There isn’t any paneer on this vegetarian menu. Mumbai’s lately opened Avatara gained a Michelin award in Dubai final 12 months for an excellent cause. Now the world’s first and solely vegetarian, Indian and one-Michelin-star restaurant, it finds imaginative methods to make use of native greens that individuals dislike, overlook or take as a right.
Bitter gourd, as an example, is reimagined in a tikki type with ghee-roast masala. It’s paired with a creamy gelato manufactured from mango sambar, served with dosa crisps for a crunch. The common-or-garden turnip is offered as a galouti kebab with a creamy curry produced from rajma and turnip — a dish which takes inspiration from Kashmir — together with katlam, a flaky, Kashmiri bread.
Karuvelvilas (Bitter Gourd)
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Avatara comes from the home of Ardour F&B, which incorporates Dubai-based institutions resembling Tresind Studio, Carnival by Tresind, Tresind, Bistro Aamara and A Capella amongst others. Chef Himanshu Saini and Chef Rahul Rana together with head chef, Mumbai, Sanket Joshi, are desperate to convey the distinctive expertise to Indian clients. In spite of everything, the restaurant’s 14-course vegetarian degustation menu doesn’t characteristic any of the common suspects, together with paneer and mushroom. To take it a step additional, there isn’t any onion or garlic both.
Intrigued how that’s going to pan out? So are we.
Interiors of Avatara, Mumbai
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The 2-week-old restaurant awash in white, blue and sea-green, is on the seventh flooring of a constructing in Santa Cruz and whereas there isn’t any view of the town, there may be loads to admire in your plate.
Our meal begins with a chilly beverage — pineapple rasam with curry leaves. The primary course, aptly titled Naivedhya, is impressed by the holy providing to the Gods and comes encased in a plate with peacock-themed design. Do-it-yourself butter, popping sugar and a bon-bon crammed with panchamrit (honey, vanilla, almond milk, rose water and orange zest) acts as an amuse-bouche.
Sandhita
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The Alpahara (which suggests snacks in Sanskrit) is designed by Avatara Dubai’s Chef Omkar Walve, who gained the coveted Michelin Younger Chef’s award final 12 months. “I tasked Omkar, who hails from Maharashtra, to showcase a dish impressed by his area and he got here up with Alpahara,” Rahul tells us. Crisp air-fried okra is full of chilli thecha and alu wadi. Alu wadi transforms right into a mini taco filled with taro leaves and roots. Sol kadi, served on the aspect, is poured over a inexperienced apple formed like a rose and soaked in kokam.
The subsequent course named Jadon focusses on root greens resembling yam, beetroot, lotus stems, orange candy potato, tapioca and purple candy potato. Thinly-sliced and baked to perfection, they are often dipped right into a tangy pomegranate or creamy chickpea mash.
The programs showcase the range of India’s regional delicacies. For instance, a dish referred to as Shikhalu options charred babycorn served on the bottom of Rajasthan-inspired missi ghevar, whereas in Karuvelvilas, bitter gourd is cooked with artichokes. Broccolini and carrots discover themselves in a pickle together with a makhani gravy in Sandhita, and jackfruit-stuffed momos are drenched in a aromatic and earthy sea buckthorn and lemongrass thukpa in a dish named Panasa.
Panasa
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Earlier than shifting on to the mains, we cleanse our palate with a burst of ardour fruit, strawberry and spiced guava water. Rahul says the Mumbai restaurant serves two new signature programs, Shubhanjana and Vrihi, which draw inspiration from the culinary traditions of Bihar and Maharashtra. Impressed by Bihar’s well-known litti chokha, Rahul will get artistic with a drumstick chokha and sattu kachori. Mumbai being his area, Sanket exhibits his culinary prowess with the Kolhapur-inspired vrihi, which mixes tambda bhaat (purple rice) with a parsnip rassa and black lime pickle. It’s the sort of good-spicy and tangy that makes us preserve going again.
Ksira (Kheer)
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Of the 2 desserts ksira (kheer) and madhuram (candy), it’s the latter that impresses. Created by pastry chef Kamlesh Singh, it’s a nostalgic tackle Uttarakhand’s bal mithai with milk chocolate fudge; its sweetness minimize down by the tart buransh-flavoured glowing home made wine. Actually, this might have been the final course with out the addition of Parna, a chocolate-coated shell with betel leaf extract which comes perched on an elaborate peacock feather-lined plate.
Bal Mithai
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There’s quite a bit at Avatara to understand, together with the beautiful plating — a takeaway from Chef Rahul’s pastry chef days — to the usage of seemingly-boring greens in artistic methods paired with unheard-of flavour combos. Our takeaway — by no means flip up your nostril on the sight of a turnip. It’d simply shock you.
A meal for 2 prices ₹4,500 plus taxes at seventh flooring, Krishna Curve constructing, Reverse Juhu Backyard, Santacruz West, Mumbai 400054.
