DINING OUT: Summer Menu Lifts Le Cirque New Delhi to a New Stratosphere

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

QUICK BITES

WHAT: Summer Menu at Le Cirque

WHERE: The Leela Palace New Delhi, Diplomatic Enclave, Chanakyapuri

WHEN: Dinner only

DIAL: (011) 39331390

AVG MEAL FOR TWO MINUS TAXES & ALCOHOL: Rs 7,000

(The restaurant doesn't levy service charge)

WHEN Le Cirque first opened on the rooftop of The Leela Palace New Delhi at Chanakyapuri, I went against prevailing wisdom and trashed its tired Franco-Italian menu, which, I discovered, was more or less the treatment being meted out to it by critics at the restaurant's birthplace, New York City. It was at this time that someone alerted me to the till-then undiscovered talent of Abhay Singh 'Mickey' Bhoite, the restaurant's Gujarati-born Italian executive chef. He could do much more than just replicate the mother restaurant's menu.

Mickey Bhoite, Le Cirque's
Chef de Cuisine, has proved to
be a fine orchestrator of the
unusual -- jasmine-smoked
scallops and pan-seared foie
gras with jamun confit, anyone?

Mickey grew up in Tuscany and worked at some of the world's best-known Italian restaurants before being handpicked by Le Cirque's Grand Old Man, Sirio Maccioni, to come over to Delhi. On arrival, Mickey at once attracted notice with his spiky hairstyle and sunny disposition. And stories started circulating about his lifelong love for venomous snakes (his collection of 60-plus of these slithering creatures back home in Italy is now in the custody of his mother), his passion for motorbikes and football (AC Juventus has his unwavering loyalty), and, as you'd expect from a chef of his standing, his mastery over contemporary gastronomic techniques such as sous vide, or  slow cooking in a water bath to ensure uniform cooking and protect the sanctity of the essential juices of meats. But we got to see very little of Mickey's repertoire.

Not any longer. Le Cirque's recently unveiled summer menu retains the popular classics such as the Porcini Consomme, Caesar Salad (with sunny side-up egg toast), Sirio's Pasta Primavera, Bistecca alla Fioentina (prepared with a chunky Angus T-bone steak), and Lobster Risotto, but it allows Mickey and his deputy, Federico Pucci, the freedom to give their creative instincts a free run. The formula seems to be working, for the restaurant, despite its steep prices, is forever full. The last time I was there, the celebrity diners included Captain Amarinder Singh, Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, his party colleague, Louise Khurshid, who was celebrating her promotion as senior citizen, the Iraqi ambassador, who had come with friends, and Kapil and Romi Dev, who were with an eclectic group at yet another private dining room.

Mickey loves to marry tastes and textures into seamless gastronomic experiences with the confidence that comes only when a chef understands his ingredients well. I asked him, for instance, about why he feels the need to import aubergines from France, and his reply made sense to me, despite his lengthy carbon footprint. Indian vegetables can be very temperamental -- sometimes, they taste like the best in the world; at other times, they are just not right. This can be extremely frustrating for a chef whose reputation is built upon consistency.

What I admire about Mickey is his memorable little creative touches, like presenting Asparagus Soup with buttermilk foam and salmon roe, or Wild Forest Mushrooms with parsnip puree, fava beans and hazelnuts, or Double Cooked Mozzarella with figs, arugula, aged  balsamic vinegar and  strawberry gazpacho (how cool!). His killer app, though, is the Pan Seared Foie Gras with perigordine sauce (a must for a Beef Wellington), caramelised peach, summery jamun confit (this is a touch of genius!) and toasted brioche. And Mickey's scallops come delicately jasmine-smoked, an idea that carries stamp (as does his Masala Tea Tiramisu).

Mickey brings an element of surprise to each dish, but the standouts are Ricotta and Spinach Gnocchi (with spicy carrot reduction, caramelised onion and spinach cracker), Lamb Côtelette in Grissini Crunch (with cocoa butter, which is another inspired choice, like using grissini for crumbs, potato and roasted garlic mash, plus a mint and onion sauce in the style of the Argentinean 'chimichurri'), and Olive Oil Poached Black Cod (drizzled with fresh tomato and parsley guazzetto, or slow-cooked, sauce and burnt eggplant 'pestato'). A world of influences congregate on the plate and Mickey orchestrates this gastronomic symphony with the elan of a Zubin Mehta.

This restaurant review first appeared in Mail Today on Friday, June 26, 2014.
Copyright: Mail Today Newspapers

The Leela's Patriarch May Be No More, But His Vision Will Continue To Guide His Hotel Chain

CAPTAIN C.P. KRISHNAN NAIR

Born: February 9, 1922

Dead: May 17, 2014

I met the visionary behind The Leela chain of luxury hotels for the last time last year, after he had presided over a seamless succession for his two sons, Vivek and Dinesh Nair. He left an indelible impression on me as he outlined the group’s future plans and its imminent global foray. A shorter version of this report appeared in Mail Today.

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

AS CAPT. Chittarath Poovakkatt Krishnan Nair, founder and chairman emeritus of The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts, passes the baton on to his sons, Vivek and Dinesh, he’s confident that the hospitality group that has become synonymous with style and grandeur will go international “very soon”.

Captain C.P. Krishnan Nair, pioneering hotelier,
passed away at his home in Mumbai in the early
hours of May 17, 2014.

The 91-year-old hotel mogul sees the chain going global within the next five years, after eight new hotels carrying The Leela flag will be up and running across the country. Potential international partners from places such as Abu Dhabi and Doha have already evinced interest in tying up with The Leela.

Impeccably attired, with flawless skin, sharp eyes and sharper mind, oozing energy thanks to his daily morning walk and 20 minutes of basketball, the sunny patriarch let the gently paced conversation flit across a gamut of topics over lunch in the line of vision of the optical glass Buddha at The Leela Palace New Delhi’s signature restaurant, Megu. I wondered at that time what the secret of his wrinkle-less skin was, as I watched him savour his sake and sashimi, occasionally turning to Rajesh Namby, the hotel's resident manager who was then the F&B manager, giving him instructions about what to serve me next.

The patriarch shared his vision for the hotel chain, which he launched after earning his initial millions from the international textiles business, where he's famous as one of the pioneers of the internationally renowned hand-spun Bleeding Madras yarn and as an initiator of the All-India Handloom Board. As a member of the Handloom Board, Capt. Nair got to travel across Europe in the latter half of the 1950s, and it was then that he was overcome by the desire to launch a chain of luxury hotels on the lines of the fine addresses he had checked in at during his travels.

He realised his dream when he opened his first hotel, named after his wife like all his business ventures, in 1986, in the neighbourhood of Mumbai's Sahar International Airport, which was inaugurated in the 1981. That was a visionary move, at a time when land values in that part of Mumbai hadn't touched astronomical heights, and for Capt. Nair, it was his third major career move after the Indian Army, which he quit in 1951, and his entry into the textile business, culminating in the founding of Leela Lace in 1957.

Capt. Nair clearly was a man who could see the road ahead. “The future of Delhi is on the road to the Yamuna Expressway,” he said. At the other end of the Expressway, bang opposite the Taj Mahal, another luxury hotel carrying The Leela banner is coming up on a seven-acre plot. “I see it becoming the venue of dream weddings facing the Taj,” Capt. Nair said.

Agra, he added, was on its way to be dramatically transformed by the proposed international airport. “In future, international tourists will first go to Agra and then come to Delhi,” he added, pointing to the airport’s likely dramatic impact.

Will the airport ever take off? Capt. Nair was confident it would. “The young and dynamic civil aviation minister with his eye on the interests of his home state will ensure it happens,” he said. Capt. Nair was referring to the then minister, Ajit Singh, who has just lost his Lok Sabha seat, adding that he was very close to Chaudhary Charan Singh, the former minister’s father and a former prime minister.

The pioneering hotelier and the group’s top management had been facing questions about the humongous cost of building The Leela New Delhi. For Capt. Nair, coming to Delhi was a dream that was tripped the first time when his Rs 200-crore bid for Hudco Place in the early 1990s led to a protracted legal dispute that dragged on for 14 years and went up to the Supreme Court. The group, however, sailed through the bidding for the Chanakyapuri plot, despite stiff competition from a Dubai sheikh and a Singapore company.

“It was the making of the hotel that turned out to be more expensive because I wanted it to be more beautiful than anything ever built in India,” Capt. Nair said and went on to talk about The Leela Palace, Chennai, “the city’s grandest and only sea-facing palace hotel” on the southern stretch of the Adyar Beach on the arterial Mount Road. “You can literally have a wedding on the sea at this stunning hotel,” said the patriarch, his eyes lighting up as he spoke.

Capt. Nair may have cleared the way for his sons, but his vision, without doubt, will continue to steer The Leela as it looks beyond the country’s borders for its future growth. And it will continue to do so, despite his physical absence from this mortal world.

High Priest of Pastry Chefs Takes Delhi on a Guided Tour of His Magical World of Flavours

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

Pierre Herme explaining the finer points of a
macaroon at his tete-a-tete with the city's leading
chefs, restaurateurs and bloggers at Le Cirque,
The Leela Palace New Delhi, Chanakyapuri.
Picture: Courtesy of Rupali Dean

WHEN Chumki Bharadwaj, Associate Editor, India Today Spice, informed us that more than 90 invitees had confirmed their attendance for the 'High Tea with Pierre Herme' organised on Monday jointly by her publication and The Leela Palace New Delhi, Chanakyapuri, I expected all hell to break loose. But Rajesh Namby, the hotel's Executive Assistant Manager (F&B), did not bat an eyelid. With clockwork efficiency and dazzling speed, he re-arranged the seating at Le Cirque, the appropriately chosen venue of the event, and inspired the equally even-tempered Executive Chef Christophe Gillino to make food for a gathering of 100-plus leading chefs, restaurateurs and bloggers of the city. It is not for nothing that Namby has been named Delhi's Best F&B Manager not once but on several occasions by top critics, including Vir Sanghvi, and leading publications.

Herme, universally hailed as 'The Picasso of Pastry', was having a quite lunch at Megu, the hotel's Japanese restaurant, when all this action was happening. When he came up to Le Cirque with his charming wife and his company's president, Charles Znaty, after what seemed like a soul-satisfying meal, he looked a little apprehensive. To unwind him, I asked him how his Sunday visit to Agra was and he instantly broke into a sunny smile, and said, "It was beautiful! It was too beautiful!"

France's most celebrated patissier, whose macaroons and chocolates are in a league of their own, dispensed with the services of the interpreter and connected effortlessly with the audience, whose questions were as well-researched as the answers were well thought out. The session was studded with profound one-liners from Herme.

Herme sketches out the macaroons he conceives
and then writes detailed recipes below. Here's his
sketch of his best-known macaroon, Ispahan.
Picture: Courtesy of Rupali Dean

"If there are no flavours to invent, I would be dead," said the man who reinvented macaroons (or macarons, as he insisted on calling them, in the way a true-blue Frenchman would call these confections). "There's no conflict between tradition and creativity," he said when asked about how he viewed the contributions of molecular gastronomy to the pastry chef's craft. "When you're in pastry school, keep asking questions, keep demanding more. Don't just accept what your teachers tell you. I was known as the guy who asks too many questions," said the former student of Lenotre, which Sabyasachi Gorai described as "the Harvard of pastry chefs", in response to a question on how a newbie could aspire to become like him.

He also shared with us his personal gold standard. "A macaron should be slightly crunchy when you bite into it and then it must be soft, not chewy," he said, laying down the definition of perfection, which The Oberoi New Delhi's talented pastry chef, Vikas Vibhuti, hopes to follow to the last letter when he unveils his own line of these delicious little temptations that Herme has made us fall in love with.

At the India Today Conclave, Herme, who draws inspiration from around the world, did not say anything categorical about how India has influenced him, but on Monday, he talked about his love for Alphonso mangoes and his interest in mustard oil. "I have always wanted to taste mustard oil to be able to understand its flavours and I got to do it during my present visit," he said, without divulging more, in response to MasterChef India co-host and The Leela Gurgaon's Executive Sous Chef Kunal Kapur's suggestion that he should not leave the country without having Dal Makhni and Butter Chicken. Well, one of his famous macaroons, inspired by a visit to an olive oil press in Italy, has among its ingredients the green first-press olive oil, vanilla and individual green olives sliced by hand into three pieces.

Herme dazzled us with the array of ingredients that he uses in his macaroons and chocolates. Of course, we didn't get to bite into the ones with foie gras, white and black truffles, which Herme rolls out only during Christmas, but we did get to taste combinations of vanilla from Mexico, Madagascar and Tahiti, hazelnut from Piedmont, cinnamon from Sri Lanka, lemon from Sicily, and single-origin chocolate from, among other places, a Venezuelan village named Chuao, which has no proper road, but whose 122 cocoa farmers produce a magical ingredient for the patissier's repertoire.

"We always have 18 different kinds of chocolates on our menu," Hermes said -- and the point to note is that he never repeats a collection from one season to another. What about the rose-litchi-raspberry combination that has immortalised Ispahan, his most famous macaroon? "We have 42 recipes with this combination," said the man who revels in the fine art of "the management of combinations of flavours".

Herme was only 14 years old when he got interested in macaroons. That was the year 1976 and a macaroon then meant, to quote Herme, "two biscuits with just four different types of fillings". By now, Herme must have left a trail of several hundred flavour combinations, but he's constantly seeking out more. I now wonder when we'll get to savour a hint of mustard oil in his macaroons.

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!

Bonding with Best and Curley: Aussie Super Chefs Spend An Olive Afternoon

By Sourish Bhattacharyya

The team of Vikram Khatri (left) of Olive Bar & Kitchen,
Mehrauli, presented a fulfilling lunch with visiting
Australian chefs Mark Best (centre) and Ian Curley

IAN CURLEY is as passionate about his work among the homeless and young criminals as he has strong views about Gordon Ramsay’s fly in-fly out approach to the restaurant business. He has a deliciously irreverent sense of humour. You’ll see him on the Heaven and Hell Episode (No. 26) of Masterchef Australia Season 5. But that’s not why I am writing about him and Mark Best, the Sydneysider chef who, like the British-born Curley, now also runs a highly successful Melbourne restaurant.

This is the second successive year that Curley, founder-executive chef of the European restaurant opposite Victoria’s Parliament House in Melbourne, is in India to cook and to inspire young aspiring chefs as a part of The Creative Services Support Group (CSSG) Summit 2013: Food + Art Edition. The chef who’s proud to be classical in his approach to his art is all set to make a hamburger with lobster gazpacho and beetroot carpaccio with goat’s curd and walnut at the 12-course dinner being orchestrated by the CSSG’s guardian angel, Anand Kapoor, at The Leela Palace New Delhi, Chanakyapuri, on Tuesday, October 1.

Curley and Best were speaking to the Indian Restaurant Spy after an indulgent lunch hosted by the Australian High Commission at Olive Bar & Kitchen, Mehrauli, where the incredibly talented Vikram Khatri and Sabyasachi ‘Saby’ Gorai’s acolyte, Dhruv Oberoi, a bright young man from Chandigarh, prepared a memorable three-course meal with the two visiting chefs. Of course, it was Best’s coconut sorbet with strips of mango, curry leaves and pepper powder that left us wanting more.

I asked Curley, the more loquacious of the two, what he cooked for his episode of Masterchef Australia Season 5. He said he made steak tartare (“a classical French dish with Victorian produce”) and a Bomb Alaska with pomegranate. The twists are original — very Curley. In Mumbai, where he’ll cook over the weekend, Curley will whip up a kulfi Bomb Alaska, which he’s visibly excited about (as he’s about having a meal with Manish Mehrotra at Indian Accent).

Best’s Melbourne restaurant in the Central Business District is the Pei Modern, which has been getting rave reviews for its modern bistro dining menu, but he earned his spurs with Marque at Surry Hills, Sydney’s hipster suburb teeming with students, quaint bookshops and restaurants serving food of just about every nationality. He said he started out being a practitioner of contemporary French cuisine (he has worked with the likes of Alain Passard, the reigning god of vegetarian cooking, and Raymond Blanc), but he then chose to be “just Australian” infusing the “multitude of cultures and influences that Australia is famous for. This effortless infusion was evident in the coconut sorbet.

Even as they struggled to come to terms with the fact that October 2, when Best will conduct a Master Class for the Delhi Gourmet Club at Le Cirque, The Leela Palace, Chanakyapuri, will be a ‘dry day’, I asked the chefs about the defining trend in the restaurant business in Australia. “Home-grown, farm-grown produce,” Mark said. “We have a grower who just does carrots, for instance,” Curley added and then mentioned the other big trend: “Ethical sourcing.” It reminded me of the old kitchen adage: Your food tastes as good as the ingredients that go into it. Creative chefs such as Curley and Best have understood this home truth well.