This is the bao menu Chennai shouldn’t miss

There is a version of hotel bar food that exists purely to justify the drinks menu. Steam and Spice, Vintage Bank’s limited bao festival at Hilton Chennai, is not that. The bar’s unhurried atmosphere suits a menu built around eight steamed lotus flour baos, each paired with its own house kimchi and optional cocktail. Everything arrives neat, contained and easy to eat. The menu moves across vegetarian and non-vegetarian with equal ambition, and the best dish on the table sits firmly on the vegetarian side.

From crispy tofu to tempura prawns, every steamed bun arrives with a kimchi designed to complete the story

The Crispy silken tofu and hass avocado bao is the one. Panko-crusted silken tofu, a sweet ginger soy reduction, a quick cucumber sesame kimchi alongside it. Ours arrived without the avocado, which by the menu’s own description should have been there, and we noticed. But the tofu was executed so well, the crispiness holding properly even after the bao had been assembled and rested, that the absence did not derail the dish. We could have spent the entire evening at this one bao and felt the night was well spent.

The Charred asparagus and water chestnut bao is where the kitchen plays with texture most intelligently. The water chestnut stays crisp and distinct, keeping each bite interesting rather than letting everything merge into one soft mass. The sweet bean paste reduction underneath ties it together without overpowering. The Crispy jackfruit kari and Malabar pepper bao is the one for sceptics of jackfruit as a meat alternative. The Chettinad dry kari masala is deeply spiced, the cracked pepper adds a particular heat, and the curry leaf crisps give it the texture it needs. The jackfruit question does not really come up. The kitchen has thought this through and it shows.

On the non-vegetarian side, the Crispy prawn and sriracha bao is the standout. Tempura-fried tiger prawns with a sriracha yuzu emulsion, Asian slaw and toasted black sesame, sitting alongside a tangy pineapple and ginger kimchi that cuts through the richness. This one has layers and earns every one of them. The Korean fried chicken bao is solid and unfussy. The Glazed pork belly bao is the one you can skip without guilt.

The Ghee roast mutton chukka bao came closest to being exactly what it promised and fell just short. Mangalorean ghee roast spices, charred curry leaves, crispy shallot strings: the flavour story is completely right. But the mutton came chewy on our visit, and in a bao where every bite should be effortless, that texture pulled the whole thing back from where it could have been.

What lifts Steam and Spice is the seriousness of the kimchi pairings. Each one is specific to its bao: pineapple ginger against the prawn’s heat, spiced radish and fuji apple against the tofu’s sweetness, aged napa cabbage against the pork belly. Someone sat down and worked these out properly and you can taste it.

From 11 am to 11 pm. At Vintage Bank, Hilton, Guindy.

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