One way in which restaurants market themselves successfully all over the world is not by selling themselves but the destination. After all, any piece of real estate?or meal?needs its context. Like luxury, food retail too needs to be rooted in a specific ethos: The tea/coffee service at Caf? Florian is special not just because of its white-gloved snobbish waiters and live band but because it is situated in the stunning St Mark?s Square in Venice. The French Laundry is what it is not just because of founding chef Thomas Keller?s Michelin Star-standards but also because it is located in the picturesque Napa Valley, where wine and fresh produce from the Pacific belt make for a heady combination. And closer home, a thali meal in a heritage haveli-turned-hotel in Rajasthan is definitely elevated because we are dining where we are.
Unfortunately, not many restaurateurs in India seem to appreciate this at the moment as they go about selling dumbed-down French/Italian/Japanese cuisines, pretending to be in those parts of the world. Such anonymity is frightening. But while the metros in India are reflecting this increased sense of globalisation, there is one exception to the rule: Hyderabad.
These days, of course, Hyderabad is more in the news for the Telangana agitation but anyone who visits the city when the streets are clearer and life back on tracks cannot come away without a whiff of the Nizami past. Unlike in Mumbai and Delhi, where indigenous cuisines are often forgotten, Hyderabad has a robust local food culture at all ends of the market. Youngsters still indulge in haleem crawls, each family has a designated favourite, fraying biryani place, Irani samosas are routinely made on an industrial scale in workshops from where they are supplied to hundreds of vendors?just like ?momos? are now being made in Delhi. But all these street experiences aside, mid-and high-end restaurants in the city too cannot afford not to sell their heritage.
In fact, in the last one year, two of the biggest five-star launches in the city have been of Hyderabadi food restaurants. Now, even essentially business hotels are turning their attention to selling the destination vis-?-vis just anonymous rooms. Ista, located in the high tech city, may be popular with business travelers and weekend spa guests (after all, it is sister property to Ananda in Rishikesh), but now there is another attraction for its customers: Gourmet tours of Hyderabad.
Over the last one year, I have visited the city more than thrice, each time doing an ?immersive? experience?hunting for the ?best? biryani, for elusive lukmis (puffed pastries stuffed with mince), sampling ?pail ice-cream? (handchurned in buckets) and so forth. But my most recent discovery of old Hyderabad?which, ironically, began from Cyberabad?has been the most comprehensive. The kachci biryani at Ista is remarkably flavourful and sets the stage for the food tour to follow. The guide contracted by the hotel is unusual: Jayanti Rajgopalan, fittingly known to all as Jonty, is an XLRI passout and worked at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, before she came to the city and became the quintessential insider.
Her tours of Hyderabad are in depth: From old Persian weaving styles to ittar makers, tombs and palaces, artists and cooks, she will find anything and anyone in the city. On my food tour with her, my first stop is Niloufer Caf?, one of the oldest Irani chaikhanas. The sickly-sweet, milky, malai-topped tea apart, it is really the confectionary that?s a revelation. The Dilkhush is a triangular pie, where bread is stuffed with cake leftovers, there is its cousin, the dilpasand, ?fine? biscuits, sprinkled with sugar, and Osmania biscuits, named after the last ruler of Hyderabad?
Azizia, a joint for many iftars, is not quite the place it must have been because the biryani hardly passes muster but it is an early dinner at Begum Mumtaz?s home that makes my day. Belonging to an old family, Mumtaz aunty is one of the best-kept secrets of the city. Her oblong shami kebabs are different from the ones we know up north, while the sheekampuris (literally, kebabs with a stomach) are stuffed with onions, green chillies and mint. Tamatar ka kut, a soupy tomato-coconut milk accompaniment, could well be a take on the Maharashtrian saar and the mirchi ka salan is unlike the tame versions dished out at restaurants. But the masterpiece is the sufiana pulao?where chicken is cooked in milk and white masalas are used for that delicate colour and fragrance. It?s a meal accompanied by culinary tips, impromptu handing out of recipes and talk of the old days before contemporary politics played havoc with the fabric of the city.
The writer is a food critic