Sunil Sethi: The New Gilded Age of Gluttony

AL FRESCO

A popular crossword clue to a five-letter word goes: "What's a favour with a flavour?" and the answer begins with "c". Curry is the word you're looking for but in a world of fast-moving flavours it's a taste that's gone out of fashion (though currying favours has not). The choice of entertainment in India's "new gilded age" is vast "" everything is available in the big cities from Russian hookers to Brazilian belly dancers and Irish DJs "" but nothing is more staggering that the choice in international cuisine.

The food industry in metropolitan India is an overflowing cornucopia that's also trying to absorb the demands of globalisation. The smart grocer in my neighbourhood market now stocks polished mangosteens from Thailand, apples and grapes from California, two kinds of asparagus "" yellow and white "" and bunches of pak choy, wild garlic and chives. Across the street, the all-purpose household and kitchen supplier, who, for years filled his shelves with reliable but boring old brands like Kisan, Britannia and Amul, has now taught his staff the difference between wasabi and nori (Japanese horseradish and seaweed) and bolstered regular mushrooms with a choice of shiitake and morelles. Gouda, Edam and Brie are established old-hat flavours in cheese. He displays jars of goat's sheet in first-press olive oil with sprigs of rosemary and will take orders for Gorgonzola, mascarpone and exotic blue cheeses. "Will capons do?" I heard one of his minions informing a customer who was asking for duck at the meats counter. "We can place an order with Roger," he added, referring to a famous French farmer outside the city who supplies organically-fed, home-grown poultry.

The well-travelled, worldly new Indian is game for culinary adventures at home. Even if eating out on a budget you can find fresh blinis and borscht in a small cafe in Delhi, linger over steaming bowls of Vietnamese pho soup, eat Brazilian in the suburbs or visit half a dozen family-run Korean canteens, hidden in private residences, where they produce 20 kinds of khimchi to serve with an array of barbecued meats wrapped in lettuce at your table.

And how the limited, dull fare at the established five-star coffee shops has changed! Sunday buffet lunches (at Rs 2,500 per head plus taxes) now include an eat-all-you-can Epicurean feast of Sevruga caviar, oysters, lobster tails and other delicacies "" and often there isn't a seat available. Another five-star restaurant used to include limitless wine in the prix fixe menu but, on finding that a growing number of lunch guests were quaffing till teatime, have now jacked up the price.

Foreign flavours have also arrived in a big way, thanks to the growing expatriate communities and their demand for "home" food. At certain upmarket Japanese restaurants in the capital fresh sushi and sashimi are flown in several times a week from the famous fish market at Tsukiji in Tokyo and, for whopping sums of money, they will produce Kobe beef, not easily found in world capitals.

The last vestiges of "Punjabi Chinese" have been safely obliterated at the high-end Chinese restaurants. At a couple of deluxe eateries that have opened recently you can eat Peking Duck exactly as prepared in the Ming pavilions of Beijing and the hot sour soup "" that coriander-laden staple of Indian menus "" comes delicately laced with quail's eggs and water chestnuts. Price: about Rs 5,000 per head for a mini-Chinese banquet.

A friend who is gainfully employed several months of each year in compiling the definitive food guide to the capital says that the rule of thumb was that one restaurant would close for every two new that opened. Her estimate is one out of every three now closes. Last year's listing ran to about 3,500 restaurants and catering establishments in Delhi and its suburbs. This year the number is likely to cross 4,000. The age of unapologetic gluttony has arrived.