're served. Can I have the bacon-wrapped prawns?

Best Multi-Cuisine Restaurant of the Year: Spectra, Leela Ambience Gurgaon

International variety and goodness, when combined, can be the recipe for a real winner, which is what this all-day restaurant with the best view in Gurgaon has to offer.

Best Sunday Brunch of the Year: Sen5es, Pullman Gurgaon Central Park

Its crab omelette isn't the only reason I am in love with Sen5es. The restaurant's Sunday Brunch, judging by the turnout for it, is clearly Gurgaon's favourite because it goes beyond the obvious offerings and makes an effort to do things, to borrow an expression from Pizza Hut, 'zaraa Hut ke'.

Best Italian Restaurant of the Year: 56 Ristorante Italiano, Vatika Atrium, DLF Golf Course Road

Located uniquely between two business towers, this restaurant combines a good menu and wine list overseen by an Italian chef with friendly and efficient service and a business-like atmosphere just right for corporate lunches. It's the best dining option on Golf Course Road.

Best Chinese Restaurant of the Year: Nooba, DLF Cyber City, Tower C

Restaurateurs in Vasant Kunj may be complaining about how their businesses have been hit because of the Cyber Hub, but this place bang next to India's first food mall continues to be the favoured 'canteen' of Chinese executives working at DLF Cyber City. What does it tell you about the food of this silent star among Rahul 'Indigo' Bhatia's trio of restaurants?

Best Japanese Restaurant of the Year: Raifu Tei, Dia Park Premier, Sector 29

Ask any Japanese expat where he hangs out with friends and he would say 'Raifu Tei' without blinking his eyes (yes, if you go to a Japanese hangout, as opposed to a horribly expensive restaurant favoured by desi moneybags, you'd think all Japanese men are single!). If you wish to have Japanese food the way the Japanese do, this is the where you can savour the experience without burning your wallet.

Best Dim Sum of the Year: dimsumbros, Ambience Mall

A leap of faith by the Yo! China trio, dimsumbros dazzles you with its array and quality of 'little hearts'. Ask for their Almond Prawn with Wasabi Mayo, Laksa Crab Dumpling and BBQ Pork Pastry to find out what has got me eating out of their hand!

Best Korean Restaurant of the Year: Gung The Palace, City Centre, Near Crowne Plaza, Sec. 29

Here's a restaurant whose only competition is itself, but it is on this list because of the consistency of its offering and the authenticity of its preparations, which is why it is the social magnet of Delhi-NCR's Korean community. Its Beef Bulgogi will have you, like Oliver Twist, asking for more.

Best Pizzas of the Year: Fat Lulu's, Arjun Marg, DLF Shopping Centre, DLF Phase I

This is where your search for Delhi-NCR's best pizzas should end. The base, sauce, cheese and toppings of each of the 22 pizza varieties are textbook perfect. You can choose from an array of choices in each of the four categories, making every order a new experience.

Best Comfort Food of the Year: Eat@Joe's, Cross Point Mall, DLF Phase IV

Joe Baath romanced the spotlight on MasterChef India, but he's not the kind of guy who basks in past glory. He's an engaging fellow and his Chicken Wings, Jalapeno Cheese Shots and BBQ Chicken Hotdog keep bringing back his growing horde of loyalists. And his tie-up with Pradeep Gidwani's The Pint Room keeps us well supplied with brews of the best kind.

Best Cocktails of the Year: Cocktails & Dreams Speakeasy, Behind Galaxy Hotel, Sector 15

This is the creative laboratory of Yangdup Lama and if it doesn't serve Gurgaon's best cocktails, then Millennium City has no hope. Fortunately, the maestro of mixology has been able to live up to his reputation and keeps giving the world an unforgettable high.

Best Patisserie of the Year: The Oberoi Patisseri and Delicatessen, Udyog Vihar

From croissants, cakes and chocolates to sausages and sandwiches, to freshly baked breads and olive oil, you get them all here, the standards notches higher than the competition and the prices, surprisingly, about the same as, and in some cases lower than, L'Opera.

DINING OUT: No Smokey's Without the Fire of Chilli

This review first appeared in Mail Today dated 24/01/2014. To see the original, please log on to http://epaper.mailtoday.in/epaperhome.aspx?issue=2412014.

Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

QUICK BITES

WHERE: Smokey's BBQ & Grill, VIPPS Centre, Local Shopping Centre, Masjid Moth, GK-II

WHEN: 12 NOON TO 1 A.M. (Happy Hours: 12:30 to 8:30 P.M.)

DIAL: 011-41435531

MEAL FOR TWO (MINUS ALCOHOL): Rs 3,000 +++

STAR RATING: ***1/2

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

DELHI-NCR, one can now say with justifiable pride, is the country's unchallenged dining capital. There's been an explosion of creativity in the city's kitchens, with established and young chefs, from Indian Accent's Manish Mehrotra to Soda Bottle Openerwala's Anahita Dhondy, tirelessly extending the boundaries of the geography of gastronomic imagination. All those who used to mock at Delhi-NCR as the Republic of Butter Chicken can go eat crow.

An American diner serving burgers and hot
dogs with a chilli twist, Smokey's draws you in
with its log cabin look, smoked cocktails, and
dishes like the meaty Two Peppercorn Steak 

Over the past month, we have seen the opening of Soda Bottle Openerwala and Monkey Bar, both of which have game-changer written all over them, the overwhelming success of Made in Punjab's new menu, the back-to-the-roots winter menu of Punjab Grill, and the entry of JW Marriott's K3, whose dim sum, pizzas and Sunday smoked martinis are my favourites. We have seen so much happening that when Smokey's opened, I felt it was to be expected in a city with evolved taste buds. It has become our fundamental right to expect good food from the new restaurants opening in the city.

Smokey's is a restaurant with heritage. It has opened at the same address where Smoke House Grill (SHG) used to run and it's the baby of Shiv Karan Singh, who's a familiar face in Delhi-NCR's restaurant circles. It was he who used to run SHG with Riyaz Amlani, one of the country's most successful restaurateurs. The two parted ways amicably and Smokey's has a lot of SHG, but with Shiv Karan's larger-than-life stamp and ace mixologist Sherine John's smoked cocktails.

An American diner with a deliciously priced wine list, about which I have commented in Fortune Cookie, Smokey's is just the kind of place card-carrying carnivores would love to visit to sink their teeth into the burgers and hot dogs, each of which comes with a twist. The Andhra Style Tenderloin Chilli Hot Dog made me sit up and admire the inventiveness of the Smokey's team. Guntur chillies add fire to the most boring ingredient and sure enough, they infuse pep into the juicy Bangalore beef, the city's flavour of the season, that goes into the hot dog.

You can taste the same fire in the Two Peppercorn Steak, which is crusted with crushed pink and black pepper. I wonder why pink peppercorns haven't become more popular among chefs. They endow dishes with a different kind of zest. The Slow Cooked Pork Ribs are the other gems -- marinated in the house spice mix, lager and BBQ sauce, and slow-cooked in a wood-fired oven, the meat simply slips off the bones. It's the most expensive item on the menu, but if you love Chilean pork, you've can't continue living without tasting this dish.

I was trying hard to look for dishes that would gladden the heart of a vegetarian, but Smokey's is green-friendly only in one respect -- it only loves animals who feed on greens! It may even challenge those carnivores who've started to go slow on red meat. They have the option of asking for the Chicken Wings, generously drizzled with umami-laden BBQ sauce, or the Atomic Drumsticks spiked with red chillies, the Spicy BBQ Chicken and Grilled Pineapple Salad, pan-seared John Dory served with tomato risotto and Shimla chilli sauce (a memorable new addition to the city's culinary repertoire), and Raja Chilli Marinated Seafood Crepes with Saffron Gratin. Just in case you don't know what Nagaland's Raja chillies are, I'd like to forewarn you that these belong to the same family as the palate-numbing hot Bhut Jolokia. Shiv Karan loves his chillies.

I can't complete this review without a mention of the Sherine John's cocktails. My personal favourite is The New Old Fashioned with Jim Beam, Drambuie, fresh mandarin, cucumber, green apple and basil -- I love the balance and freshness of ingredients, and the low sugar content. It's a cocktail for grown-ups -- and one of the reasons why you must have a meal at Smokey's.

Riyaz Amlani and Zorawar Kalra team up for global tandoor restaurant

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

THE hospitality world is abuzz with talk about the new projects that are to be unveiled in the next couple of months and the whispers are loudest about the grand alliance of restaurant operator Riyaz Amlani, CEO and Managing Director of Impresario Entertainment & Hospitality (www.impresario.in), and Zorawar Kalra, who sold his Punjab Grill stake to Amit Burman to be able to roll out new cuisine concepts.

With the blessings of strategic investor and brand builder Gaurav Goenka of Mirah Hospitality (www.mirahhospitality.com), Amlani, creator of the successful Smoke House Deli and Mocha franchises, and Kalra are working together to turn the top floor and rooftop of what used to be Suresh Kalmadi’s Village Bistro Restaurant Complex at Hauz Khas Village into a global tandoor restaurant. The restaurant overlooks the 13th-century Hauz Khas reservoir, whose water has turned green because of evident lack of care, and the well-maintained madrasa built by the mid-14th century Delhi Sultanate ruler, Firuz Shah Tughlaq.

The view from the rooftop of the Village Bistro Restaurant Complex, where the global tandoor restaurant of Riyaz Amlani and Zorawar Kalra is set to come up within months. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The buzz is that the restaurant will be named Tinur, after the Akkadian word for tandoor (Akkadian, incidentally, is an extinct language) found in the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, and it will trace the journey of the clay oven from our sub-continent to Iran and Central Asia, and thereafter to the rest of the world. Of course, the restaurant is at present a scooped-out shell and before it takes off, Kalra will open the Masala Library, a new concept restaurant offering a cutting-edge pan-Indian menu with touches of molecular gastronomy, at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), the workplace of over 400,000 people.

After Mumbai, Kalra will open the second Masala Library in Bangalore, and the more value-for-money Made in Punjab at The Hub, India’s first restaurant mall in the DLF Cyber Park in Gurgaon. Amlani, who started life as a shoe salesman and studied entertainment management in America, is launching three more Smoke House Delis in the months ahead, which will lift the number of this accessible fine-dining brand to seven. These are busy days for successful restaurateurs.