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Off the eaten path: Chefs tell us about their best meals around the world
How far would you go for a good meal? Cool chefs recount their culinary pilgrimages to South Africa, Spain, Singapore and beyond. And why it was worth it
Avinash Martins Chef and owner, Cavatina, Goa
Martins didn’t decide to call his popular restaurant in South Goa’s Benaulim “Cavatina” on a whim. It was by design, after he fell in love with what he calls the “best food court in the world” at Mercado Central in Barcelona, Spain. The bustling bazaar is a haven for foodies, he says. There’s fresh produce, cheese, and stalls selling some 200 kinds of tapas.
Martins says that it’s at one of these stalls that he encountered some particularly sumptuous patatas bravas: potatoes roasted on a tomato base, with various toppings. It’s also here, while sipping on sangria, that Martins encountered the word “cavatina” in a song performed live. The musician told him it means “to bring out the best”. It seemed the perfect name for his new venture.
That pilgrimage to the market in Barcelona continues to inspire him. “Their frittatas, or eggs and potatoes cooked in several layers, aren’t complicated. They not something that would be served in a Michelin-star restaurant. They’re what’s made at home. But they’re incredibly delicious,” Martins says. He hopes more restaurateurs treat their establishments as an extension of their dining rooms, because that’s where the heart of a community truly lies.
Renjie Wong Chef and owner, Salon Colaba, Mumbai
By day, Renjie Wong serves as the South Asia and the Middle East area director for the Singapore Tourism Board. By night (or whenever he has a breather) he runs Salon, a monthly supper club, at which he serves high-quality Singaporean food. He calls himself the “founder-chef-waiter-cleaner” of the intimate dining experience. But his personal culinary heaven, he easily admits, is the Tiong Bahru Market in Singapore.
“Consider this your culinary bucket list,” Wong says. “Chwee kueh or wobbly, steamed rice-flour cakes topped with a punchy radish confit, at Jian Bo Shui Kueh. Bee hoon, a Buddhist-style vermicelli dish for which you pick the toppings (fried soybean sheets are non-negotiable) at Ru Yi Vegetarian. Freshly fried tofu parcels smeared with a savoury wolf-herring paste at Tiong Bahru Fried Fishball. Ondeh-ondeh, chewy little pandan-scented morsels filled with molten gula melaka palm sugar and coated with freshly grated coconut, at HarriAnn.”
Wong typically won’t leave the plaza without visiting 178 Lor Mee for Hokkien-style noodles served with a thick, glossy gravy scented with soy and Chinese five-spice. “Fried fish chunks, braised pork belly slices, garlic mince, sambal chili, black vinegar and Chinese celery make this lor mee among the most impeccably balanced dishes I have tasted anywhere in the world, fine dining or not,” he says. “The Michelin guide agrees. This stall, like many others, has a Bib Gourmand rating.”
Wong believes it can take a few weeks, if not a lifetime, to eat one’s way through Tiong Bahru. It’s why, when he gets off the plane in Singapore, he heads there immediately. Why waste time?
Radhika Khandelwal Executive chef, Radish Hospitality, which owns the Fig & Maple Restaurants in Delhi and Goa
When she’s not running culinary experiments in the kitchen, Radhika Khandelwal is chomping her way through the world’s legendary food hotspots. She visited San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn, helmed by chef Dominique Crenn, just before the pandemic. “It is a restaurant that is ingredient-focussed and chef-lead, and modernises French cuisine,” she says. It’s also the first American restaurant helmed by a woman chef to earn three Michelin Stars. Reservations sell out two months in advance. But fans happily wait. Their 21-course menu “kept me enchanted for four delightful hours,” Khandelwal says.
Every one of the preparations was spectacular. But, there were favourites: “The porcini mushroom, lardo (a kind of pork fat) and the parmesan custard. And oh, a special mention of the sea urchin!” she says. Online, reviewers have raved over a dish called Grains and Seeds, for which a dining room captain crushes pumpkin and sunflower seeds and buffed buckwheat in a white mortar, and then spoons it over a gelee made from black truffle juice, buckwheat vinegar, fermented butternut squash, duck fat, marigold oil, and shiro dashi.
Khandelwal’s favourite memory, however, is when the chef made fish and chips for her upon learning that was her favourite from the regular menu.
Auroni Mookerjee Culinary director, Bright Hospitality, which owns the AMPM restaurants in Kolkata and Delhi
Mookerjee doesn’t remember when he visited Franschhoek, the little town in South Africa’s Western Cape, for a birthday meal, but it was before 2016. “It was even more special because the meal was cooked by Topsi Venter,” he says, referring to the legendary South African chef who ran the intimate diner, Topsi & Co., serving a sumptuous local spread, including game, until she passed away in 2016.
“I had all kinds of African meat there for the first time—warthog, ostrich, zebra, kudu. I knew they were part of the local food culture, but I had never tried it at a proper restaurant before,” Mookerjee says. He enjoyed ostrich meat the most, as it reminded him of duck, his favourite. “It’s like red meat but also very gamey. Game is tough to cook, it’s difficult to extract flavours from the meats. At Topsi’s, it was made so very well that I kept eating ostrich burgers through the rest of the trip,” he says.
Topsi, he recalls, conducted the meal as though she was a grandmother serving her family at her own dining table. Her daughter Danielle has since taken over the reins, drawing fans from around the world.
Urvika Kanoi Owner and chef, Cafe Duco and The Daily Cafe, Mumbai and Kolkata
Urvika Kanoi is the kind of dedicated gourmand who does all the research and knows exactly where to find the best meals. So last year, for a friend’s bachelorette in Bali, Indonesia, Kanoi planned to take the girl gang to a unique woodfire restaurant in Ubud. Honey and Smoke, as the name suggests, is an open-fire bistro in a chill speakeasy setting.
The place serves everything from tempura zucchini flowers and wood-roasted carrots to lamb shanks and beef cheek. Everything they tried was memorable, she says. But what stood out was the way local greens were served on “unusual bases” she says. The chef, Will Meyrick, “made a ricotta with mozzarella on toast, which was excellent. The kale and broccoli was covered in spices and was on a bed of molasses and whipped yoghurt, with asparagus.”
The best part of the visit, however, was that the restaurant kept the kitchen open when they found out that one of her friends was on the other side of town, an hour away, after she ended up at the wrong restaurant!
