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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Let them eat French
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Let them eat French

Let them eat French

Taste benders: Delhi’s Chez Nini restaurant. Photographs by Pradeep Gaur/MintPremium

Taste benders: Delhi’s Chez Nini restaurant. Photographs by Pradeep Gaur/Mint

One of the most popular dishes at Rara Avis, a five-month-old French eatery in New Delhi, is escargots—that classically French dish of land snails, usually an appetizer. Served on grey escargot plates—each of whose 12 little troughs houses a mouthful of meat resting at the bottom of a bath of garlic and butter—around 1,200 of these unlikely delicacies are sourced from Germany every month. Soft, rich and sinful, with the texture of a less muscular prawn, they possess a rich, mineral flavour—this is complemented by how easily they absorb the flavours of the accompaniments they are cooked in. Priced at 480 per dozen here, escargots are an acquired taste—but everyone seems to want to try them, and not just once.

Taste benders: Delhi’s Chez Nini restaurant. Photographs by Pradeep Gaur/Mint

The steak tartare—thick, succulent tenderloin paired with a creamy herb sauce—is also popular but sourced locally, as is the confit de canard (duck precooked in goose fat, and then rendered again before serving). Priced at 520 and 750, respectively, the dishes are satisfyingly charged with flavour, if drier than versions in the bistros of Paris and New York.

And the restaurant, whose leather couches are surrounded by illustrated images of insects and esoteric objects and bathed in muted light, is doing 65 covers a day—even at the height of summer. “I prepare only traditional French food, like my own mother cooked. I don’t like modern food," says Cousin.

His partner Laurent Guiraud gives us the formula: “We are affordable, user-friendly, simple and flexible. We don’t tamper with the authenticity of the food, but we will give you Tabasco if you ask for it."

Guiraud says that of the 7,100 who have eaten here thus far, with average tabs of 2,000 for a meal for two (without wine), most are adventurous. Some even request frog legs—though they may hold off on the horse meat, for now at least.

Rara Avis, Delhi.

Decoding the food

French cuisine is famously rich and full-bodied, favouring meats, cheese, wine and creamy sauces prepared using traditional methods such as the reduction which forms the foundation of much of Western cooking. It lends itself to leisurely enjoyment in the form of several courses and enjoys great cache as the purest of culinary forms, through veteran chefs like Escoffier. Gaining ascendancy worldwide at the beginning of the 20th century, it reigned till the end of the 1900s, when “the great classic dishes of the cuisine of provincial France continued to uphold the reputation of French cooking, with such dishes as pot-au-feu, blanquette, tripe, bouillabaisse, cassoulet, bourguignon and tarte tatin", French food’s culinary bible, Larousse Gastronomique, proclaims.

But French food has long been rejected by the Indian palate; dishes like foie gras (the fatty liver of a duck or goose) have given French food a bad reputation as a fussy, bland food, and seen the demise of haute cuisine champions like the Taj Mahal New Delhi’s Longchamp and The Oberoi’s La Rochelle, which closed in 1998 and 2004, respectively. Only the deluxe Orient Express, where a meal for two can cost around 11,000, has endured and serves a pricey dinner to a very small, old-school elite (an average of around 22 covers a day, they say). What has changed now?

An escargot platter at Rara Avis.

By popular demand

A small, unlikely food revolution was flagged off by Flavors P’tit Bar in 2010, with a few casual tables alfresco in Defence Colony, a killer fondue, that French-Swiss superstar, and a small clientele of expats and young Delhiites who didn’t want too many in on the secret. This was followed up by the success of L’Opera, the popular French-owned local patisserie chain which opened home delivery in 2008 and its first outlet in March 2011: Sales of macarons (also macaroons), croissants and cakes have doubled in a year and its seventh outlet opened this month at Saket in Select Citywalk mall.

Bon appetit: Crêpes are popular fare at Suzette, Mumbai. Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint

Last September, Le Cirque came to town (though it disclaims the French tag and insists its plating is French, the cuisine, mostly Italian)—one of four Le Cirques in the world. Then, this March came Chez Nini, a Meher Chand Market market bistro; Greater Kailash-II’s M-block offering Rara Avis followed the month after and even the French embassy is planning a small eatery of its own. In October, restaurateur A.D. Singh and French-Indian Naina de Bois Juzan will partner to bring Delhi its third new French eatery of the year: a 40-cover gourmet restaurant called a “bistronomie", created by French chefs to marry quality local cuisine with reasonable prices, his concept note explains.

Suddenly, French food is cool.

Keeping it local

“As a foodie, I don’t want to end up at luxury hotels to try international cuisine all the time. I like these new restaurants where the chef-proprietor is always present," says businessman Tushar Chaudhary, who is smitten by the city’s new offerings and previously ate French at the Orient Express.

“I like that French food is not as complicated in terms of spices as other foods like Indian or Thai, and that they experiment with kinds of meats—plus, they are visually a treat," he adds. Born and bred in south Delhi, Chaudhary is among an increasingly cosmopolitan crowd which populates foodie portals like EatTreat, a gormandizing 3,600-plus member Facebook group. He was among those who participated in an informal poll I conducted to gauge the restaurant-goer’s sense of the future of French food in Delhi, drawing some mixed responses.

Poutine at Chez Nini, Delhi.

Khanna ate French at pricey Le Cirque before this, and enjoyed it in a different way: “It is an established name and a completely different price point. What we get at Chez Nini is good quality food that everyone can try. They are democratizing French food."

Perhaps what sustains these new establishments is that people have many reasons for frequenting a restaurant—because an eatery is new so one has to be seen there, or simply because it is close to their favourite commercial hub like Chez Nini, which one French-eating Punjabi family said they frequented especially as it was near Khan Market.

Chez Nini has already served 10,000 since its launch this March. “We are serving contemporary culinary building blocks; warm and comforting food for the well-travelled," says Canadian owner Nira Singh.

Her 30-cover bistro is dominated by the large, spreading sculpture of a tree and is full of perfectly accoutred tables—its nine mains and assorted sides are eminently about the packaging. Take the French onion soup—slightly sweet, nicely plated in a cast-iron tureen, or confited duck legs. Nini’s nine mains, sourced and priced locally, are in the vicinity of 425-690 and a meal for two averages 2,000, without wine.

The restaurant has received mixed reviews, though, particularly where authenticity is concerned. The desserts are not typically French; like Canadian comfort food poutine, French fries served with gravy and cheese curd. “I was far from impressed. They really should be more clear it’s French-Canadian rather than French, as the food is a far cry from what one expects from a French restaurant," Elle publisher Archana Pillai commented on EatTreat.

“It’s about snob value, it doesn’t really extend beyond that," says image guru Dilip Cherian, founder-partner of Perfect Relations. “It’s popular now, but we won’t grow to like French food ultimately." Or, enough of us won’t. “Please remember: All of us who live in Maharani Bagh, travel twice a year and only get our face creams from Selfridges are an extremely small minority. This minority will not make a restaurant run," says freelance writer Neha Lall, who feels none of the new eateries are truly authentic. “I want to be there when you tell an upper middle-class family who travel but are not adventurous with their food that goose fat is the dish of the day."

A difficult bait

The Indian bistro appears to be a work-in-progress complement—for some, it is a substitute for their favourite bistros abroad; for others, it has aspirational value. The owners of Rara Avis say that Greater Kailash-II M Block’s shop owners, some of whom have possibly not travelled to France, visit their restaurant just as much as ex-New York City ladies.

But restaurants and cafés serving French food outside of Delhi—Suzette and Chez Moi in Mumbai, Chez Mariannick in Bangalore, La Bouchée d’Or in Pune, and Le Club in Puducherry, among others—are wary of the French tag, preferring the Continental label instead.

Duck confit with accompaniments.

“In Delhi, you have your expats, your cultural circle, the embassies, there is a clientele; in Mumbai, there isn’t the same appetite," explains food writer and French food enthusiast Rashmi Uday Singh.

Chez Moi is one of the few French restaurants in Mumbai to have lasted (a year and a half), perhaps by virtue of its not being just French.“We were sure we wanted to be a ‘pan-European’ joint, NOT just serve French food," says partner Amman Dua. “It took over 15 years of eating ‘Indian Chinese’ for the consumer to be ready for absolute Chinese fare. But there are very limited ways to dilute French food or rather, Indianize it—pasta arrabiata is still our best-selling dish, in spite of a coriander beurre blanc fish which epitomizes French culinary supremacy."

The Table, Mumbai’s globally inspired it-restaurant, is mistaken for French, but its owners chose not to go the pure French way. “There is this great need to classify a restaurant. But ultimately, we want to create an experience that is as great for locals as for expats," says chef Alex Sanchez. “We will tweak the food to some extent and make it spicy if they really want."

The point where compromise must be marked seems to be the tipping point.

In July, the formerly French Flavors P’tit Bar became an international bistro with a mongrelized menu. “French ingredients cannot be easily sourced locally and Indians are sometimes off-put by the French food tag, though they say they like it," maintains its Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef Diya Sethi. “Also, staff who are familiar with French methods of preparation are not easy to find." Indeed, the chefs at Rara and Nini are both training staff to prepare French cuisine for the first time.

“I cannot afford to make dishes that a few people ask for, like bouillabaisse (a classic shellfish and fish stew), all the time," says Mariannick Halai of Chez Mariannick. Her Bangalore-based eatery serves crêpes as well as Italian-style pizza because of the resident wood oven. But she insists she has refused to compromise in any other way; to add chilli or cornstarch on demand. Old world and rustic, hers is the kind of eatery that may give way to Chez Nous, the recently launched 24x7 modern French café and bar at Novotel Bengaluru Techpark, which offers quiche lorraine alongside “chai-tinis" (spirit-infused teas).

For now, French cuisine is a marketing-friendly commodity in itself. “We love Rara Avis; its ambience, the rooftop," says Tanya Sayal. Sayal and her friend, Jessica Kar, New Delhi-based professionals in their 30s, dine here frequently with husbands and friends who, like them, have been “out". “But at the end of the day, we’re not coming here because it’s French," Kar stresses. “It’s because of the package, the experience of being here."

Even the Frenchman in India is sceptical about the genuine success of French cuisine a la bistro, perhaps typically. “French food will never be a major trend, for it requires specialized education and taste to appreciate its stunning simplicity," says Frenchman Anthony Mehl, sales and export manager at Vossloh Cogifer (an industrial subsidiary of the Vossloh Group, a leading switchgear company) and a Delhi resident for two years.

It remains to be seen if the foodie will persist beyond the trend. In the meanwhile, on my last visit to Chez Nini, a French journalist was documenting the arrival of French-Canadian in Delhi. That same night, at Rara Avis, a French TV crew was covering its own story: Indian people are eating French beef. On Bastille Day, 14 July, a special French menu featured at Mumbai’s Café Pico. Another small victory for the cuisine, the country—and for PR.

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Published: 20 Aug 2012, 12:45 AM IST
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