April is a silly month. In the restaurant business this is the period where no one seems to know what to do next. Between the Easter break and the impending summer, energy levels sag, and both customers and new ideas become dire commodities. Existing restaurants usually try and imbue some spirit into the proceedings with the by-now ubiquitous ?food festivals?, while new ones entering the business during this lull hope to go unchallenged, however tired their concepts and average their food is. At least that?s the nature of the business here in India.
Between the nth ?Songkran? promotion or ?chef?s table? invite, fashion and art parties and new openings suffixed by international designer names, a food critic may well have to gnash his or her teeth in frustration.
Of course, original ideas have a tendency not to be safe at all. Sometimes they can be downright bizarre?like the restaurant in China where diners have to eat in pitch dark or a toilet-themed restaurant in Taiwan, or a sushi-sashimi place in Japan, where you carve into a replica of a woman?s body to eat whatever you unearth in an experience simulating carnivorous behaviour.
You may baulk at eating at any of these, but if you do, you can be sure to be entertained. On the other hand, there are other trends that are exciting, individualistic and saleable. Our own restaurateurs and chefs can pick these up to give us a more buzzing foodscape.
Individualistic places: Instead of giving us yet another pale, imitation, vapid, all-white restaurant or uncomfortable ?international designer? interiors, why aren?t our restaurateurs giving us cafes, bars and restaurants with character? In the hottest food destinations of the world, everything from boho-chic to unselfconsciously grungy restaurants are huge hits. The idea, of course, is to be individualistic.
That is something we in India do not understand as we call in the consultants to give us imitation pieces. Needless to say, the food follows the same cookie-cutter approach. Restaurateurs and chefs need to be more relaxed and allow their personalities to seep into the ambience and the food. Unlike the old days, when you would visit a specific place for its tiffin or chole bhature specifically, today, the platter and the palate is more uniform, which is a pity because at the end of the day, food is about creativity. But how many chefs can we really identify from a blind tasting of their food? It?s a point to ponder.
Cutting-edge coffee: Cafes are big business in India?just as they are the world over. But unlike elsewhere, our own metros make do with very average coffee. We may be happy that Starbucks will be here finally, but the coffee culture elsewhere seems far superior. From micro-roasting, a big trend abroad, to brewing in siphons, coffee is getting cutting-edge and experimental. In India, we are stuck to our blends, haven?t heard of single-origin coffee and still confuse espresso with expresso!
Collaboratives: Instead of just one chef or one mixologist, would it not be fun to, at least, occasionally go to a place and sample someone else?s creations? Collaborations are big just now as on-the-fringes restaurant activities globally. What it means is that a clutch of professionals come together to cook or mix drinks on the same premises, albeit on different evenings. These add the much-needed fun element to a city?s dining scene.
Experimental Asian: It is not just Indian but Asian flavours that are top of the pop list globally. Whether it is chaat in London or New York food trucks selling Vietnamese-inspired sandwiches or restaurants like Coda in Melbourne, where the chef plays around with fresh, herb-infused flavours, Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Korean and, of course, Chinese, Japanese and Indian are trendy.
And clearly the way forward for all these cuisines is through experimentation as different chefs use local produce and rework traditional recipes. We see some of that happening in India with contemporary Indian cuisine, but as more and more pan-Asian restaurants open, one way to liven up proceedings would be to serve us some kind of fusion fare, particularly since with freshness of ingredients and seafood a constraint, the ?street? experience of Bangkok or Singapore or Jakarta is hard to emulate.
The writer is a food critic