Anoothi Vishal meets Ashfaque and Irfan Quereshi, who, despite the legacy of their famous family, are determined to experiment with Indian cuisine.
Think of a biryani. The wafting aromas of saffron, Basmati, lamb cooked to perfection, elegant notes, delicate spices… A preparation like that can only come out of the kitchens of Lucknow. (The same dish in Kolkata, by comparison, would be very different— incorporating a rugged tuber or two. The Hyderabi kachche gosht ki biryani would have its fans but be more robust, more country-style. In contrast, a courtly Lucknawi-style dum pukht biryani is refined. It is also complicated to produce, and would have been lost to us but for the cooking of one clan.
Now, think of a chef with a famous last name. The high priest himself, members of whose clan abound in five-star kitchens in India. Yes, you are right, the name is Quereshi. The most memorable biryani (The “purdah” biryani, at ITC’s Dum Pukht restaurant, named because of the cover of dough which seals the pot in which the biryani is slow-cooked) I have had has been courtesy Imtiaz Quereshi, arguably one of the most famous chefs in India; flamboyant, erratic but hugely talented. It is a measure of that talent that Quereshi and his khandan are today known all over the world.
But the chef is now past his prime, and though other members of his family are keeping alive his legacy (the present master chef at Dum Pukht, Delhi, Chef Ghulam Quereshi, is his son-in-law), his sons Ashfaque and Irfan Quereshi are marching to their own tune. Instead of only following recipes handed down generations, they are experimenting, reinventing, making use of Western techniques and presentation learnt at catering schools, and often defying expectations that come with heavy-weight traditions.
When I meet them at the Made in India restaurant at the Radisson MBD in Noida, where they are conducting a food festival, the brothers are busy concocting dishes such as a crème brulee phirni or duck tikkas alongside their heritage kebabs and biryanis. Heritage with a little bit of twist, they say, and add that the food is also much lighter, oil and spices toned down to appeal to a new generation of diners. “Even our father, at this age, is not averse to experimenting,” they say, “even if something doesn’t turn out so well, he is determined to at least try”, they explain their own work through this filter.
Once upon a time, when more members of the clan stayed closer, in the same city, there would be Sunday lunches that would double up as culinary competitions, or so a fable goes. (Ashfaque now lives between Delhi, Mumbai and Abu Dhabi, where the brothers have a restaurant.) All the chefs in the family — and they were all chefs — would present their own creations and receive criticism or praise. But “No one in our family took criticism to heart,” says Ashfaque when I ask him about the notoriously fragile egos chefs have. He admits that usually any chef, even if he is a master chef, is great at just one thing. “He can cook other things and an outsider will not be able to make out the difference, but another good chef will know that that’s not where his talent lies,” adds Ashfaque. Is this another bit of mystification, I wonder?
Like the other one that floats about in the world of cooks and gourmands, the myth of “good hands”? The senior Quereshi had once told me how chefs under him in restaurant kitchens would often ask him to just touch their preparations so as to enhance flavour and ensure the recipe’s success. Indeed, it is a belief that many of us hold, who treat cooking with more reverence than a simple, mechanistic universe would demand.
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Ashfaque believes in it too —”the same song can be sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhonsle but you cannot mistake one for the other”— but by and large, these younger Quereshis are more matter of fact. (Among other places, they have a restaurant called Q’s Kitchen with the Future Group in Mumbai, so you get the drift.) Avadhi chefs have also been known for their obsession with secrets and secret masalas that they will not share with anyone but family, or thus go dark whisphers. But Ashfaque has been openly proclaiming his take on the perfect biryani. “What is the secret?,” he questions rhetorically. “Seventy per cent of your taste comes from the right ingredients. So the first step is to know the cut of the meats well. Twenty per cent comes from following the right technique and only 10 per cent from masalas. Masalas are not that important, you see,” he says.
The brothers run a consulting company called Grande Cuisines of India and their latest is going to be an ambitious restaurant in Bangalore to be called Rakabdar, the name a synonym for a master cook, “what you would call a maharaj, a level of chef who does not have to go to the market to hunt for ingredients but will open the fridge and start creating”.
Strangely, that’s a fairly modern, international concept as well what with the best kitchens in the world and celebrity chefs stressing local and easily available ingredients over those that take up carbon miles. And seasonal menus have always been a big trend abroad at any self-respecting fine-dine, “the way any cook or mother would do at home”.
At Rakabdar, the menu is to be not just seasonal but will also change every day. The food will be experimental (watermelon juice with smoked salmon, any one?) and pre-plated (even though Ashfaque suggests people will be able to share, vital to the way we Indians eat), and this is the only restaurant the consultants say where the crockery, cutlery and table sizes (spacious) were designed first —”then the menu”. Let’s look forward to that.