Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: India, Japan and some eastern promise

How Vikramjit Roy of Ahara in Singapore and Adwait Anantwar of Inja in Delhi are serving up a new cuisine: Indian Japanese

Vikramjit Roy is one of India’s best-known chefs, the sort of guy guests want to take selfies with. I first met him when he worked in the kitchen of Wasabi at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Delhi. I was eating omakase (a Japanese expression that translates loosely as ‘leave it to the chef’ ) and was served two dishes that were not on the menu and were inspired creations. I asked to see the chef and Vikram came out of the kitchen and confessed that both dishes were the products of his own imagination.

A suitable Roy? At his restaurant Ahara, the chef creates modern Indian food that draws on his skills as a Japanese chef.

Anantwar has stepped out of his comfort zone with Inja, where he’s doing things differently than he did at his previous restaurants in Dubai.

When Tian became a commercial and critical success, Vikram’s future was assured. He went on to leave ITC and explore new areas. He started many new restaurants focussing on Oriental food. A couple of years ago, he finally turned his attention to the food of his native Calcutta and though Delhi’s The Tangra Project was a critical hit, it was too large and suffered from a bad choice of location.

Ahara’s uncooked Wagyu shaami tartlet is topped with pickled shallots and takuan. (Ahara)

He said he wanted to cook Japanese-Indian which, I told him gently, was not such a great idea. Yes there is a cuisine to be developed drawing inspiration from Japanese and Indian food but Singapore, which has some of the best Japanese restaurants outside of Japan and also has several top Indian restaurants (the ground-breaking Revolver and Thevar, which has two Michelin stars) did not strike me as the ideal place to unveil a new, daring cuisine.

At Ahāra, Roy adds caviar to chaat and even buckwheat khichdi (above).

An Indian from India (as distinct from an NRI) who experiences Vikram’s food will immediately see where he is coming from. This is distinctly Indian food with Malvani gravies and North Indian flavours but Vikram has used his love of the cuisines of East Asia to create dishes that are new and different.

Both Inja and Ahara serve up beautifully plated food. Inja has udon noodles with khasi black sesame curry. (@injarestaurant)

Panchali Mahendra, a former Oberoi manager who is the President of Atelier House Hospitality, told me that the group held Adwait in high esteem and when he said he wanted to open a Japanese-Indian restaurant, they decided that they would make this their flagship Indian venture.