Fusion Fables: Chef Manish Mehrotra on how one can hit the right balance in fusion food and more

Between whipping up decadent fare for diners, the chef chatted with us about walking the tightrope of fusion food and representation of South Indian cuisine across India, his comfort food and more

In Frame: Chef Manish Mehrotra

When we caught up with Manish Mehrotra on a busy Thursday afternoon, he had just rushed from the airport to the kitchen of Alba at JW Marriott Hotel Bengaluru. The corporate chef of celebrated restaurant Indian Accent was visiting for a pop-up where he’d be presenting his best signature dishes over the next three days.

Epicures know him as the brain behind the genre-defying menu at Indian Accent, which features dishes that re-imagine traditional Indian cuisine using global culinary techniques. Truth be told, we expected to find him tired (read grumpy) owing to his hectic schedule. Instead, we were pleasantly surprised to find a man with a warm smile – who was genuinely humble, contagiously enthusiastic and wickedly humorous. Between whipping up decadent fare for diners, the chef chatted with us about walking the tightrope of fusion food and representation of South Indian cuisine across India, his comfort food and more.

<strong><em>Shisho Patta</em> with Yoghurt, a dish on the pop-up menu</strong>

Shisho Patta with Yoghurt, a dish on the pop-up menu

Did you always want to be a chef?
Not at all! Most of the top chefs will say they grew up helping their moms in the kitchen or were inspired by their grandmothers’ cooking. Nothing like that happened to me. Food was celebrated in our house, but I never wanted to go to the kitchen and cook. Eventually, I had to pursue some career and hotel management was then in fashion. When I joined my school, I found their kitchen the most interesting place. That is when I decided I want to become a chef.

In the beginning of your career, you worked on specialising in pan-Asian cuisine. What inspired you to shift focus to Indian cuisine?
Everybody has to come home, isn't it? When I was in London, I started to see Indian food in a different way. I loved chef Atul and chef Vivek Singh – they were doing such a fantastic job there with Indian food. But that was not happening in India. So in 2009, I decided to start Indian Accent. 14 years later, here we are.

<strong>Pulled <em>Kathal Phulka</em> Taco, a dish on the pop-up menu</strong>

Pulled Kathal Phulka Taco, a dish on the pop-up menu

Fusion dishes always come with a risk factor. How do you hit the right balance?
We do classic combinations for which we have few rules in the kitchen that we never break. For example, we don’t combine two different cuisines of India in one dish. You’ll never get a dish like Chettinad Chicken Tikka (laughs). When you do fusion, there has to be a reason behind selecting the combination. Like our Blue Cheese Naan worked out well. But why blue cheese and naan? Because cheese and bread is already a classic combination, loved by people throughout the world. And when you stuff it inside a naan, blue cheese reduces in proportion, becoming more palatable to Indians.

You have spoken about accepting failures/errors in the kitchen. Is there any dish you have created by accident?
I believe every dish is invented by accident. But to give an example of a happy accident, we have a dish called Kanyakumari Crab with Sago Pongal. The sweetness of coconut worked so well with the sweetness of crab and a hint of chilli that now we have put it on the menu of this pop-up.

<strong><em>Besan Laddoo</em> Tart with Saffron Cheesecake, a dish on the pop-up menu</strong>

Besan Laddoo Tart with Saffron Cheesecake, a dish on the pop-up menu

Which element in South Indian cuisine you think needs to be represented more while serving pan-Indian cuisine?
In the North, people don’t know that much about South India though they this has improved a lot over the years. Earlier, people in Delhi were never very excited about coconut because they had grown up eating coconut barfi. Now, that is changing with their evolving palate. People should know things like how sambar is different in different states of South India – the ethos and philosophy of food is different in different states.

What will be the next big food trend in India?
Whatever food trends emerge in the West, it comes to India after two to three years. People are now talking about ingredient-based restaurants and mock meat. But in Indian kitchens we have so much that we do not need to worry about focusing on just one ingredient. We have such a great repertoire of vegetarian food that we do not need mock meat to replace anything.