We’re still waiting for the classic deli that’s easy on the pocket, too.
“Meenakshi bought her fortnightly stores — her
white flour, her jam and Chivers Marmalade
and Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Anchor Butter and
tea and coffee and cheese and clean sugar (‘Not
this dirty ration stuff!’) — from Baboralley, some
salami from a cold store in Free School Street
(‘The salami from Keventers is dreadfully
bland, I’ve decided never to go there again’)…”
— From A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
For the last two decades, the Indian shopping experience in terms of cheeses, cold meats and foreign-made goodies followed the pattern described by Seth. Calcutta had Newmarket; Bombay’s upmarket stores and Delhi’s INA and Khan Markets catered to grateful hordes of expat customers. But despite the cold stores and the growing availability of foreign brands, what we didn’t have in India were really good delis.
The deli story here echoes the bakery story. In places like Goa, Manali and Ladakh, expect excellent bakeries; elsewhere, you have a choice between the high-end five-star pastry shop and local pau-and-garlic-cheese loaf versions. Even today, when patisseries stud most local neighbourhoods in the metros, only a few hotel bakeries follow the classic French or German system of baking fresh goods for different times of the day — croissants and baguettes for the morning, quiches and tarts for mid-afternoon.
But New York or Frankfurt-style grand delicatessens have been absent from the local scene, which is a great pity. A really good deli slides easily into the space between home cooking and great restaurant meals. Some of the best meals I’ve had in Europe happened when I discovered it was cheaper to buy caramelised onions, marinated peppers and cold cuts at a deli than it was to buy saran-wrapped sandwiches. And it made for a much better meal.
Long before Indigo Deli in Bombay or the Oberoi Deli opened their doors, Steakhouse in New Delhi did a brisk trade in imported cheeses and reasonable sausages. But while Steakhouse provides sundried tomatoes, bottled artichokes and olives, it doesn’t make its own line of salads and pickles. It’s a bit like The Taste in New Delhi’s Defence Colony, which offers some amazing cheeses and cold cuts — unusual monastery cheeses, really excellent ash-coated goat’s cheese — but doesn’t pretend to be more than an upmarket cold chain.
Le Marche in New Delhi and Nature’s Basket in Mumbai and New Delhi are more gourmet supermarkets than classic deli, even though Le Marche has a thriving meats-and-fish section. (Not quite deli, though: they specialise in the marinated chops and pre-made koftas that good butchers like Mirajuddin’s or New Empire in Khan Market would carry.)
The Oberoi’s first attempt at a deli, the Sugar and Spice chain, had quality control problems. But version 2.0, the Oberoi Deli in New Delhi, tries to do an Indigo Deli — without the restaurant experience — and so far, it’s been great. Like Indigo, the Oberoi offers a really good selection of meats, hams and pates — though Indigo regularly outdoes the Oberoi in its ability to source rare French and Swiss cheeses. It does a decent range of salads, and I’m addicted to its almond-stuffed olives.
The problem with these two delis isn’t the experience — from the tiny madeleines at the Oberoi to the home-made range of gourmet mustards at Indigo, the quality of what you’ll get would pass muster in any European city. But the prices, while they reflect import duties, make the deli experience equivalent to the five-star restaurant experience — it’s an occasional treat.
Why is this a problem? Because in most of the cities with a great deli culture — Barcelona, New York, London and Paris in very different ways — the deli supplements the household kitchen. You’d go to a good deli to pick up a savoury tart or smoked ham for dinner in just the same way a Bengali housewife would pick up mutton croquettes or shingara for tea at the local corner shop. We haven’t got there yet, and until we do, I will just have to continue trying to perfect the making of caramelised onions and marinated mushrooms at home.
[Nilanjana S Roy is a Delhi-based editor and writer]
