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.

India Today Conclave to Showcase the Pastry Chef Who Made Macaroons A Global Gourmet Phenomenon

A part of this article has been drawn from the curtain-raiser I wrote for the Mail Today dated March 7, 2012.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

IN THE 13-year history of the India Today Conclave, the only chef who has had anything to do with the country's definitive festival of ideas is a self-effacing man named Rajesh Wadhwa, who presides over the kitchens of the Taj Palace, New Delhi, and ensures that each gala dinner is more memorable than the one before.

A little later today, for the first time in the history of the India Today Conclave and its many copycats, a chef is going to take the centre-stage. France's most celebrated pastry chef and the god of macaroons, Pierre Herme, will showcase his world of flavours, first at a solo session and then at high tea, where the delegates will get to sample the confection that has the world from London to Qatar, Dubai and Tokyo eating out of his hand.

Pierre Herme is the youngest
man ever to be named France's
Pastry Chef of the Year. Picture
Copyright: Jean Louis Bloch Laine

Herme, who's on his first visit to India, is being presented by the Embassy of France. The Ambassador of France, Francois Richier, a master of nuclear diplomacy in the mould of our own Rakesh Sood, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, was worried that Herme's macaroons may sideline weightier matters such as nuclear power and the space programme.

It may happen, though, that the Picasso of Pastry, which is how Vogue magazine has described the patissier, wakes up the delegates and get them into the mood to discuss the eclectic range of subjects lined up for Conclave's Day Two -- from psephology to robotics, terror to space exploration, cinema to sanitation, and finally, Salman Khan on 'Being Human'. France is the Conclave's partner country -- and you can't imagine it without good food and wine. Hence Herme.

The youngest person to be named France's Pastry Chef of the Year, and the only member of his profession to be inducted into the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, the French equivalent of a knighthood, Herme is best-known for his unusual macaroons, his most famous creation being the one with olive oil and vanilla.

Christophe Gillino, a world-travelled Frenchman and Executive Chef of The Leela Palace New Delhi, underlined the importance of Herme when he said that the extraordinarily talented pastry chef was responsible for turning around the fortunes of two old French gourmet institutions -- Fauchon and Laduree. Then he went on to create an international chain of gourmet patisseries. Herme will interact with the city's pastry chefs and gourmet bloggers at Le Cirque, The Leela Palace New Delhi's signature restaurant, on Monday, March 10.

Heir to four generations of an Alsatian bakery and pastry-making tradition, Herme is not a stranger to generous accolades. Paris Match magazine has called Herme the "magician with tastes", The New York Times hailed him as "The Kitchen Emperor" and The Guardian described him as "The King of Modern Pâtisserie".

Herme, 52, started apprenticing with the pastry-making legend, Gaston Lenotre, when he was 14, and then went on to revolutionise his craft with his original philosophy of taste, sensations and pleasure. He was the one, for instance, who promoted the idea of the use of sugar as salt -- "as a seasoning to heighten other shades of flavour".

When Desserts by Pierre Herme was released in 1999, the world therefore wasn't surprised to see him overturning established norms by marrying unusual ingredients, such as black pepper and an optional sliver of habanero in his Warm Chocolate and Banana Tart, or a basil chiffonade as garnishing for his Basmati Rice and Fruits-of-the-Moment Salad.

He is a thinking person's pastry chef and a successful business baron who made the idea of 'Patisserie Haute Couture' an international statement of style, which has powered the growth of his chain of pastry shops from Tokyo in 1998 to France, England, Hong Kong, Qatar and Dubai.

Before he launched his empire of taste, Herme was the pastry chef for 11 years for the French fine food merchant, Fauchon, and in 1997, he was powering the expansion of another French institution, the luxury bakery, Laduree. He brings to New Delhi this vast experience and he will be here to talk about his life's journey with "pleasure as the only guide".