When Indian flavours take the road less travelled in Chennai

The Anvaya Indian Festival at The New Punjab Club asks a quiet question: what could Indian food become when tradition meets culinary imagination? The kitchen has been spending September finding out, and the answers are more interesting than the question might suggest.

From butter chicken to biriyani, familiar favourites take some delicious detours

We started with the Roasted malai corn soup and a brioche arrived alongside it. The instruction became obvious: dip it. The soup itself is thin in consistency but phenomenal in flavour, saffron cream and roasted corn blended into something refined and completely comforting. It is the kind of thing that would be good on any day in any season.

The Varqi paratha tacos came next: ghee-smeared layered paratha filled with chicken mussalam and dried sweet mango chutney, which is exactly as good as that sounds. The Butter chicken vada pao is the must-try of the entire menu, a house-made milk bread stuffed with a clay-oven-cooked butter chicken patty, served with fried green chilli. It is the kind of dish that makes you understand why Indian flavours in unfamiliar formats work when the kitchen actually knows both things it is combining.

The Golden fried corn ribs with thecha butter sit on a thin layer of thecha with a house dusting on top and an optional toum to cool everything down. The heat and the cooling and the crunch work together properly. The Beetroot kulfi chaat is the most visually arresting thing on the table: the plate arrives as an abstract painting of coloured chutneys with a beetroot made into a corn dog with cheese inside it, sweetened curd and tamarind and mint doing the chaat work around it. It is theatre that also tastes good, which is rarer than it should be.

The Za’atar chicken biriyani is where the festival makes its boldest move and justifies it completely. Long-grained rice, fragrant and distinct, and roasted chicken that is juicy, well-marinated and carrying a flavour that sits at the back of the mind long after the meal is over. The Middle Eastern earthiness of the za’atar and the South Asian spice tradition find each other here without fighting. The Mixed mushroom kofta with oyster mushroom chips and mini sheermal is wholesome and earthy, not the centrepiece of the table but a comfortable presence on it.

Dessert brought a Carrot halwa mille-feuille, another absolute must-try, with candied almonds and vanilla ice cream, the pastry layers shattering against the dense soft halwa, and a Mango shrikhand mousse that is airy and bright and tangy and the lighter ending of the two.

On till October 15. Meal for two: Rs 1,500+. 12 pm to 3.30 pm and 6.30 pm to 10.30 pm. At The New Punjab Club, Anna Nagar.

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