Crispy ‘vada’ memories and tea: What global chefs take back from India
Chefs visiting the country are taking back ideas, ingredients, flavours and techniques to infuse into their own dishes back home
Indian onions made chef Jack Jarrot cry. “In the UAE, you can chop hundreds of kilos of onions and you wouldn’t tear up. Indian onions, on the other hand, are super fresh, flavourful, and so, for the first time in over a year, I cried as someone cut onions in the kitchen," he laughs. The chef de cuisine at Sand & Koal, an open-fire restaurant at Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental, Abu Dhabi, Jarrot was in Bengaluru for a five-day fire-side dining pop-up at The Polo Club, The Oberoi in September. While he’d vacationed in India before and was familiar with the country, this was the first time he was helming a pop-up here.
“If you cook only in your country, you’re like a frog in a well that’s not exposed to other places and cultures." This statement by Marvas Ng, head chef of Path, a modern Asian fusion restaurant in Singapore that was featured in Michelin Guide 2024, is like a distillation of Jarrot’s kitchen adventures in India. In Ng’s view, international pop-ups and residencies are like creative labs that goad chefs to think beyond recipes they are too familiar with. “This is the reason us chefs always jump at an opportunity to cook elsewhere. You get to experience something new and you always end up taking back memories."
And this is where India stands out. The country’s diversity presents plenty of opportunities for international chefs to pack in new experiences, memories and lessons in creative thinking. Take Ng’s own example. The 2022 Culinary World Cup winner had always wanted to host a pop-up in India owing to its buzzing F&B scene and famed hospitality. He was in Bengaluru in July to present a two-day pop-up of modern Chinese cuisine at The Leela Palace. On the menu were his specials like the Szechuan Style Burrata, NZ Lumina Spring Lamb Rack served with a Mongolian spiced curry and Mongolian Milk Curd for dessert. But when he found himself enjoying a medu vada at a local darshini-style eatery, Ng decided to tweak his recipe. “For one of my dishes on the menu, I decided to swap the mantou, a soft and fluffy Chinese bread, with the vada because it’s so crispy."
For Jarrot, these short culinary stops are also a great way to present food in newer ways to customers. Citing a new dish he created for the pop-up using bottle gourd and the aromatic gondhoraj lime—Roasted Bottle Gourd with Gondhoraj Lemon Chermoula—he says, “A bottle gourd is not a vegetable you’d expect to see on a fine-dining menu, and I was told that it can be unpredictable, but I decided to create an entire dish with it because I want to change people’s opinions that even simple ingredients can surprise you."
Besides these culinary experiments, one thing that Jarrot found himself enjoying was a visit to the local HAL wholesale vegetables and fish market. “India is an amazing country for fresh produce. You have such a great range of lemons and chillies. Even some of the fruits, like bananas, are fantastic. The dairy is top quality too," Jarrot says.
A SHIFT IN TASTE
Nikhil Aggarwal, sommelier and CEO of All Things Nice, a luxury wine and spirits consulting and marketing agency in Mumbai, has seen the scene evolve from close quarters. Having hosted pop-ups by celebrity chefs such as Puglian chef Mirko Febbrile, Michelin star chef Rupert Blease for over 15 years, Aggarwal says that there’s a decided shift in culinary preferences. “The risotto dinners have been done quite a bit. The focus now is to bring down South American chefs and Asian cuisine chefs." Aggarwal turns candid to a question about sourcing ingredients. “Some of these chefs are very precise in their requests. If they want white truffles, they’d ask for ‘western Australian white truffles’. One of the most difficult ingredients I had to source was one kind of cocoa nibs a chef was insistent on," he recalls.
Since 2023, Mumbai-based Jezaan Limzerwala, associate vice-president, F&B for IHCL, has brought some of Asia’s and the world’s best bars, including Vender from Taiwan and The Aubrey, Hong Kong, for short takeovers at LOYA in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. He attributes the popularity of the series to India’s active mixology scene, the audience’s maturing palate, and the wallet-friendliness of these takeovers. For Limzerwala, procuring ingredients is one of the thrilling challenges of the job. “For one of the bars visiting from Hangzhou, China, we needed to get a very particular kind of sichuan leaf. Since in India we only get sichuan seeds and pepper corn, we had to look everywhere for it, even Amazon. We eventually found one particular person who was able to get it," he recalls. Today, he has a network of suppliers for fruit purées and liqueurs but every take over continues to throw surprises. “Every bartender comes from a different country and so has a different list," he adds.
Frida Lucia Gonzalez, bartender and co-owner of Aruba Day Drink bar in Mexico, currently ranked No.22 on North America’s 50 Best Bars 2025, was in India last month as part of LOYA’s Qissa series of international bar takeovers. Her pit stops included Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Goa and Mumbai. Again, the lack of a few ingredients such as orange-based bitters and sherry meant she had to think on her feet and craft new cocktails, like the Switch Martini (gin infused with champagne, raspberry tea, vermouth, Indian Zinfandel and pickled fruit) and the Pal Sur (whisky, orange liqueur, lemon juice and orange oleo). “We made the orange bitters in-house and used an Indian Zinfandel instead of the sherry," she notes.
Gonzalez says her experiences in India will eventually manifest as drinks on her bar’s menu. “When we travel outside for takeovers, we return home with ingredients to make limited edition cocktails," she says, adding that she is taking home a lot of Indian tea. The remark underscores the intangible cultural crossovers these collaborations encourage.
WHO’S VISITING
October looks exciting in terms of international pop-ups. Chef Julien Royer, chef-owner of three Michelin-starred restaurant Odette, Singapore, will be presenting a limited-seat culinary showcase at Wabi Sabi, The Oberoi, Bengaluru (18–19 October) and Vetro and Enoteca, The Oberoi, Mumbai (23–24 October). In Mumbai, Buenos Aires’ award-winning bar Tres Monos will be coming to Scarlett House, Bandra on 11 October. Award-winning bar Goa Nights from Macau and Cebu, in collaboration with Dean With Us, will be doing a special takeover at 2:59 The Bar, JW Marriott Kolkata, on 10-11 October.
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