The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: The best food I ate outside India

Nihonbashi

Darshan Munidas is Sri Lanka’s greatest chef with restaurants around the world. And while I’ve eaten Darshan’s food in many countries, there’s nothing better than eating it in your own country when Darshan himself is in the restaurant. I say ‘his own country’ but it’s complicated because the philosophy is half Japanese and, unusually for a chef who has not worked in the kitchens of Japan’s top restaurants, he is respected and respected by the Japanese. The most famous restaurant in Darshan is called Ministry of Crab, but my personal favorite is Nihonbashi in Colombo, which serves authentic Japanese cuisine in luxurious surroundings.

palmyra

What we call Sri Lankan food around the world is mostly the food of the majority Sinhalese community. But as recent history reminds us there is an ethnically distinct Tamil community in the north. Indians believe that Lankan Tamils ​​eat the same food as Tamils ​​in India. Actually, the Tamils ​​of Lanka have their own cuisine. Whenever I visit Colombo, I eat at least once at Palmyra, a Tamil restaurant located in the basement of a locally run hotel. This is always one of the best meals of the trip.

celebrate

I first met the fiery yet laid-back Abhiraj Khatwani when he came to Delhi to help Dubai-based superstar chef Mohammed Orfali with his pop up. Abhiraj told me that Mohammed was partnering with him to open a Thai restaurant in Dubai. I was curious because Abhiraj is Indian, not Thai, but just five minutes of conversation revealed how knowledgeable he was about Thai food.

A few months later I went to a preview of Manao as they decided to call the restaurant and came away very impressed. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one to be impressed as it only took a few months for Michelin to award Manao a star and Abhiraj the Young Chef of the Year award. Abhiraj is careful to call his food simply Thai-inspired, but if you love Thai food, you’ll love Manao’s flavors with a touch of Thailand.

Orfali Brothers

Mohammed Orfali is a famous person from Dubai and the restaurant he runs with his two pastry master brothers has now become famous. Inspired by Syrian cuisine, this restaurant follows no rules on global cuisine (the hamburger is justifiably famous) and serves fine French patisserie. Since I visited, Orfali’s has transformed the old Orfali Brothers into two separate restaurants and I can’t wait to go back.

Tresind Studio

It is the only Indian restaurant in the world with three Michelin stars and Himanshu Saini’s food is delicious and complex, yet distinctly Indian. It offers a set menu for only two seats a day and if you can get in, (it’s booked till February, so you’ll have to be subject to cancellation) then you must go for the experience of a lifetime.

Noma

Two of the world’s most influential restaurants are Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in England and René Redzepi’s stunning Noma in Copenhagen. I try to eat Redzepi’s food at least once a year because every meal is different. There is never a single dish repeated on Redzepi’s set menu and despite the abundance of poor imitators there is no such thing as a signature Noma dish. Redzepi approaches each menu as if he were starting from scratch and creates new dishes, inventing new techniques and exploring new flavors.

jordaner

You may have seen Jordner’s charismatic chef Eric Wildgaard on the Apple TV show Knife Edge in which the Copenhagen restaurant finally gets the three Michelin stars it had long expected. Most features about Eric focus on his youth as a gang member which is fair enough (and accurate), but what they miss is the key role of his wife Tina who takes charge of the household and helps Eric turn his life around. Nor do they emphasize how warm and friendly the restaurant is and how much Eric and Tina take their success for granted, focusing on the customers rather than themselves. The food is highly refined but always delicious.

Amaya

Ranjit Mathrani, his wife Namita and his sister Camelia Punjabi run several successful Indian restaurants in London, but although I’ve visited almost all of them, my favorite is Amaya, a casual but sophisticated place that focuses on kebabs, but does it so effortlessly that it has nothing in common with most kebab places. I went for a leisurely lunch, and was surprised to find that in terms of ambiance the Punjabis/Mathranis did for London’s Indian restaurants what the designer Enzo Apicella did for European restaurants in London in the late 1960s/early 1970s; Showed the world that a restaurant could be stylish and elegant without being formal or stuffy.

FZN

No restaurant in the world has appeared in the Michelin Guide with three stars straight away immediately after opening. When I went, I thought FZN would have to start with two stars and get to three stars the next year. But Michelin broke precedent and immediately did the right thing. FZN is the Dubai outpost of Swedish chef Björn Frantzen, who already had three stars for his Stockholm flagship and Zen in Singapore.

But FZN also had the added bonus of Torsten Wildgaard (brother of Jordtner’s Eric who proudly says: “My brother is the best chef in the world”), who ran his own Michelin star restaurant and, for many years, was the backbone of the Noma kitchen.

With that kind of pedigree how could they possibly go wrong? FZN is one of the best restaurants in the world. And you can save on airfare to Stockholm and fly to Dubai to experience the wonderful combination of Björn and Torsten. Or you can enjoy a meal at the more casual (and cheaper) but still wonderful Studio Frantzen next door.

square one

I ate a lot of good food in Saigon, so I guess I should recommend a place for great photos. But the truth is that the best meal I had was at the Park Hyatt, where I stayed, at the Square One restaurant. And it wasn’t even Vietnamese. It was classic French. Arnaud Schuttrumpf is the chef and he cooks like Joël Robuchon’s long-lost son, adding his own twists to French classics, often using local ingredients (snails for example). Hotels in that area don’t always attract the best European chefs, so it was a surprise to eat such good food in Saigon.

sky

Nothing can keep Gaggan Anand down. A messy split with his partners, the pandemic lockdown that paralyzed his new restaurant, domestic drama, disputes with ratings organisations; All these came and went. But Gaggan is still standing. And the win: his Bangkok restaurant was voted the best restaurant in Asia, and I think he’ll top the 50 Best Restaurants in the World when the list is announced.

I have eaten his food many times by now and yet each new menu has the power to surprise, shock and delight me. But I guess I should stop being surprised: the man is a visionary and a phenomenon that has no precedent.

enjoy

When Ferran Adrià changed the rules of fine dining at El Bulli, the world stood up and took notice. But when Adria closed El Bulli we thought it would never happen again. we were wrong. El Bulli’s three top chefs are out on their own. Eduard Zataruch Mateu Casanas and Oriol Castro, before going on vacation to Barcelona with Disfrutar, opened Compartir, a fairly traditional restaurant in their hometown, which cooks the kind of food that El Bulli would serve if it were still around.

The food has advanced technologically, but the mouth-watering dishes remain in the memory. It was number one in the 50 Best Restaurants in the World and is still one of the two greatest restaurants in Spain. There is also a compartir in Barcelona that is cheaper and more easily available than Disfrutar and which also serves Disfrutar’s biggest hits: pancino or caviar buns.

Earlier this year Culinary Culture arranged for Oriol Castro to visit Delhi and conduct a master class. It was packed with 22 of India’s best chefs and many more. What amazed me was how willing Oriol was to reveal Disfrutar’s secrets and explain his techniques. His job, he said, is to share knowledge and take the recipes forward. Food wasn’t about secrets. It was about learning and fun.

Etxebarri

If you’ve ever been to Singapore’s Burnt Ends or Sydney’s Firedoor, both highly regarded restaurants, or eaten at any of the Michelin-starred restaurants that claim expertise in cooking over fire, there’s one name you need to know: Victor Arguinzoniz.

He invented that style of cooking in a small restaurant in Spain where he still cooks every single dish over a wood fire. The steak is famous, but I liked everything on the menu from shrimp to peas. These are flavors I have never tasted before.

Etxebury is run like a neighborhood restaurant by the efficient Mohammed Benabdallah and is almost impossible to get into. I don’t know if I’ll ever get a table again, but I look forward to going back. Along with Disfrutar it is the second best restaurant in Spain.

reason kamini

We were vacationing at the Borgo Egnazia Resort in Puglia, Italy, when they asked if we wanted to try their restaurant. It was being renovated, he said, but the cook would cook for us in the kitchen. Sure, we said. so far so good. Then he threw the catch. The chef was about to risk the restaurant’s Michelin star by going completely vegan. I am Gujarati so I have no problem with vegetarian food. Except I can’t muster much enthusiasm for bland European vegetarian food. But it was too late to retreat so we took our places in the kitchen.

And I’m glad we did. The food was extraordinary and so full of flavor that we did not miss the meat at all. Since then, the restaurant has formally opened in its full-vegetarian incarnation and Michelin inspectors have been so impressed that they have awarded the restaurant a star again.

Jamavar

There is only one Indian restaurant in the world which has Michelin stars in three different cities. Jamawar stars in London, Doha and Dubai. I’ve never been to Doha, but I love going to London and Dubai because Chef Surendra Mohan has the ability to extract deep and satisfying flavors from everyday ingredients. When he works with luxury materials the results can be spectacular. Their caviar-kulcha dish is exceptional and the pathar kebab made with Japanese wagyu is their signature dish.

mason dali

Tristan Farmer worked with Jason Atherton in Dubai before Jane was chosen by Björn Frantzen to run his Singapore restaurant. It was under Tristan that Zen won three Michelin stars. During his time in Singapore, Tristan became fascinated by Japanese techniques and materials. So, he became a true original: a classically trained Scottish chef who worked for a Swedish chef who cooked Japanese-influenced food in Singapore.

Tristan’s return to Dubai has been unusual. Maison Dali has a brasserie-inspired menu, but every single dish is intricate and cooked to Michelin-starred perfection. I love the restaurant because it combines Tristan’s cuisine with old-style table-side service (flambés, etc.). It is both comfortable and elegant.

revolver

It is the sister restaurant of Maison Dali with which it shares a space. The design suggests the Indian Zuma but chef Jitin Joshi’s food is far more creative and technically adept than Zuma. Revolver is an Indian restaurant and yet it is not. The influences are international and Joshi, whose background includes working with French chefs, is in complete control of his dishes and precise to his taste. It gets packed and keeps going till late evening. But I like to go early, sit at the counter and watch the chef work.