In 1993, at the impressionable age of 19 — and before the glint of stardom could touch him — chef Manish Mehrotra was but a young chap from Patna, mesmerised by the idea of kulfi being served in a thermos. “That was a different life altogether… going to Shivaji Park, or late-night kebabs at Mahim, or eating kulfi at Sena Bhavan… and all these things like thermos kulfi; it used to be set inside a thermos. Yeah, it was different, and it had a round shape,” he remembers. For the veteran at the helm of the award-winning diner, Indian Accent — that opened its doors to patrons in Mumbai’s Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) last month — life has come full circle.

Vestiges of his adolescent life as an aspiring chef in the city of dreams continue to manifest in his enduring love for chaat and pav bhaji. They find expression in the robust Kanyakumari crab that comes draped in an XO-meets-Balchao sauce, served alongside mirchi pao — a miniature version mimicking Mumbai’s signature pav. Or, in the Haji Ali-inspired custard apple cream served at the diner that draws from the fruit cream, famously dished out by corner shops outside the landmark shrine in the city. But it isn’t just about a dish, or even a few of them. For Mehrotra, it was the entirety of the seven-and-a-half years that he spent in the city — first, as a student at the Dadar Catering College and then, as a professional at the President Hotel in South Mumbai — that shaped him. “I would say the foundation was laid in Mumbai,” the chef says.

Mehrotra’s tenderness for the city becomes apparent in the clarity with which he remembers the details of those first few years. “I started living next to Khar Gymkhana. I don’t think that house or that building exists anymore; I can’t recognise that area. I had a roommate who was an aspiring film actor. I don’t know where he is now… but he was from Agra, and I was from Patna, and we were living in the same room. I was doing my hotel management. So, that was my first experience of Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay). Living as a paying guest in somebody else’s house — that was a first for me. Then I went to college and hostel life was in Dadar, which was, at that point of time, a very quiet area. Dadar beach was really, really quiet,” he dwells.

From there, the culinarian went on to work at Thai Pavilion, a long-standing Mumbai establishment and part of the cluster of restaurants at the President that helped shape it into the city’s ‘most happening hotel’ at the time. “There was Thai Pavilion, Library Bar, Trattoria, and Konkan Cafe — all these restaurants were there, so it was very happening, in terms of food and beverage. And it was great learning from Chef Ananda Solomon [who continues to head the kitchen at the Thai diner to this day]. Not only cooking, but how to feed people, how to take care of guests, and guest interactions… that was a great learning,” Mehrotra tells us. Then, in 2000, Mehrotra left the city for Delhi, to start a new — and possibly defining — chapter of his life. Only to return 23 years later with an outpost of his crown-jewel, tucked inside NMACC, which is slowly becoming the cultural epicentre of ‘Maximum City’.

The oeuvre of Indian Accent and its success is tied inextricably to Mehrotra’s own, because when he stuffed kulcha with blue cheese and fashioned dodha barfi — a milk-based sweet from Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi — into a tart, he essentially blazed a trail, ushering in a new era of Indian fine-dining, where the only rule was that there were no rules. By fusing forms borrowed from cuisines across the world with innately Indian flavours, Mehrotra and his team at the original Indian Accent in Delhi helped define the ‘modern Indian’, setting the stage for a million modern Indian restaurants to come, which would reimagine ghewar as tart and thepla as taco, as if it were no big deal.

It all started in 2009, when Mehrotra designed the contemporary Indian menu for the now-popular restaurant’s first outlet at The Manor, New Delhi, which then shifted base to The Lodhi in 2018. “When we started, this kind of food was not happening in India. And I made a few rules that I still follow. The first thing is that we will never compromise on flavour because of the presentation, or a gimmick, or theatre — whatever you want to call it. Whether you’re cooking pav bhaji or a fancy meal, it should be tasty. That is the first definition. Then the second thing — whatever combination you are doing in a dish, it should make sense. Suddenly, you can’t put together chicken tikka and dal makhani, and call it a fusion dish. It cannot happen like that. There has to be some kind of a story and reason. And that story and reason should convince the guest who’s dining. That is very, very important,” he reasons, when you quiz him about the gimmicks (and sometimes contrived theatrics) of modern Indian food as we experience it today.

And while theatrics is certainly the hallmark of his food, it’s more smoke and less mirrors. True that in his kitchen, koftas are called chicken tikka meatballs and paired with flame-roasted tomatoes; atta and semolina pani puri is served with five waters (instead of one); and paneer is crafted into a 100-layered delicacy, with all the textural delight of nicely done meat. Is it necessary? We don’t know. But is it delicious? Yes, it is. Ask him if fine-dining needs to be like a Christopher Nolan movie — the harder to understand, the better it is considered, and his crisp retort is, “I would say, sometimes, you can be a Guy Ritchie too — he is fun, but it’s great art, too.”

Whether it’s serving an anar and churan kulfi sorbet (a palate cleanser) in a bijou pressure cooker or plating the daulat ki chaat with fake notes, for this chef, it’s still serious business. And, “it creates a bit of fun and nostalgia, which I think is very important in food,” he asserts. That makes sense for a man about to enter his 50s, still smitten by the culture of tawa cooking prevalent in Mumbai’s Chunabhatti area, and reeling from the joy of tucking into kebabs at Colaba’s famed joint, Bademiya. Although, he says, he liked it better when it was just a stall in a lane. Now, it’s too fancy for the star chef, who deep inside still very much remains just a chap from Patna, chasing dreams in Mumbai’s busy streets.

What To Expect At Indian Accent, Mumbai

For chef Rijul Gulati, who heads the kitchen at the restaurant’s Mumbai outpost, bringing out unusual flavours is a centering thought while planning the menu. “The tasting menu that we have planned is entirely new. Each and every dish is exclusive to Mumbai. We’re doing churan ka karela, pulled lamb dumpling with aab gosht from Kashmir, mushroom and gobindobhog payesh with murgh malai and truffles, and then, there’s mishti doi cannoli, he shares, offering a peek into what to expect at the diner.

Image Credits – Indian Accent