The finest in Italian

THE FOOD CLUB

Arguably the finest restaurant in Chennai in the non-Indian category is Prego, at the Taj Coromandel.

The slightly old-fashioned, fusty design of the public areas suddenly gives way to the sleek interiors of a contemporary Italian restaurant, complete with wine library at the entrance and masses of blooms at the full-length glass doors that overlook the pool.

You never get to hear the inside story of how a restaurant came to fruition, but half an hour with executive chef Nabhojit Ghosh and general manager Arindam Kunar had me doubling up with laughter.

It appears that after the Taj group decided to lay to rest the Patio "" the formal restaurant of yore, with decor and a menu to match "" they knew they wanted an Italian restaurant presided over by an Italian national.

Chef Ghosh and Chef Hemant Oberoi, the corporate chef of the group, took a trip around Italy. The unlikely pair, both extremely solemn gentlemen in their mid-forties, went on a cross-country jaunt.

No hotelier would aspire to create a luxurious restaurant, yet visit a mid-market joint abroad, so the two chefs trawled the web and made a list of places they would like to visit.

Most of them, unsurprisingly, were serious places, highly rated for their food. The only problem was that they were run by chef-proprietors, who did not take kindly to their food being photographed.

But the chefs specifically wanted photos of plates, portion sizes and presentations. So they pretended to speak on their cell phones and send messages, all the while surreptitiously photographing the dishes in front of them. Anyone who has met either gent personally will have the greatest difficulty imagining the scene.

When they came back from their mad frolic, they collated all the dishes they would like to serve, which meant eliminating some because of the impracticability of reproducing them outside Italy.

They were sure that they would not be serving up pizzas and pastas. Nothing wrong with them of course "" pastas are served as the first course of every Italian meal, but first-time diners think of nothing else. That is the mindset that Prego is trying to break.

The professional "marriage" between Chef Giovanna Marson and the Taj Coromandel is a felicitous one. The only known lady chef to be at the helm of an Italian restaurant in the country, Marson espouses all the causes of her employers.

There are no short pastas on the menu and no whiff of a pizza anywhere near Prego. The gamble has already paid off: I have visited the restaurant twice and had to fight for a table. I didn't think there would be so many takers for Squid Ink Spaghetti with Seafood outside south Delhi. Chennai is full of surprises.

(marryam08@gmail.com )