Italian by nature

Trattoria had its work cut out for it when it took on the onus of introducing Mumbai to "authentic" Italian cuisine. "Nobody knew a thing beyond pizza, Amul cheese and button mushrooms," remembers Taj President's executive chef, Ananda Solomon.

So the menus, then, were designed not to shock "" minestrone soup was inoffensive enough. The menu was predominantly borrowed from southern Italian guidelines. "They use a lot more tomato and cheese-based sauces and even fiery-hot chilli peppers "" familiar flavours for Indians," explains Solomon.

A quarter-century later (an eternity for most "pop-up" restaurants these days), few order sandwiches (long considered mundane), and customers regularly specify a porcine or portabella mushroom.

They are equally interested in the provenance of the ingredients "" so it is of significance to them that the ham comes from Parma or the sausages from Bologna.

But old dishes die hard and Solomon finds tough resistance when he attempts to replace items on the menu, "What do you do when customers keep asking for the same thing over and over..." he mock-moans.

And while regulars never tired of their carbonara pasta and pollo crema di funghi, the casual pizzeria leitmotif with its checked table cloths was starting to look a little tired. So the decor was given a face-lift 20 years later, and it has a more magisterial air about it, although the brick-based Italforni oven still bakes near 200 oak-flavoured pizzas a day.

Solomon has long removed anything that was likely to be called "Continental" and not true-blue Italian. He is loath to the perception some people have of Trattoria being a coffee shop.

"Too many restaurants today try to be something to everyone. I believe in depth of practice, and that's probably why I am anti-Pan anything. No Pan-Asian or no Pan-European for me," he says of his inclination to disambiguate cuisines.

A member of the Slow Food movement, Solomon is trying his damnedest to contribute to the protection of regional food traditions and authenticity of produce and technique.

Trattoria sources the bulk of its raw materials from small-scale Italian farmers rather than mass producers. "Supermarket produce will never enable you to be cutting edge," he asserts.

Cutting edge or good ol' companion, Trattoria still does about 750 covers a day. Among those covers are several corporate bigwigs. "Kumar Mangalam Birla will never have cheese on his pizza, he prefers warm cottage cheese instead. And both the Ambani brothers always ask for penne," reveals Solomon as he meticulously slices up some sample antipasti into bite-sized portions.

Doesn't look like the routine ring-off "See you at Tratts" will lose favour any time soon.