A cooking demonstration by Gaggan Anand is something of a variety show. Like heavy metal musicians, the chef and his team sport black T-shirts and idiosyncratic hairstyles. Akin to a ballet recital, they potter about the makeshift kitchen at the Four Seasons in Mumbai, gently putting together bite-sized dishes. Anand soon turns illusionist, ladling liquid nitrogen from a smoking cauldron to create coconut ice-cream in seconds. Puchkas are conjured out of white chocolate shells and the flavours of papri chaat are channelled into egg-shaped dollops of yoghurt. In two hours, the 36-year-old exhibits how scientific cooking is equally about the art. It is understandable why patrons of his Bangkok restaurant vie for seats with a view of the kitchen.
Since 2011, Anand's establishment, Gaggan, has been reinventing Indian dishes using the techniques of what is widely called molecular gastronomy. Of course, as that term becomes rapidly unfashionable, chefs have been replacing it with labels such as avant garde or, in Anand's case, "progressive" cuisine. Happy reviews by the likes of Wall Street Journal, Vir Sanghvi, Time and BBC helped. His concept resonated with upscale locals and well-heeled Indian tourists, and within three years of founding, it was ranked third in Asia and 17th in the world, according to lists brought out by the 50 Best Restaurants Academy. The growing success has allowed him to make plans for a 400 sq ft laboratory and an exclusive table inside the kitchen, for which he will "personally screen and select the guests" because he does not want any "fakers."
Straying from conventions has paid off so far. Manish Mehrotra, executive chef of Indian Accent in New Delhi's The Manor, reckons many chefs in India are already copying Anand's yoghurt spheres. "But his is unique." According to him, the Gaggan owner is a rebel who wants to move forward by breaking tradition. "He feels that it is very important to break the myth that Indian food is just about cheap, greasy, curry takeaways, a view that I share as well." Businessman Harsh Goenka, a foodie and one of the 500 judges who rated restaurants for the top 50 list, agrees. "There's a magical surprise in all his dishes. You are trained to expect a triangular samosa. What he does is take that conditioning away."
Like Goenka, Anand was born and raised in Kolkata. The chef says he is a Punjabi with a Bengali soul. He grew up loving humble street snacks, which reflects in the deconstructed dhoklas and samosas on his menu now. As a boy of 10 or 11, he conducted his earliest experiments in the kitchen making omlettes, Maggi noodles and tea. After studying at Institute of Hotel Management, Thiruvananthapuram, Anand took on an internship with the Taj group. But he felt Indian restaurant kitchens had too much manpower and not enough of it was competent. What was to be a three-month assignment in Bangkok ended with him deciding to stay back. Despite stints with popular restaurants there, he was itching to start something of his own.
A desire to learn the secrets of scientific cooking from Ferran Adria took him to the chef's famed restaurant, El Bulli in Spain. He trained in its lab for some months, sleeping in a bunk bed at night and cooking meals for the other residents who were mostly researchers. As a student, however, Anand was never into science, something he blames on the Indian education system. But the stay at El Bulli taught him to appreciate ingredients and understand the chemical changes that they go through.
On returning to Bangkok, he chose a colonial structure in Soi Langsuan, an attractive address in the city's downtown, to house Gaggan. "It was the only place where dogs did not chase me and my friends and I did not get thrown out." Anand has since gathered teams of 27 in the kitchen and 21 in service staff, from countries including Thailand, Venezuela, Japan, India and Indonesia. They pull shifts of around 10 hours, working with fresh ingredients sourced locally as well as from Italy, France and Japan. There are spares of each modern piece of scientific equipment to ensure the kitchen runs even if one of them malfunctions. The chef also orders cutlery from Spain, handmade and customised depending on the dish. It is all a costly affair, he boasts.
Unlike photos of him that are commonly available online, Anand oozes 'rock-and-roll' in T-shirt and shorts, sporting a 10-day stubble and tousled hair punished into a ponytail. His persona is still that of the drummer he used to be. His cuisine borrows its name from progressive rock, he says, and further displays his zeal for the genre by pointing to the back of a self-designed T-shirt. Words like 'cook', 'innovate' and 'fun' feature in colourful font there, huddled around an illustration of the rock-concert gesture, in which the outstretched fingers become a fork and knife. Anand likes loud music in the kitchen and even throws in a question about band preferences while recruiting chefs.
One cannot order a la carte at Gaggan as it focuses on degustation menus featuring signature vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Tripadvisor, which promises 'unbiased reviews,' mostly has praise for the establishment but one complaint recurs - diners are still hungry at the end of the course. The only downside of scientific cooking, says food critic and writer Rashmi Uday Singh, is that "it serves up a great experience but not necessarily a meal that one goes back to regularly." Anand is both aware and proud of this. "Mine is not a restaurant you can go to every Saturday. It is a once or twice a year kind of experience." To mix things up, he tinkers with the menu every two months and is bringing on a sommelier who is working with Gaggan chefs to create new cocktails.
During his visit, the weather in Mumbai is warm and "feels like Bangkok" but that does not encourage him to plan a restaurant here. There is no time, he says, before adding rather poetically, "Mumbai is based on capitalism and art is not about capitalism." For inspiration, however, he returns to India often because the cuisine changes every 50 kilometres. He held pop-up kitchens in Delhi and Mumbai on his recent sojourn, charging Rs 15,000 for a gourmet meal. Comments on social media about the high price had visibly upset the chef. He argues that logistics, a temporary set-up and luxury do not come cheap.
In Anand's own assessment, he is bossy but not a control freak at work. "I am more like a coach. I don't bark or shout in the kitchen but motivate the team," says the chef. "That's what Thailand taught me."
Avantika Bhuyan contributed to this report
