BackReview: Chemistry 101
Award-winning chef Stephen Gomes returns to his hometown, Mumbai, with a new gastro bar, and the menu is outlandish
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When the Indian chef of an award-winning restaurant in Cardiff, Wales, returns to his hometown with a new gastro bar, expectations are high. Chef Stephen Gomes has been called the Willy Wonka of the kitchen for his eccentric take on Modern Indian. At Chemistry 101, he has come up with a similarly outlandish menu, experimenting with Indian and European flavours.
The good stuff
The bar hasn’t yet received its liquor licence, but the bartender recommended some house cocktails. Agent Vinod ( ₹ 550) arrived on a large wooden tray—a martini glass with a dollop of lemon froth into which the bartender poured a sweet- spicy mix of vodka, mango juice and chatpata (tangy) masala. Some pineapple caviar and a dash of freshly ground pepper later, our drink was ready—it was essentially a mango martini in fancy garb, but delicious and refreshing. Our other cocktail was Cinderella ( ₹ 550), a fruity, slightly sweet mix of vodka, triple sec and cranberry juice with orange caviar pearls, served in a very large test tube with smoke swirling in it.
Disney’s Ratatouille ( ₹ 300), our vegetarian starter, turned out to be a take on pav bhaji. A smoke-filled bell jar covered the bowl of ratatouille purée, which came with a ladi (string) of 20 bite-sized pav. The classic ratatouille flavours of aubergine, tomatoes and herbs hit the spot, but the purée robbed it of the varying textures. Our second starter, Atlantis ( ₹ 600), was a mini fish tank, complete with Nemo: succulent, coconutty prawns surrounded by crunchy garlic bread “powder", and topped with coconut milk foam and microgreens. The blue curacao caviar beads were more for effect than taste.
For dessert, we chose the Crystal Ball ( ₹ 600), a pretty creation of saffron and cinnamon panna cotta, encased in a champagne jelly ball stuffed with edible flower petals and grounded in almond meringue soil. The panna cotta was silky and creamy, and well complemented by the slightly tart jelly; the almond meringue provided the sugar hit.
The not-so-good
The ambience didn’t suggest gastro bar, just a regular restaurant, with the shelf of chemistry lab equipment sticking out like a sore thumb. The golden gauze window drapes can be put down to a bad idea, but one does wonder what they were thinking about if every dish required three servers—one to hold the tray, another to serve the food and the third to explain the dish.
Now the food: There were too many bells and whistles and too little substance in most of the dishes we tried. In the starters, Hat-Trick ( ₹ 450) comprised three small waffle cones in three different colours. The biscuit-coloured cone was the only one that tasted remotely of dosa (as the menu mentioned) and was filled with the potato sabzi that you would get in a masala dosa. The bright green caviar beads were supposed to taste of mint chutney, but didn’t. The green cone, filled with spicy chicken fajita mix and topped with sour cream, was the only palatable option. The black cone of puttanesca prawn mayo was overwhelmed by tomato and further topped by tomato “air".
The palate cleanser was a musk melon sorbet, which was too creamy to qualify as a sorbet.
The main courses were disasters of varying degrees. The vegetarian Auntie Lilly’s Cheese Pop Chillies ( ₹ 700) came with a narrow ceramic basket filled with cheesy (kofta-like) balls in a thick sauce that didn’t have any of the Oriental flavours the menu promised. This concoction was accompanied, strangely enough, by Kerala-style puttu. It came to our table in a steel puttu-maker, which the server had a hard time operating; the puttu promptly disintegrated on our plates. It was too dry, so we called for a Kung-fu Paratha ( ₹ 75) instead. This was a cross between a lachha paratha and a Malabar parotta, and it arrived (in a little wrought-iron trolley) torn to large shreds, looking messy and unappetizing.
By this time, our expectations had hit rock bottom, and the next main, Arabian Nights ( ₹ 900), did not help: a (purportedly) hummus-stuffed pita bread in a spicy sauce, topped with aioli, four rock-hard lamb falafel, a blob of baba ganoush sorbet (again, too creamy), garnished with dehydrated potato straws. There was the additional theatre of having smoke blown on to the dish, to recreate Arabian aromas (rosewater, sandalwood and such like). The “pita" looked and tasted like a stodgy bun, and we couldn’t discern the hummus.
When we asked our server, the chef (not Gomes) came bearing a bun (definitely not pita) with some hummus slathered in. The said bun wasn’t a replacement for our dish, but was meant to show us that there was indeed some hummus in it.
Talk plastic
Our meal—two cocktails, three starters, two mains, one bread, and one dessert—cost us ₹ 4,208, all inclusive (we were not charged for Arabian Nights ).
Chemistry 101, Ground floor, Times Tower, Kamala Mills, Lower Parel (24967272/ 24969292). From 7pm-1am. Lunch and all-day service will begin from 10 May.
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