The Coastal Macha’s chef Piyush Menon is a known name and face in the Kolkata food circuit. While we miss his restaurant, he made sure that we don’t miss his food, and keeps educating us about the Kerala cuisine, talking about the influences and how the Kerala food can be fused with other known cuisines, creating something new. As chef Menon wrapped up a pop-up this weekend, and is gearing for another next week, we speak with him to know more about it. Excerpts:
Tell us about your recently concluded pop-up.
Our last pop-up, an Anglo-Malabar one was not a fusion, so we were initially thinking on the line that if we can make a menu which combines Bengal and Kerala. We avoided a fusion this time which might get lost in the way, and something that would neither be Bengal nor Kerala, so we got into a likewise thing of Anglo-Indian.
We went along with traditional dishes first and a few of the dishes which are not really traditional but we had taken elements of the regional cuisine and fused it with different kind of techniques, in which the essence of the dish is maintained, and we kind of contribute to an even better mouthfeel without compromising the originality of the dish.
What's the kind of menu that you try to keep at your pop-ups?
I am doing two kinds of concepts for pop-ups. The lunch meals that I do from home, I try to keep it traditional, where I keep one or two items from the menu at my restaurant Coastal Macha, which people associate me with, like a ghee roast or tandoori devilled crab.
But at the other pop-ups, I keep a couple of dishes which, you know, I had a plan to introduce but somewhat because of commercial challenges at the restaurants, we couldn't. So, I've been trying to get those new dishes along with, you know, the old familiar, the classics that I had been doing.
At the pop-ups, I have been trying to push the narrative more towards experience dining, where there is a mix of tradition and modernising the cuisine, as well as reimagining certain things. It is also a lot about making people aware of the cuisine and going deeper into the regional cuisine and making narrative and trying to make it a little more appealing. There is still a lot of question marks when it comes to knowing and understanding and perceiving this kind of food. I have always come across a lot of generalisation and stereotyping of Kerala cuisine.
Why do you think, only a few dishes are portrayed when a specific cuisine is talked about?
The thing is, when you are marketing a certain cuisine, people find it easier to market it to audience in a way that they can typecast it. See, if today, I want to promote regional food of say Karnataka or Mangalore, I have to look at the core dishes of Mangalore, like sukka, ghee roast, gassi and such. But when you go a little southern down the part to the Tulu region, there are more variations to the food, they follow slightly different recipes or methods but they don't like to be talked about the same. The Southeast Asian cuisine, or Thai cuisine that we have known, is basically what comes from Bangkok. These are the commercial ideas of the cuisine.
When you go to the mountain regions of Thailand, to places like Phuket, the Thai food tastes very different there. And there are different dishes that you get to see. So, curries and soups, which are more acceptable to the mass, is how local food is usually portrayed.
Share about your upcoming pop-ups.
I’m doing another pop-up with Calcutta Gastronomes, where I am serving four-course dinner, boasting of tamarind and rosemary cooler, pollichathu, Kerala style chicken roast, coconut milk and pineapple panna cotta, on September 19. Something might come up in Pune and Mumbai. I also have a plan to recreate a toddy shop menu at a Kolkata hotel during the winters.