Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: The lore behind Bengaluru gem, Farmlore

Farmlore, a little restaurant in Bengaluru, has no PR, no famous chef, no fanfare. So, how did it make it to Asia’s 50 Best?

Two weeks ago, I heard that Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants had picked an Indian restaurant for its One To Watch award.

Chef Johnson Ebenezer maintains a low profile, but Farmlore is one of the world’s top places to eat at.

An Indian restaurant had won this award? Who could it be?

I thought of the obvious suspects. Mumbai’s Papa’s. Prateek Sadhu‘s Naar, high up in the hills. I messaged Prateek. It was not him, he responded. I asked Hussain Shahzad if it was his brainchild, Papa’s. Nopes, he said.

So, who could it be?

Though it’s based out of a farm, the food goes beyond the farm-to-table cliche.

When 50 Best announced the name, I was taken aback. The winner was Farmlore in Bengaluru. There was no doubt that it deserved the award. It is one of India’s greatest restaurants. But it was an unusual choice because most restaurants that win international distinctions tend to be places that have learned how to play the global PR game. They employ high-priced PR agencies; they cultivate ‘influencers’ and Instagrammers around the world; they arrange collaborations with big-name chefs; they fly in and pamper food bloggers who they think might be voters for 50 Best and other awards, and feed and hydrate them until they go back home overfed and hung over.

I have no problem with these tactics. They are not dissimilar to the methods that Hollywood studios use in the run-up to the Oscars or the Golden Globes.

But, here’s why I was surprised: Farmlore doesn’t know how to do any of this. They barely understand how to promote their own restaurant in India. And yet, here they were, winning global recognition.

So, I was wrong about that. But I wasn’t wrong about Farmlore itself.

The Kondai Octo is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes.

I first went there by stealth. When I was in the city, I tried booking a table and was always told that because Farmlore was such a small restaurant, they were full up for the next couple of weeks.So, I went on the site and booked for a much later date using a pseudonym. This approach failed, because they made me pay a deposit with my credit card (I still use cards with my own name on them). But at least I got a booking.

It almost worked. The chef, Johnson Ebenezer, figured out who I was. He seemed so knowledgeable and capable that it worried me slightly that I had never heard of him. My worries deepened when I tried the food. It was cuisine-agnostic in that influences from all over the world were incorporated into the dishes. Though the restaurant’s location in a farm suggested that the meal would be all farm to table, the food went beyond that cliche. It was complex, brilliantly conceived and delicious.

Johnson introduced me to the two chefs who made up his team. Mythrayie Iyer had been part of the opening team at Avartana; Avinnash Vishaal had worked at the three-Michelin-star Frantzen.

I left Farmlore satisfied but intrigued. Here was what was clearly one of India’s best restaurants, and I had read virtually nothing about it or heard of any of the people who were behind it.

I tried to make up for my ignorance in the years that followed. I wrote about Farmlore in Brunch. It got the top rating of five stars at the Culinary Culture Ultimate Restaurant Ratings. Johnson came second on the Food Superstars list of India’s 30 Greatest Chefs. Mythrayie won the Food Superstars award for Best Young Chef, and because she is charismatic and articulate, she soon became a favourite of journalists looking for chefs to interview.

I still thought Farmlore was handicapped by Johnson’s low profile. He’s a shy man, is content to be the best Indian chef you’ve probably never heard of.

The ‘Lore’ in the name came about because Johnson believes that his food is a story.

Which is a shame, really. Because his is an amazing story. His father was a constable in the Chennai Police and he grew up in a kachcha house with no great food (let alone restaurant) tradition. But from the time he was in class seven, he was determined to become a chef. His parents hoped that he would get into engineering. He did, but he refused the place, saying that being a chef was in his blood.

It wasn’t really. But when Johnson was growing up, a relative became a chef on a cruise line. He would send postcards from each exotic destination he went to and return laden with gifts. For Johnson, this was the acme of glamour and sophistication.So he did a short course in hotel management in Chennai and apprenticed at the Taj Coromandel hotel.When he saw an ad from a cruise company that was looking for chefs, he applied, got the post and took to the sea. He earned more money than he ever had (most of which he sent home) and learnt a lot about the kitchen. He didn’t find the glamour though. On one occasion, he remained in the kitchen for 28 hours, the feat so impressed his employers that they promoted him instantly.

Another popular dish, the Ant Meringue. The food incorporates influences from all over the world.

As much as Johnson was earning on the ship, it was not enough when his parents’ house burnt down and needed to rebuild. So Johnson jumped ship and decided to stay in America until his visa ran out, accepting tough gigs everywhere from South Indian restaurants to Greek places to American diners. By the time he got home, he had saved enough money to build a pucca house for his parents.

Then followed a seemingly dull period of working for undistinguished hotels in South India. But by then, Johnson had really got into food. He was fascinated by El Bulli and may have been the first Indian chef to reproduce that restaurant’s spherified olives. He found chefs he idolised, like Gaggan Anand, and corresponded with them.

He says that he developed his own style of cooking during that period. He didn’t have access to great restaurants or great ingredients. But from what he read and what he saw on YouTube, he managed to create a vision in his head of the kind of food he would like to serve.

His first break came when he was hired to open Nadodi, a modern Indian restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. His second break was when he returned to India and linked up with Kaushik Raju, a hotelier and businessman in Bengaluru. Kaushik encouraged Johnson to start his own kitchen, and Johnson recruited Mythrayie and Avinnash. The trio experimented with techniques and flavours, and because Johnson believes that his food is a story, they called the operation Lore.

Lore did many pop-ups and caterings in Bengaluru, until Johnson persuaded Kaushik that his grandparents’ farm might be a good location for a restaurant. So Lore became Farmlore. Johnson adapted his recipes to make the most of the ingredients that were grown on the farm and they opened as a small, tasting-menu-only restaurant without any fanfare.

Johnson’s core team included chefs Avinnash Vishaal and Mythrayie Iyer.

For the first few months, they served mostly Bengaluru foodies who liked bragging about a restaurant that nobody else had heard of. That changed slowly – my trip is just one factor – and recognition and awards came flying in.

I won’t describe Johnson’s food in detail, except to say that it is less about style and more about the flavours he extracts from his ingredients. Mythrayie is leaving to work in a restaurant in Chile. Avinnash who had taken time off to work in America will be back at Farmlore soon.

I imagine that in the months ahead, you will read more about Farmlore. Perhaps more of us will be able to secure tables there. But when you do eat Johnson’s food remember this: He has never worked with any great global chef. He has never worked in a Michelin-starred kitchen or at a famous restaurant abroad.

This is a guy whose family never went to restaurants, whose food emerges out of his own imagination, his reading and his research. His success shows us that in today’s India, no matter where you come from or what advantages you get at birth, if you have talent then food can help you reach the top.

From HT Brunch, March 08, 2025

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