The Hindu Business Line : Two good!

In Delhi's crowded culinary landscape — where eateries open and shut shop frequently without so much as a blip on the city's gastronomic radar — it's no mean feat for a restaurant to win a global honour. Hence, when not one, but two restaurants recently made it to the list of the world's top restaurants, it was time to cheer. While the five-star Radisson MBD Hotel's Made In India was adjudged one of the world's best Indian restaurants by The Asian Wall Street Journal, Olive Bar & Kitchen, a standalone restaurant in Mehrauli, made it to the Conde Nast Traveller's Top Hundred Restaurants Of The World.

Made In India, Noida

When it debuted some months ago, offering formulaic Delhi fare — kebabs, biryanis, and dal makhni — few thought Made In India (MII) would transcend the ho-hum. But this has, perhaps, been the eatery's single largest triumph. That despite sticking to a safe culinary paradigm of `Indian' (read Punjabi) cuisine, it has managed to soar. The secret? Classic food served with a refreshingly inventive twist. Take the restaurant's kebabs, for instance. The recently introduced Royal Buffet on a Plate (featuring the chef's signature dishes) offers Dorra kebabs, Gilawat ke kebabs, Murgh Malai kebabs, Kham Khatai, Makai Chui Mui and Navrattan kebabs, each unique in taste and presentation.

The piece de resistance, however, is the Dorra Kebab, made from a 200-year-old secret Awadhi recipe. Whipped up from finely minced lamb, the kebabs are marinated overnight with 23 herbs and spices. They are then slow cooked on skewers (dabbed with sandalwood oil) pre-smoked with charcoal fumes. In fact, Sous Chef Kunal Kapur proudly says that people wheel down from other states to partake of this `manna'.

And here's why. The succulent meat disengages effortlessly from the rods. We relish the kebabs with piquant accompaniments — onion rings, a squirt of lemon and coriander-mint chutney. The Gilawat ke kebabs, an extraordinary offering from Lucknow, are luscious too. As are the vegetarian ones, especially the Chui Mui Kebabs with their fresh corn kernels and mawa filling.

The rest of the meal is a happy blur of endless kebab platters served with soft breads (ulta tawa paranthas and bakharkhani rotis), a fragrant, saffron-inflected Hyderabadi biryani accompanied by bhurani raita and exemplary desserts. The restaurant also serves new-age wines, though we opt for a full-bodied red to complement our predominantly red-meat meal.

"We've attempted to revive the forgotten foods of yore," says executive chef Arun Tyagi. "They could be Awadhi, Hyderabadi, North-West Frontier, Punjabi or from Delhi." Incidentally, MII's recipes were sourced from centuries-old manuals and then re-worked. In the process, the dishes were also infused with Unani herbs — rajgeera, talim khan, khus ki jar, ram patri, sandalwood powder, etc. "These herbs have great mind-body rejuvenating properties," says Kapur. "We've also used a combination of hot and cold spices to balance the body's yin and yang."

The menu also acquires a global appeal, thanks to ingenious fusion. For instance, the flavour-charged Snapper Tinkae (snapper marinated in Goan spices, skewered on tinkas) and its vegetarian version — the Cottage Cheese Tinkae — are nothing but satays in an interesting Indian avatar. As is the Chocolate Rasmalai Terrine in the dessert section — a happy marriage of our desi rasmalai with strips of chocolate soufflé.

The restaurant is seemingly a hit with the epicures. It's a week day and there's nary a table to spare in this 74-seater eatery.

Olive Bar & Kitchen, Mehrauli

There's much to recommend this Mediterranean eatery. It's exceptional food for one — the divine Chicken Charmula, succulent Prawn Sosaties, Chicken Moutarde de la casa, a nine-dip platter served with oven-fresh khubuz and a sinfully delicious chocolate fondant...

But apart from food, the restaurant also scores big for its architecture and ambience. For, here's a chunk of real estate morphed so ingeniously by the Mumbai-based interior designer Nozer Wadia that it's tough to believe the transformation has been wrought from a cowshed! In fact, Olive - Delhi (there's one in Mumbai too), says its Manager - Operations, Tanvir Nizam, is the only restaurant in India to make it to the Conde Nast Traveller's list in 2004, sharing the honour with Gordon Ramsay, Thomas Keller of The French Laundry, Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon.

But then, what do you expect when half the job is already done by a mind-blowing location? With Qutub Minar and vast swathes of green as a backdrop. Step out of your vehicle and the restaurant's rustic white Mediterranean setting acts like balm for nerves assaulted by Mehrauli's kamikaze traffic. Past a courtyard — blessed by a banyan tree spreading its limbs over crunchy gravel — and you enter the 100-seater eatery done up in aqua blue.

Wall niches anointed with artefacts, inventive flower arrangements and interiors warmed by the incandescence of wax candles, all tote up to charming atmospherics at Olive.

Friday and Saturday nights, explains executive chef Dev Malik, are `The Moorish Fable' nights when Olive's terrace is done up with swishing canopies, flaming mashaals, ottomans, cozy diwans and sheeshas. Add to it an al fresco dinner under a star-studded sky, Egyptian music, an authentic Moorish menu and it's easy to see why the restaurant features in the world's top establishments.

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