When we started Indian Accent in 2009, the food scene was a bit grim. The Mumbai terror attacks had taken place the previous year. Nobody was ready to start anything new or exciting. Opening Indian Accent then was a brave decision. What I was trying to do with Indian Accent was totally different. Those days, no new Indian restaurants were coming up, only stereotyped restaurants serving Italian or Chinese food. We really struggled for the first one-and-a-half years, but we stuck to our guns. I started going to the dining room and talking to customers. They started understanding our restaurant’s philosophy and the footfalls began to increase.
In the last 10 years, the food scene has changed a lot. Until two years ago, regional food was being showcased in a mom-and-pop sort of way. Then, new chains started coming up, like Punjab Grill which took north Indian food to south India, and other slightly bigger restaurants, like The Potbelly in Delhi.
Many Indian chefs started to do modern Indian food, but few did it in the correct way. They served regular Indian food in fine French porcelain chinaware. Then it got very gimmicky when molecular gastronomy, with all the dry ice and liquid nitrogen, came into the picture. You saw smoke everywhere. Everything was frozen—frozen gulab jamun, frozen dhokla, frozen samosa, frozen dosa…. After Chef Gaggan Anand made yogurt spheres, his signature dish, everyone started making spheres. There were all different kinds, like golgappa spheres.... Food started getting served in crooked and broken plates. At my supplier’s, only these type of crooked bowls and platters in red, green, blue, yellow and black were available. There were plates in the shape of dragons, boats and volcanos.
Then restaurants like Masque, Bombay Canteen and O Pedro came up, which were non-gimmicky. They took food seriously and did regional dishes intelligently, so that the dishes looked different without losing their authenticity and soul. There was a revolution in which, inspired by different Indian communities and homes, these chefs created authentic dishes of their own.
We are trying to enhance the way Indian food is prepared. At restaurants in old Delhi, people are served food with oil floating on top. If I am removing that oil and using good cuts of meat, I do not think I am doing anything wrong or playing with authenticity. I would have improved it by doing it in a slightly different way, using different combinations. I would keep wastage and sustainability in mind and use seasonal vegetables and as many local ingredients as possible.
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Outside India, the biggest change is that people now know the difference between Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan food. They know what a dosa is. However, it is still a battle for Indian food to be perceived as fine dining. Indian Accent in New York is the most expensive Indian restaurant in the US; you have to pay $78 for a three-course meal there.
Going forward, the government should be stricter about hygiene and the kitchen environment, but it should think more internationally regarding its import policy. Why should I have to pay 10 times more for a bottle of wine at a fine-dining restaurant? With more young entrepreneurs joining this industry, it is becoming more streamlined. But culinary and hospitality education in India has to improve. The syllabus which I followed is the same syllabus that is still being taught at hotel management institutes. The students who come out of catering colleges have almost zero knowledge. We have to train them from scratch.
Manish Mehrotra is the chef behind the Indian Accent restaurants in Delhi, New York and London. Indian Accent was awarded the San Pellegrino Best Restaurant Award in India by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2019 for the fifth consecutive year.
As told to Anjuly Mathai.
Panellists pick
* Zuma Dubai, UAE: Located in the heart of Dubai, Zuma Dubai offers the best Japanese cuisine in all of the UAE.
* Out of the Blue, Maldives: This ultimate dining destination at the Soneva Fushi hotel offers authentic Asian and international cuisine, and a memorable overwater experience.
* Le Cirque, US: A perennial AAA Five Diamond Award winner, Le Cirque delivers exquisite French cuisine in an intimate lakeside destination in Las Vegas.
* Mathias Dahlgren, Sweden: The Stockholm restaurant serves one of the best mushroom risottos in the world.
* Masque, India: Masque is a fine-dining restaurant in Mumbai which offers a 10-course chef’s tasting menu—the first of its kind in India.
* Sushi Nakazawa, US: The tasting menu at Sushi Nakazawa, New York, changes daily. The restaurant offers excellent live prawns.