Recently Chef Varun Totlani from Masque curated a special dinner for several celebrities at the Cannes film Festival. Held on May 15, the guest list included Rajpal Yadav, Taaha Shah Badussha, Pankaj Saxena, Sunanda Sharma, Javed Ashraf and many others. The five-course meal upheld the rich Indian flavours on a global platform and was paired with Godawan, the award-winning artisanal single malt whisky from Diageo India.
Speaking on the dinner Varun mentions, “This dinner was the perfect encapsulation of heritage India and the contemporary world, with a blend of culinary trends creating a five-course meal. Each dish, while uniquely Indian in its roots, imbibes a global flair to it. We featured a variety of locally sourced ingredients such as Kashmiri morel, cacao, and Ponkh in this meal. We wanted the entire experience to tell a story, with each dish complementing the other”.
Vikram Damodaran, from Diageo India also adds “This culinary experience was a showcase of Indian exceptionalism on a global stage, an encapsulation of India as the ‘Sutradhar’, or the Narrator of The World Story. This was in line with our ethos of pushing boundaries and bringing alive Indian heritage and craft, redefining Indian luxury and craftsmanship.”
The dinner menu began with the Jicama & Coconut Malai Momo with passion fruit thukpa for the vegetarians along with an added Trout Roe for the non-vegetarians. The first course was inspired by Ladakh’s momo and thukpa culinary culture with its one-bowl balanced flavours.
The second course had on display the famous street foods of India. The Ponkh & Charred Corn Chaat celebrated the vibrancy of the diversity of the street food.
The Khad sweet potato with malabar paratha and the Khad turbot with malabar paratha, which made up the third course, was a directly influenced of the royal kitchens of Rajasthan and their unique techniques of food preparation. Chef Totlani gave a global twist to our very own rice dishes in the penultimate course and prepared black garlic pulao with fresh toor dal & Kashmiri morel/lamb.
To conclude the meal, was of course a dessert which is an inevitable part of any Indian meal. The cacao from Southern India found its place on the menu where the chef weaved his magic to create a dessert using all parts of the fruit and served it in the shell itself.
