Stepping out of the PVR theatre at VR Chennai and scouting dine-in options for dinner — Collage by Toscano — is one of the first restaurants you see. Great location, check. It also beckons your curiosity long before you are handed a menu as tastefully done interiors with accents of teal and red are on display to passersby — minus the walls we are used to in a conventional format. And the clincher of course — how good is the food? Between the indulgent Hara Bhara Kebabs oozing Mozzarella and the slow-braised Belgian Pork Ribs glazed in a smokey barbecue sauce, we are sold from the get-go.
Three is company
Expect big flavours for diverse palates. Collage as the name suggests is a collage of cuisines — Italian, Indian and Asian. And we wouldn’t expect anything less from award-winning chefs, Jean Michel Jasserand and Goutham Balasubramanian (Red Apple Kitchen Consultancy) who brought Bengaluru’s popular fine dining Italian chain, Toscano, to Chennai two years ago. Chef Goutham tells us, the menu for this spacious 106-seater restaurant “was painstaking researched over six months” before it opened in December last year.
Lassi, what’s next?
We scan what is on offer over slurps of our Oriental Lassi, which is sweet and thick, and is topped with sculpted rubies of watermelon big enough to be baubles on a Christmas tree. We discover appetizers like Lemon Sesame Coriander Tofu alongside Pesto Chicken Bruschetta and Charcoal Cooked Chicken Tikka. And quickly decide — we want all three! The bruschetta turns out to be the winner of this round with flavourful notes from that pesto atop oven-roasted Tuscan bread, while the tikka is pleasant and the tofu is just so-so and lacks the lemon-y zing we were looking forward to. For mains, we recommend the Homemade Spinach Ravioli in a creamy tomato sauce or the ever-classic but-never-fail option of Chicken Biryani for comfort. We wrap up with a Thandai Mango Kesaria Panna cotta (with almonds, fennel, rose petals and saffron). Light as air and smooth and silk, it is a perfect dessert for
the summer.
Meal for two at INR 900 approx.