Monday, February 29, 2016

FOODIE SPECIAL......... A Toast to the Local...

A Toast to the Local...


Bengaluru's Toast & Tonic becomes the first big `pop' brand to debut in uber-stylish international cooking, using all regional and seasonal ingredients

I am the first diner to step inside Toast & Tonic (T&T), on Bengaluru's Wood Street, one hush-hush evening. The promise has been of many (unusual) Negronis and some easy conversation.And I am determined not to pay close attention to the food. Instead, just “sit back, relax and enjoy“, as I replay in my head (strangely) the muffled, clichéd instructions of the Jet Airways pilot, on the flight from Delhi, just a couple of hours earlier.
That flight of fancy should have taken me much further. It begins to do just that once the food arrives on the table.But first the drinks... Unlike that last disastrous experience of the Negroni at Santo Spirito, Florence, having drunk the deceptively innocuous cocktail out of plastic glasses to bitter results, this one is immensely sophisticated. The Campari, gin and Martini Rosso hard-hitter comes with a hint of strawberry shrub. In beveragespeak, “shrub“ is an acidulated concoction of fruit juice, sugar and vinegar; the last often made in-house by determined “shrubbers“, using local fruit and natural yeast -at the best artisanal international bars, at least.
It is a far more complex (and arty) touch than using a syrupy flavour in your cocktail, like most Indian bars tend to do. And it is exactly touches like these -that may in fact escape the scrutiny of the average drinker and diner in middle India -which define T&T, one of the most sophisticated culinary and bar experiments in the country, toying with the local and the artisanal, making all these accessible to a younger, casual audience.

International yet Casual
T&T, which launched this Monday, has been quite an under-the-wraps brand in the making. Chef and restaurateur Manu Chandra, its architect, who also helms Olive Beach in Bengaluru and the Monkey Bar and The Fatty Bao brands pan-India, has been quietly working away in the space (which was the first Monkey Bar), experimenting, developing a formidable supply chain and back kitchens. All, to cater to a restaurant that uses -almost exclusively -locally grown and sourced ingredients to arrive at food that is international yet casual, fit for a younger, democratic audience instead of the fad-driven elite, or the “causerati“.
T&T surprises in many ways. Not the least because it is “Monkey Bar for grown ups“ -just like the tonics and gin it toasts! Gin bars, of course, have been quite the international darlings for two to three years now. Gin has been overtaking its colourless, odourless competitor -vodka -in popularity, at least with discerning drinkers, who prize the complexity of juniper notes, and of other herbs and “botanicals“ that mixologists and artisanal distillers have been putting in to produce different types of gins and tonic waters (G&T).G&T in fact is no longer the afternoon drink of prim old ladies. Such is the image makeover.
Though T&T does not claim to be a gin bar, G&T is a must if you visit it.The tonic waters are made in-house and flavoured with such things as cin namon and pomegranate, strawberry and clove, jasmine tea and elderflow er, balancing the tinge of quinine in subtle ways.
There are no cheap thrills by way of foam and smoke guns; no syn thetic, sweet, teenage flavours. Just a den downstairs and a leather couch to sink into with a complex, slow drink... “I like those European liqueurs like Chartreuse,“ says Chandra, in a separate conversation, “because of their complexity“. The French, of course, make that with a legendary 130 herbs and flowers. But it is the same complexity, the same “layering“ of notes and inspirations that makes up everything at T&T.There's not a doubt in my mind that this is the most sophisticated bar space in the country just now. The bar however comes second to the food, still...

Prizing What's Ours
If “artisanal“ is a strand running through the restaurant, “local“ is its biggest theme. For those who see food as lifestyle, local gastronomy is not an unknown concept. Restaurants like Noma and almost all of Californian, Italian, French and Spanish gastronomy celebrate the idea. Chefs have made it their style statement to be working closely with farmers and foragers, sourcing crazily elusive ingredients (even harvesting “local rainwater“ in one instance), putting them on expensive plates. But if this is an entire “lifestyle industry“ in itself globally, in India we have contended with the other extreme -a premium on the imported, a vanishing of the local.
This is, in part, because of low consumer receptivity and abysmal supply chains. As also because of lazy chefs who often do not know what grows in their own backyard.
“I sent two of my chefs to the mandi to get everything they did not recognise. They came back with things like cholai and zimikand (elephant foot yam) and even red carrots,“ says Chandra, before asking me if I remember the “kachche makhane“ -or lotus seeds before processing -that could be found by the riverside on the drive from Delhi to Ghaziabad till a decade or two ago. Some plates in some restaurants have been changing in the last few years. But the experiments have been sporadic, insufficient, as also more confined to “Indian“ restaurant formats. Now, Chandra has gone the whole hog and built an entire restaurant to prove that not only can supply chains be built but also that the food can be sophisticated yet “cool“.
When the food starts arriving, my flight of fancy takes me to California, to Sacramento, the hub of the farm-to-fork movement, where the likes of The Kitchen take dining with local ingredients and kitchen theatre to exceptional levels. The original Randall Selland restaurant (the chef is one of the fathers of Californian gastronomy) is spread out like an arena. Diners sit around an open kitchen, where chefs cook live, dinner is served in five “acts“, and people regaled with insider knowledge on ingredients. It made up a $500 per person, three-hour meal. That's the kind of set-up one imagines for the food that streams out of the T&T kitchen. Chandra however wants to keep it all firmly mid-market -`1,000 per person, “resto-bar“.

Boho-chic, Spic-and-Span
His inspiration is Manhattan's East Village, with its boho-chic-ness. The menu does have the sense of a pop art work or even a Rushdie (early) novel. There are references and details that may not be immediately apparent to everyone, but the whole is enjoyable.
On the other hand, for those who look for intricacies, this is cerebral entertainment too.With salads, soups, tostadas, poke bowls, barbeque, tempura, ramen -and of course the homemade breads -the menu can be loosely dubbed “international“.
But if generic “international“ menus are the bane globally, this one showcases its Indian context cleverly, including in the flavouring.So, the tostada comes spread with kathal, or a tender “kathali“ cooked in a familiar way, with smoked cheese; the jackfruit sourced from a neighbourhood tree. There's a tuna poke bowl with sticky Gobindobhog rice, fried onions and chia seeds, sourdough toast with soft eggs, Creole Andouille sausage (made inhouse) and smoked Bandel cheese (from Kolkata). There's the highly seasonal ponkh (from Gujarat and Maharashtra) with fishcakes. And an absolutely brilliant take on fish and chips, with tempura-style baby mullet, sweet potato chips and beer batter being referenced with hops (local) infused tartare! This is uber stylish cooking that could have taken centrestage at a “lifestyle“ restaurant in any of the global dining capitals. To find it in a Bengaluru bar, particularly one that hopes to replicate itself in other cities, is surprising. The labour-intensiveness, for one, is colossal. The pastrami done in-house takes 16 days; including brining it for 15, then smoking for six hours and slow roasting for four to five hours. The “very slow“ smoked BBQ ribs use a Louisiana technique of smoking, finished with a char siu glaze. Skill, exposure and imagination intersect.
If context is important to art, fashion or writing, it's important to food as well. By using everything local -from chocolate sourced from Annamalai to ajwain (caraway) leaves, bathua (Chenopodium album), cherry radishes from a Mysuru farm, noren gur, all seafood and meats -Chandra manages to speak a confident, nuanced, globalyet-desi language.
Anoothi Vishal

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