3 days ago
The Anteaters
North by northeast
Cuisine from the northeast of India is also slowly coming into the limelight, particularly Assamese and Naga cuisines. Restaurants such as Naga Belly in Mumbai and Dzukou Tribal Kitchen in Delhi offer a deep dive into the indigenous food and culture of the region. Thomas Zacharias, chef and founder of The Locavore, believes a wave of northeastern cuisine is in the offing. 'I recently spent some time in Meghalaya, and one of the most interesting restaurants I came across was Mei Ramew Café in the village of Khweng, a couple of hours from Shillong. It is run by local communities and has a daily-changing menu that centres on ingredients that are grown or foraged in the area,' he says.
The pop-up model has also become a powerful tool for hyperlocal preservation. Chef and Northeast food curator Gitika Saikia builds her seasonal menus around traditional festivals. 'I go beyond Bihu and focus on smaller community festivals. For example, the Mishing community celebrates its largest festival called Ali-Ai-Ligang in the month of February. This is a good opportunity for me to introduce new ingredients like fig leaves or water hyacinth to consumers; for me, it is a form of cultural preservation,' she says.
The good stuff
A noticeable trend is that rather than defining menus by regional cuisines, many chefs are shifting towards an ingredient-first philosophy. Shalini Phillip, co-owner of The Farm in Chennai, says, 'Being cuisine-driven can be limiting. Whereas if you're ingredient-driven, then you can do anything. That's definitely the way forward.' Her Farm Walk Salad, for instance, features assorted lettuce and foraged herbs with a creamy dressing of manathakkali or black nightshade, a wild green commonly consumed as a stir-fry. 'It's very familiar to everybody in Tamil Nadu, but it's presented in an entirely different way than our guests would have experienced it,' she adds.
At Ekaa in Mumbai, being ingredient-driven has been the overarching philosophy since day one. Over the years, head chef and partner Niyati Rao has put locally sourced ingredients such as sea urchin, salmon trout roe, and Indian durian on the menu. This year, she is highlighting samphire or sea asparagus sourced from Kutch that's served as a pickle. 'I think why this matters so much is because it really awakens chefs and diners to the produce available in India. And the other thing is that it opens the playing field a little more when you get exotic ingredients that you see Michelin star chefs use,' she elaborates. On an earlier menu, Rao introduced mogri or radish pods, which are available only for a couple of weeks in winter. 'I used to hate it as a child. It has a horseradish-like zinginess that I really appreciate now,' she says.
Rao is also currently enamoured with the extremely aromatic and citrusy Naga pepper. 'I think it's one of the rarest ingredients in India. It cannot be cultivated, only foraged. We infuse them in oil, which is used across many dishes,' she adds. Totlani points to ingredients such as cactus, prickly pear, and black potatoes. At the newly opened Bar Paradox, he thinly slices and fries black potatoes to make chips and serves them with thecha bone marrow (scraped right out of the bone).
Another ingredient that's having its moment in the sun is mahua, which was once dismissed as a tribal intoxicant. Ensconced within Maharashtra's Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, the restaurant Palaash at Tipai by Wildlife Luxuries is surrounded by mahua trees. So, it's no surprise that Amninder Sandhu (director and founding partner) is incorporating it in the menu in inventive ways—from mahua chocolate florentines and mahua kala jamun to mahua syrup that comes with her millet pancakes. 'For me, the whole idea of exploring hyperlocal ingredients came about because of our remote location and the unavailability of many ingredients,' she says. Other hyperlocal ingredients that star on the Palaash menu include ambaadi (roselle or gongura), which is served like a papdi chaat and kashiphal patta (pumpkin leaf), which features in the bamboo-smoked pork dish with Indrayani rice.
Speaking of northeastern ingredients, Saikia is partial to dhekia xaak or fiddlehead fern, a wild green that she grew up eating. She recommends stir-frying it with scrambled eggs or pork, or in the Assamese summer staple of fish boil. This dish also features ou tenga or elephant apple, a popular souring agent from the region that Saikia says can replace tomato in curries and stews.
