Tonight, Don't Miss Worldwide Celebration of French Gastronomy -- 14 Delhi-NCR Restaurants Are a Part of It

Visiting Michelin-starred French chef Akrame Benallal with his counterparts from
the 14 Delhi-NCR restaurants participating in the worldwide Gout France dinner
being served by 2,000 chefs across 150 countries in five continents. 

IN A WORLD where divisive politics rules the news, imagine people following discrete religions, speaking different languages and having varied skin tones united by the adhesive power of food. Tonight, 2.000 chefs across 150 nations in five continents will serve a French dinner at their restaurants in a one-of-its-kind celebration of a country that is synonymous with gastronomy and haute cuisine.

The Ambassador of France in India, Alexandre
Ziegler (right), welcomes Michelin-starred chef 
Akrame Benallal (Restaurant Akrame, Paris), 
who's in New Delhi to curate the Gout France
dinner at the Embassy of France tonight. 

One keeps hearing that French cuisine doesn't have much of a following on our side of the world, yet India is No. 3 on the crowded world list of Gout France, or Good France, which is the name of the initiative being steered by the French Foreign Ministry with the legendary Michelin multi-starred chef Alain Ducasse since 2015. As many as 66 restaurants, including 14 in Delhi-NCR, are participating in Gout France this year, only after getting the seal of approval from an international committee of chefs. "The common point of this event," in the words of Ducasse, "is generosity, sharing and the love of what is beautiful and tastes good. It will be a delightful interlude and an opportunity to celebrate French cuisine worldwide."

French gastronomy, incidentally, is on the UNESCO list of the intangible heritage of the world and Gout France draws its inspiration from Auguste Escoffier, who launched the Dîners d’Épicure (Epicurean Dinners) initiative – the same menu, the same day, in several world cities and aimed at as many diners as possible – in 1912.

In Delhi-NCR, too, each of the participating restaurants, which include Le Bistro Du Parc, Qla, Olive Bar & Kitchen, Pluck at Pullman New Delhi Aerocity and Nostalgia at The Imperial, will serve a French menu tonight. And one of the lucky diners will be eligible for a trip for two to France being sponsored by the French tourism development agency, Atout France (for contest detail, go to Zomato).

The high point of the event, which sees 150 French embassies around the world pitching in, is a dinner being curated by 35-year-old Akrame Benallal, chef-owner of the Michelin two-starred Restaurant Akrame in Paris, who spent yesterday (March 20) afternoon with the chefs from the participating restaurants. A protege of Pierre Gagnaire and Ferran Adria, whom he calls "the Rolling Stones of the kitchen", Chef Akrame, who likens his menus to fashion collections, opened his restaurant in 2011, got his first Michelin star within six months (a rare occurrence!). Today, he owns a fine-dining restaurant each in Paris and Hong Kong (which also has a Michelin star), two bistros in Paris, and a wine and cheese bar, also in Paris.

The Ambassador of France in India, Alexandre Ziegler, who's from Sauternes, home to the world's finest dessert wines in Bordeaux, and who owes his Germanic name to his Swiss great-grandfather who moved to Paris a century ago, clarified that French cuisine is not only haute cuisine. "People tend to believe that French cuisine is very expensive and quite complicated, but gastronomy can also be a daily life experience," Ziegler said. "My best culinary experiences have been in my grandmother's home, village cafes and bistros. You can travel across France only to discover its gastronomy."

Ziegler reminded me that France is the world's No. 1 tourist destination -- 86 million people visited the country in 2016 -- and the number of Indian visitors went up to 500,000 last year, representing a growth of 45 per cent over the last two years. More and more Indian visitors to France are showing a "growing interest" in "new experiences" -- and these include gastronomy and wine tourism.

Tourism, Ziegler said, is an essential component of people-to-people exchanges that bring nations closer to each other. "Partnerships between nations are not made only by diplomats signing MoUs," the ambassador added and shared three important bits of statistics:

• More than 3.5 lakh Indian nationals are employed by French companies operating in India.
• There's been a 20 per cent increase in the number of Indian students going to France for higher studies.
• Around 250,000 French tourists visited India last year and whereas in the earlier years, 80 per cent of them would limit their itinerary to Rajasthan, today, they are exploring destinations in South India, especially Hampi, and old cities such as Varanasi.

Gout France may be a one-night affair, but it underlines one salient feature of the emerging world civilisation -- food brings people closer in a discordant universe.

RESTAURANT REVIEW: The Qube Adds Oomph to Coffee Shop Dining

Christophe Gillino, who has worked in the
kitchens of the French maestros Alain
Ducasse and Alain Senderens, has given
the menu at The Qube, The Leela Palace,
New Delhi, a brilliant creative spin 

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

NO FIVE-STAR hotel makes a serious attempt to raise the bar for the a la carte menu of its all-day restaurant, the coffee shop in popular parlance, because this institution has traditionally been known (and judged) by the quality of its buffet.

As we all must know by now, a buffet isn’t the most appetising way to have a memorable meal, unless of course someone in the hotel’s F&B department has put a lot of thought into making it special. It’s also commonly understood that if people order from the a la carte menu of an all-day restaurant, they would ask for a sandwich or a burger and maybe soup. Even The Qube at The Leela Palace in Chanakyapuri has been famous for its Angus burger, which is without doubt the best in the city.

The hotel’s executive chef, Christophe Gillino, a Frenchman from Avignon who arrived from Four Seasons Marrakesh some months back, all tanned and eager to tweak things, has taken the bold leap of faith to recast The Qube’s menu, pumping up its Mediterranean section (his years of work in Madeira and Monte Carlo coming in handy) and introducing his contemporary interpretations of French classics, which he mastered in the kitchens of the two doyens of the cuisine — Alain Ducasse and Alain Senderens.

When I first met Gillino (who's equally famous as the sound designer known in the business as Chris Milano), he said he wanted to make The Qube’s menu reflect the restaurant’s ambience — after all, the temperature-controlled glass box in which guests dine is a piece of architectural sophistication. I could appreciate Gillino’s sense of urgency. The Qube has been outperforming all the other restaurants in the hotel, so it makes sense to keep pumping up the oomph factor in its menu.

Gillino has not held himself back from introducing potentially popular choices. We have the schecciatta (pronounced as ‘Skee-ach-ATTA’), a flat bread that is as Tuscan (and as delicious) as Chianti; the sliders (mini burgers); the shawarma, a reflection of Gillino’s close association with the Arab world (his wife is Moroccan, for starters); chicken bento box, which presents different preparations of the Delhiite’s favourite meat in the cute Japanese version of the thali; and even items that’ll make you sit up and take notice, such as barbecued sea eel (unagi) with foie gras (this must rank as a most original inclusion in an all-day restaurant menu).

You’ll get a sense of the chef’s immense reserves of creativity from the spin he gives to French classics, starting with the silky and seductive bisque-bouille, which deconstructs the old-fashioned seafood soup, bouillabaisse, with catch from the Bay of Bengal. We have all had seared scallops, but Gillino lends the dish a summery lightness and a depth of flavour with the addition of guacamole and cucumber tartare. With the same dexterity, Gillino has enriched what could be a just a standard-issue pavé (prime grilled steak) of salmon with the addition of leek fondue, goat cheese, beetroot reduction and lentil risotto. This interplay of textures and flavours saves the dish from being condemned to ordinariness, which is usually its fate, especially if the salmon has been in the freezer for too long. For the chicken ravioli served in a rosemary-infused wine reduction with Parmesan cheese, Gillino has played with the style of presentation, making it rise above its commonplace pedigree.

The star of the show, though, is the five-spice lamb shoulder (a stylish harking back to the Moroccan tagine) with apricot confit, soft polenta and onion chutney — the competing tastes, like the music Gillino orchestrates, seamlessly complement each other. Now, if you believe this is the peak of indulgence, wait till you dig into Gillino’s Araguani orange chocolate (a 72 per cent dark beauty from Valrhona) hot pudding with a saffron apricot compote and Bailey’s ice-cream. That’s my idea of heaven on earth!