The Hindu Business Line : Famously familiar

Mulling an introduction to this report has one wondering if the true success of a restaurant serving South Indian cuisine lies in the fact that most of its patrons are residents of the South Indian city it’s located in. But could that also mean they are not adventurous in matters of taste?

Nabhojit Ghosh, Executive Chef at Chennai’s Taj Coromandel, doesn’t see it this way. He finds it heartening that these people still cherish their roots. Despite being well travelled and exposed to other cuisines, deep inside South Indians are conservative, the ties to their culture are strong, and they return to their home food at the end of the day. He recalls how at a very Western, formal banquet he was in charge of organising, a guest went up to him and pleaded for some curd rice, which was served and consumed in a discreet corner of the hotel! In his experience, Chennai is about the only metro which has steadfastly held on to its traditional breakfasts and meals, and not adopted cereal, sausages and eggs as the others have done. And Taj’s Southern Spice restaurant, which has now completed 10 years of existence, has a repertoire of dishes from the four southern States that can well strike a chord with people from those places.

As veshti-clad assistants weave their way around the restaurant strung with jasmine and marigold, offering diners paanakam and buttermilk and appalams, you wonder how traditional is the food, how much is populist and how much of it is innovative. “It’s all authentic, and there’s no innovation at all,” says Ghosh, who himself swears by early cookbook writer Meenakshiammal’s Samaithu Paar. Populist it has to be, to an extent, as some diners are not willing to experiment. The chef has managed to phase out the tandoori element, and hopes to do so with the few remaining non-South Indian dishes as well. Ghosh says other restaurants across the Taj group have become very adventurous with ‘plating’ meals, even from other Indian cuisines, but in Southern Spice…? “No way!” he says, adding that the thought never even came to mind. “I’ve understood the city and the people, and the sentimental value this restaurant holds for them has to be intact.” He tells of a guest who visits the restaurant at least once every year — now in his seventies and no longer a resident of Chennai. He once used to live down the road on which Taj Coromandel now stands. He unfailingly orders aappam, stew and Alleppey fish curry, says Ghosh, adding that when he once suggested something different, the guest acquiesced, but also asked for a small portion of his favourite fish curry too.

Vegetables such as broccoli and baby corn do find their way into the menu but that’s because they have made their way into homes as well. “Do remember, they are part of the South — they are grown in Ooty,” he points out. Even in the most traditional homes, these vegetables find a place. “There is neither onion nor garlic used, but you will find that there’s a portion of food made with these vegetables,” he says, adding that he wouldn’t term their use an innovation. So the mirapakaya mokkajonna iguru (made of baby corn and green chilli) that’s on the special menu may not be traditionally Andhra, but the combination of spices used for it is, and will not be out of sync with their natural taste, he says.

The celebratory menu to commemorate the 10 years of the restaurant, for which four chefs from hotels in the neighbouring States were brought in, was quite a feast, and an eclectic mix of South Indian cuisine. There were crisp and mellow yam chips fried with curry leaf (a Karnataka recipe, we learn); peppered cauliflower; pachakari (vegetable) stew from Kerala; a mild Alleppey fish curry; Bellary mutton curry, for which the base is a mixture of the greens gongura and spinach; a golden-fried potato and lady’s finger sauté, fried prawns; elaneer payasam (made with tender coconut meat); and Hyderabad’s famed khubani ka meetha (stewed apricots), served with a big blob of cream (or you could opt for some ice-cream). There were other traditional favourites too, such as kadamba sambar and lime rice.

It was an opportunity to revisit the ethnic dishes of the four States, and some of the new dishes will soon make it to the everyday menu. Ghosh cautions that the new menu won’t be vastly different: “We have to retain the high-moving items and, anyway, we change the menu twice a year. We cannot alienate the customers who are very attached to this restaurant, and most of the customers are from this city.” Will Southern Spice travel to other hotels in the Taj group, to other cities? “Maybe, maybe not; even among the higher-ups, there’s a lot of attachment to this restaurant, so we may not touch it, after all,” says Ghosh.

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