The first chef of Indian origin to be awarded two Michelin stars, Vineet Bhatia is currently also a judge on Netflix’s The Final Table and presenter of Masterchef on Disney+ Hotstar. Mentor-chef at The Oberoi’s Dhilli restaurant, which is celebrating its first anniversary, Bhatia balances culinary heritage of India’s capital city and modern tastes with aplomb
In creating dishes for a restaurant encompassing an entire city’s culinary heritage, have you imbibed more tradition and authenticity in your recipes or taken a modern twist?
When it comes to authenticity and how I approach things with what I have in this day and age in India, I feel that authenticity is a very questionable concept today. The samosas, kebabs and biryanis we eat in popular Indian restaurants are not even originally Indian dishes; they come from Persia, for example. Butter chicken is a great dish and one of the most loved Indian dishes across the globe, but why would someone in Delhi want to come and have a normal, classic butter chicken at my restaurant? So, we did something a bit different, and what better than my very own white butter chicken.
In light of the recent butter chicken controversy, as a chef does it matter to you that you offer recipes exactly as known over the years or have you found customers are open to innovation, like your white butter chicken, which is very removed from how we know the dish?
I always say that authenticity should be in terms of flavours, and that is what we have tried to do here at Dhilli. The techniques, the taste, the ingredients, and the style of cooking—it’s all as authentic as it gets. Hence, when you taste the white butter chicken, you recognise the authentic and robust flavours of the classic butter chicken peeking through, and yet the white butter chicken has its own identity. This is what Dhilli is about—traditional and authentic flavours with a progressive and modern style of presentation.
Which city other than Delhi fascinates you for its culinary offerings?
Delhi is a very old city; it has been here for centuries. It’s a city soaked in traditions and cultural heritage. Besides Delhi, there are many cities within India that are equally diverse and old, each with its own unique identity when it comes to food. For example, in Mumbai, the food is more cosmopolitan and modern, whereas in places like Indore, it is steeped in a different kind of tradition and offers amazing street food. A place like Rajasthan is vibrant and rich in culture, with diverse eating habits and robust flavours that fascinate me quite a lot. Kolkata is also such an inspiring city when it comes to food; it’s the city that brought Indo-Chinese cuisine into existence in India while maintaining its own identity with Bengali cuisine available at every nook and corner in the city.
Do you prefer real products like meat, dairy, sugar or are you open to alternatives too, like mock meat, tofu, stevia, etc? And, do these work for Indian cuisine?
Personally, I am more fond of the real stuff. All these artificial substances and mock meats have a lot of preservatives and additives, which I am not a huge fan of. If you have certain dietary restrictions or allergies, then I understand choosing alternative options for certain food items or ingredients. Otherwise, for me, the raw, real ingredients are best for cooking, and that’s what I enjoy cooking with. But again, to each their own.
In the age of vegetarianism and food allergies, how are you adapting your cooking, here in India and abroad?
I think whenever you open up a new restaurant, you have to adapt to your location and your target clientele. In India, especially in Delhi, there are a lot of people who eat only vegetarian food. Due to differences in cultures and religions, many people even avoid consuming onions and garlic in their food. Nowadays, many people have also started adopting veganism, and you have to adapt and move with the times and trends. So, I prefer to keep all kinds of options available on the menu so that each guest who walks into Dhilli feels equally valued and welcomed, and gets the opportunity to experience the robust flavours the city has to offer, which we have tried to include in our menu.
In terms of what we have taken on in Delhi, we have gone around the city to understand what the people here like to eat and what is served on the streets in various pockets of the city. The food at Dhilli is essentially made of very traditional flavours and authentic styles of cooking. All we have done is given it a different appearance, enhanced the look and feel of the dishes, and given them a new avatar in terms of different combinations.
