India's top table

Who is India's Chef # 1? Anoothi Vishal had a great time eating at their tables to find out.

Who makes the best haleem in the business? Whose is the oven-fired pizza to die for? Who catered for Sunil Mittal’s daughter’s wedding? What is Italian restaurateur Ritu Dalmia’s secret for her Thai dishes? Marut Sikka, Nikhil Chibb, Karen Anand, Nelson Wang… names as familiar as the kebabs and khaosweys, the preserves and oriental dishes that they sign their reputations on. Over the last decade, as Indians eat out in the pursuit of culinary excellence, the chef has been re-branded. So, the day Imtiyaz Qureshi takes a break from retirement to rustle up a biryani, Delhi’s cognoscenti will lick their fingers in anticipation. In Mumbai, they’ll pay top dollar to eat at Hemant Oberoi’s Chef’s Table. The chef is now that recognisable ingredient that keeps diners queueing up for more, but can no longer get away with just dishing out the curry. The chef as a brand means his influence must make itself felt not just in the kitchen but in the restaurants he oversees, in marketing, brand extensions and more.

 

And yet, do we know who deserves to sit at the head of India’s top table? How do you make that choice (even if the proof of the pudding is in the eating)? Besides culinary skills, what matters most — innovation, experimentation, consistency, training? Or, is it something else, something mystical? The belief in “good hands”, for instance? Imtiyaz Qureshi, in his omnipotent days at Dum Pukht, would be asked to “touch” dishes by juniors to ensure perfect flavour. For others, it’s about having a “good heart”. Corporate chef Manjit Gill of ITC Hotels explains: “I firmly believe a chef has to be a good person too... not negative or insecure.”

Nelson Wang, the Mumbai restaurateur credited with “founding” Indian-Chinese, names Jaffer Bhai of Dilli Durbar as one of his picks for the top chef. “Their biryani has remained consistent for the last 30 years,” he reasons. “I don’t know how he has taught his assistants because when I cook a dish, and when the chefs I have trained cook it, there is a difference.” Jaffer Bhai’s offerings may be rivalled by the qorma at Karim’s or kulchas at a street stall in Amristar, but if you don’t find those gentlemen mentioned here, it isn’t because we are elitist but because our pick is restricted to “chefs”, not “cooks”. It is a distinction that needs to be understood in India.

A “chef” is a chef not just because he can follow a recipe to perfection but because of his larger understanding of cuisine and its cultural context. He is someone who can research regional roots, bring a recipe to the mainstream, adapt it and give it a creative edge. Above all, he is someone who makes not just a superb meal but influences the way we eat. Ladies and gentlemen, here’s the Business Standard list of top five chefs, in ascending order.

5. Madhu Krishnan, Executive chef, ITC Gardenia, Bangalore (opens in September)

Being a woman in the rough and physically demanding hotel kitchen is not easy; to excel there, even tougher. Recognised by her peers as an exceptional chef, Krishnan’s big moment was when she was credited for her contribution to the West View, ITC Maurya, that opened in 1996. “She brought in the best of ingredients like scallops and cheeses, olives and Parma ham at a time when no one had these and people were not ready to accept anything raw and uncooked,” says food consultant Marut Sikka.

The restaurant was a precursor of the “new world” dining so trendy today — a cuisine, point out her peers, of which, Krishnan’s understanding is unrivalled. She moved on to ITC Grand Maratha, where, again, she was able to set and maintain high standards. “Her biggest quality is her enthusiasm,” says Ritu Dalmia, chef and restaurateur, “she is very hands on.” Sikka adds:  “She has never turned in a bad meal, that shows a commitment.”  

4. Bakshish Dean
Executive chef, The Park, New Delhi

Which is the best Indian restaurant in India? If you don’t agree with Bukhara (“overrated”) or Dum Pukht (“too heavy”, despite its elegance), or the newer, fusion-Indian Varq or Indian Accent, you will probably hone in on Fire at The Park, New Delhi. Credit for it should go to Dean, who has bridged the gap between contemporary sensibilities and traditional recipes without compromising on taste and authenticity. So his haleem is haleem even if the finesse goes beyond Hyderabad.

Dean is known to be a superb stylist of food. His recipes are well-researched, healthy, and presented imaginatively. And he has novel ways of working: Each time a new menu has to be introduced, he is known to ask members of the hotel staff to get dishes that “their mothers make well”. “He has single-handedly raised the level of The Park’s F&B,” says consultant Sudha Kukreja, herself an untrained but instinctive chef par excellence.

3. Ritu Dalmia, Chef and restaurateur, Diva, Delhi

Till Diva came along, almost a decade ago, Indian diners had just two choices — either a hotel restaurant, or a Pandara Road-style “family” place for a heartier, less expensive meal. Stylish standalones simply didn’t exist, and people were not comfortable with Italian food till Dalmia changed the rules with Diva, her “lifestyle” restaurant.

Ten years down the line, she remains steadily at the helm and continues to cook out of passion, using the best ingredients (Diva has one of the best wine lists of any restaurant in the country), while ruing the fact that her food costs are inordinately high and profits low. “Chefs tend to become mercenaries and pen-pushers and we burn out,” she says. But she hasn’t.

“Hats off to her that she can say I don’t care about the cost, I will only have the best,” says Manu Chandra, executive chef, Olive, Bangalore and Mumbai. She makes it to this list because of sheer talent and because she still cooks a lot herself, unlike, say, Indigo’s Rahul Akerkar, another worthy contender. In fact, forget Italian, try Dalmia’s oriental spread at one of her new spa cafes — a recreation of flavours she tasted on the streets. “It is not Thai food,” she will warn you. But you will understand her genius.

2. Imtiyaz Qureshi and Ananda Solomon (Master chef, ITC; executive chef, Taj President, Mumbai)

Qureshi redefined restaurant food in India even as he stuck with Muslim food from Uttar Pradesh, while Solomon brought the traditions of the Western coast — food from Malvan, Sindhu Durg, his native Mangalore, the Konkan belt — into the mainstream. If “good hands” are the measure of a great chef, both Qureshi and Solomon are gifted with “light fingers”, a term Solomon uses.

For someone who has always upheld the special taste of his mother’s fish curry, Solomon says that “just like a gardener needs to feel the soil with his hands, so should a chef, even at the highest level, be ready to dirty his hands”.

Both the Konkan Café and the Thai Pavilion, credited to Solomon, have been winning concepts. If you eat at The President, vouches The Park’s Dean, it is impossible to get a bad meal.

Qureshi’s legend, as everyone knows, grew with Dum Pukht. Beyond being gifted, what set him apart was that he was always ready to work in unusual ways, remembers consultant Marut Sikka. “There are so many chefs of that generation who say that this recipe can only be done like this, but not Imtiyaz.” Every hotel kitchen in India today possibly has a chef from the khandan carrying on the legacy, most notably Ghulam Qureshi, master chef at Dum Pukht, Imtiyaz’s son-in-law.

1. Hemant Oberoi, Corporate chef, Taj luxury hotels

A “super chef” who has fed prime ministers and visiting presidents as well as Hollywood and Bollywood celebs and corporate heavyweights, last year saw Oberoi’s most successful outing ever. Not only did he introduce Varq, the contemporary Indian brand at the Taj with creations like Varqui crabs, Martaban ka meat, Parmesan naan et al, he also launched Japanese restaurant Wasabi in Delhi with an incredible vegetarian spread making up almost 50 per cent of the menu. “He was always ahead of his time,” says Bakshish Dean, who trained under Oberoi. “At that time (in the early 1990s) he would make us work on things like pasta with oriental sauces, though they only came into the market 10 years later.” “I call him gold fingers,” says Nelson Wang, Oberoi’s friend, for whom the chef cooks personally when he visits the Zodiac Grill, another of Oberoi’s big concepts.

It is not as if India’s top chef does not have his detractors: They question his “real talent”, call him a media creation, point to some of his concepts like the Masala series of restaurants that have fizzled out, and add that with the resources at his disposal (“fly to Paris to check out a single recipe”) he should be doing what he is. But in the end, that Oberoi has been able to drive the Taj’s F&B to the top and has been consistently delivering over three decades is a measure of his worth. That so many of his students have gone on to redefine culinary niches in India, and abroad, means that no one else comes close to his stature.

MOST PROMISING YOUNG CHEF

Much before Delhi-boy and St Stephen’s alumnus Manu Chandra started training at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, he was already learning the basics of a professional kitchen, as a 16-year-old at the West View, ITC Maurya. “I was really passionate about cooking and would do birthday cakes and parties for friends ever since I was 12 years old,” says Chandra. Post CIA (including work at Michelin-starred places like Daniel in New York), Chandra sought to return to ITC for his first job. He was asked to do the standard thing: Take a trade test. He refused. Luckily, A D Singh was opening Olive in Bangalore (in 2004) and took him on. In under a year Chandra was elevated to the top job. At 28, he is one of the youngest executive chefs and has, this year, taken charge of Olive’s Mumbai operations too.

There is no dearth of talented young chefs in the country today, experimenting with newer concepts. Take Old World Hospitality’s Manish Mehrotra, for instance. Through sheer talent and grit he’s made it to the top, opening, first, the Oriental Octopus chain, then the much-talked about Tamarai in London, and, this year, Indian Accent in New Delhi. But Chandra leads the pack as much for his skills as for redefining the image of the chef in India: Saif Ali Khan might have been playing him when he played the role in Hum Tum.

Peer talk

We asked the country’s top chefs to rate their top chefs

Manjit Gill, corporate chef, ITC
1. Rahul Akerkar, Indigo
2. Ananda Solomon, Taj
3. Imtiyaz Qureshi, ITC
Criteria: Must be able to put together a meal himself. Must be a good person.

Bakshish Dean, executive chef, The Park
1. Hemant Oberoi, Taj
2. Ananda Solomon, Taj
3. Imtiyaz Qureshi, ITC
Criteria: Apart from talent, a chef must be a good teacher and a people’s person.

Ritu Dalmia, restaurateur, Diva
1. Madhu Krishnan, ITC
2. Hemant Oberoi, Taj
3. Ananda Solomon, Taj
Criteria: Should be hands-on, innovative and enthusiastic.

Sudha Kukreja, restaurateur, Ploof
1. Bakshish Dean, The Park
2. Hemant Oberoi, Taj
3. Ritu Dalmia, Diva
Criteria: Should be able to do simple things without expensive ingredients, yet make it worth your money.

Hemant Oberoi, corporate chef, Taj
1. Imtiyaz Qureshi, ITC
2. Urbano do Rego (Chef Rego) and Ananda Solomon, Taj
3. Rohit Sangwan, Taj Land’s End
Criteria: Should be doing good work.

Ananda Solomon, executive chef, Taj President
1. Madhu Krishnan, ITC
2. Hemant Oberoi, Taj
3. Chef Rego (Taj), Imtiyaz Qureshi (ITC)
Criteria: Should be passionate about cooking and be of such a calibre that only he can make a difference to the product. He should lead by example and should be able to train his juniors so that his cuisine should not die with him.

Marut Sikka, food consultant and restaurateur, Magique
1. Imtiyaz Qureshi, ITC
2. Ananda Solomon, Taj
3. Ritu Dalmia (Diva), Bakshish Dean (The Park)
Criteria: Must be an exceptional chef and have made a difference .