Currying favours no more

For long, Indian cuisine on the global plate meant chicken tikkas and paneer masalas. Not anymore. Indian chefs and restaurateurs are winning international accolades even as regional Indian dishes are being savoured worldwide.

Chef Chintan Pandya

Chef Vidit Aren

Hari Nayak

Pinaki Rath

Chef Atul Kochhar

Saket Gupta

Srijith Gopinathan

Early this year when the James Beard Foundation ⁠— Oscars of the food world ⁠— took out their list of nominees, it sent the food community in India into a celebratory tizzy. In its close to three-decade plus years of recognising exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts, hospitality, media, and broader food categories, there was never a list with so many Indians in every category, be it books popularising recipes or chefs and restaurateurs who rebelled against the parochial prejudices around Indian food. While the list itself stood testimony to India rising, very few anticipated what came next. Two Indians took centre stage as winners: Indian-origin chef Meherwan Irani of Chai Pani won America’s outstanding restaurant award, and Indian American chef Chintan Pandya won the Best Chef award for New York State, incidentally making him the third chef of colour cooking ethnic food to win the award.

This was as good an acknowledgement as ever of the rise of ‘true’ Indian cuisine on the global stage and a tribute to the many men and women who had tirelessly worked to break the colonial mould. The moment was followed by another when a few weeks later the National Bureau of Economic Research report ‘Dining Out as Cultural Trade’ included Indian cuisine among the five most popular international cuisines.

New conquests and power games

So has the much-maligned and misunderstood Indian cuisine finally arrived? The answer to this is a fascinating juxtaposition of events, economics and, as Singapore-based L’Angelus Group founder Pinaki Rath puts it, “the coinciding conducive response of the two gourmet theatres.”

Elaborates Rath, “When it comes to the dynamics of any cuisine on the world theatre, food has to score in New York and London, while in Asia, Singapore holds the card. It is in these cities the power games are played and won. Incidentally, when it comes to Indian food, Singapore has been a benefactor of its generosity as most of the dishes in the city’s food culture have evolved from Tamil cuisine. Be it the Murtabak, which is the Malay version of kothu paratha; the Nasi Biryani which is built on the Awadhi concept of saffron-hued rice with meat and spices or the Putu Mayam and appam which was adopted as it is.”

Singapore incidentally isn’t the only place primed to showcase Indian food; other countries like Bangkok and Malaysia are ready too. Many chefs are indeed choosing these markets to tell the Indian food story — be it Gaggan Anand whose unabashed way of presenting food made him a champion of breaking conventions or Chef Deepankar Khosla who used his understanding of Indian food to build Haoma, Asia’s first zero wastage, sustainable restaurant.

Soulful and curry free

Incidentally, this Asia resurgence is in sync with what chefs in the west are doing, where a modern interpretation of Indian food is the new narrative. The curry-free approach of some of the seasoned chefs has proved to be a turning point. Even back in 2001 when Chef Vineet Bhatia garnered the first Michelin star for Zaika, the food was chic, vibrant and multi-layered, which emboldened many others to build a narrative around their legacy cuisine.

Chef Hari Nayak of Sona, who is among the first few to set the new tone, recalls, “It wasn’t as if one fine morning we woke up and decided we wanted to go all Indian, but this consistent urge finally took wing with the recognition we were getting. I don’t mean just the awards, but also our diners who were open to experimenting. That said, each chef and eatery that decided to tread the uncharted path had to have the courage and the conviction that his interpretation will work.”

Thanks to a changing market — both diners and the ingredients — and the growing patronage of Indian food, the gamble has now paid off. In the last decade or so, we have had restaurants run by Indian chefs that have won Michelin stars: be it, Alfred Prasad, from Tamarind who drove in the charms of regional cuisine, Atul Kochhar who brought out the vegetarian slice of India with Benaras and now Riwaz, Sriram Aylur who championed coastal cuisine, or Srijith Gopinath, who has aced the art of weaving India into local ingredients, irrespective of the space, to name just a few.

Regional for the win

As Chef Kochhar says, while there is certainly a better representation of Indian cuisine, both in the high-end space and on the global street, it is the rise of regional cuisine that has been the main catalyst in giving the Indian market a bigger canvas. In Riwaz in Beaconsfield, for instance, the menu is inspired by the history, cultural practices and rustic charm of the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Odisha among others and has dishes that celebrate the differences between culinary practices and ethos. These dishes wouldn’t have made anyone blink a decade ago! Chef Surjan Singh Jolly’s three new restaurants — Shikar in Singapore, Chourangi in London and Riyasat in Doha — are further proof of these changing dynamics.

Another important reason for this change is the way chefs in India and abroad are working in sync, says Saket Gupta, VP (Marketing), Black Sheep Hotels and Rokeby. Whether it was the likes of Chef Manish Mehrotra who created Indian Accent and then Comorin, platforms for the new-age grammar for popular food; Chef Sabyasachi Gorai, who curated the first Armenian-based eatery, Lavaash By Saby, and the combo of Aditi Dugar and Prateek Sadhu, who became front runners in making traditional techniques relevant or the growing number of regional food pop-ups and dedicated spaces catering to local foods — a luxury hotel, for instance, recently opened a dedicated space for North-Eastern cuisine.

The stress on regional cuisine not only created new vistas for diners but it also attracted the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsay and David Rocco who designed popular television series exploring many layers of Indian food. It also compelled three-Michelin star Chef Daniel Humm to take residence in India intermittently with other renowned chefs like Jamie Oliver and Sarah Todd paying regular visits.

“This synergy has not just helped chefs, Indians and otherwise, but also other stakeholders for whom whole new possibilities have opened up for learning, exploring and collaborating,” says Chef Nayak. “The growing understanding has been crucial in making Indian cuisine endearing and expanding the space for experiential cuisine, albeit, with proper cultural appropriation,” opines Chef Vidit Aren of Souffle S’il Vous Plait.

Make from scratch

The thing about the Indian market, says Chef Aren, “is that it has all the trappings of a conducive food market — a new generation that loves food, is well travelled, has the money and the will to spend it on a good experience. But it is a market that also comes with its own preferences when it comes to food, which is both a bane and boon, as it allows for the authentic to survive while leaving space for interpretations. This juxtaposition presents the Indian market as a space where the risk is worth taking, for not just restaurants but for those in the business of food as well.”

And one way this jugalbandi has made its space, says Chef Chintan Pandya of Dhamaka, “is through an understanding of what can and how it should be presented.

For instance, when we tried getting the Mumbai Sandwich to Dhamaka, despite having flown in the two hero ingredients — the butter and bread — we realised that the taste wouldn’t match, Instead, we racked our brains to create our own paneer and sourced our mutton, the two most expensive ingredients that were needed to create the right taste.”

It is a lesson on which Chef Srijith Gopinath has worked on too at his new Michelin-winning outpost, Ettan, which uses local farm ingredients and Indian techniques. “There are a few dishes where the substitution of the ingredients work,” explains Chef Gopinath, “for the rest, it is either make it from scratch or scrap the idea.”

A rather unusual reason that has also helped propel Indian cuisine further is the pandemic and the intermittent lockdowns, says Chef Kochhar. “In retrospect, the lockdown has been a boon to Indian cuisine as it saw many take to social media to promote home cooking and local ingredients. And given the demography of Indian communities across the world, this meant that every second video one saw was of an Indian dish, its history and the finer nuances — this spurred businesses on. And once the lockdown was over, people began experiencing food with an adventurous appetite,” he says.

Saket Gupta agrees. “For Indian cuisine, the lockdown was a blessing in disguise. It not only marked a new beginning for regional foods but also took diners on unconventional culinary journeys.”

The author is a seasoned food columnist and curator of experiential dining experiences, pop-ups and retreats for chefs.