Lounge
Live cooking brings drama to the table during dinner
Summary
The art of tableside cooking is enchanting diners once again. Chefs are tempering dals, smoking kebabs and carving meats in front of guests to boost interactive dining experiences
It was meant to be a straightforward Italian dinner until the chef brought out a huge cheese wheel to the table. Hot pasta and boiling water were placed into its crater-like centre. As the pasta melted the cheese, the chef scraped away with gusto, coating every strand of spaghetti in creamy goodness. The whole production, performed tableside on a cart, became a spectacle for the entire restaurant. Pasta alla ruota is the star at Pimalai Resort and Spa in Krabi, Thailand. At The Fat Duck, a fine dining restaurant in Berkshire, England, Heston Blumenthal elevates tableside cooking to performance art. For dessert, an ice-cream machine billowing smoke is wheeled to the table and the server conjures up frozen delights using liquid nitrogen.
Closer home in India, chef Vivek Salunkhe is amping up the quintessential Mumbai favourite bhurji at his brand new omakase restaurant Crackle Kitchen in Bengaluru’s Indira Nagar. Inspired by hot spring eggs of Japan (where eggs are slowly poached in the shell in hot spring water), Salunkhe cracks open slow-cooked eggs on a sizzling skillet on the table and stirs up the silky egg whites and custard-like yolks into a scramble. Instead of the usual onions and coriander, Salunkhe’s version features tuna flakes, salmon roe, tomatoes and crème fraîche, “Guests love a little tableside action, as it brings some excitement to the dining experience. Chefs these days are much more comfortable to come out and interact with diners," he says. Though bhurji is inherently a humble dish, its tableside presentation transforms it into an extravagant affair.
The Back Story
Tableside cooking originated in the 19th century in France and was once a hallmark of high-end restaurants. It involves preparing or finishing dishes in front of diners, adding a touch of theatre. It wasn’t just a baked Alaska that ignited on the table, an entire fish was de-boned in front of diners and meat carved on the table. The trend started to decline in the 1960s and 1970s when skilled servers became scarce and restaurants began to strip down fine dining. All that stirring, shaking, cracking and lighting food on fire takes skill and practice. This era also marked a shift in culinary control, with chefs taking charge of the dining experience. They wanted dishes to be delivered directly from the kitchen to the guest, and presented exactly as intended.
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Tableside cooking is all about creating a unique and memorable dining experience. “People love personalisation and undivided attention. When you can ask the server to increase the ghee in the tadka, or make the chaat exactly the way you like it, it feels special. But it’s not a new concept. Your mother making phulka for you while you ate in the kitchen was also akin to tableside cooking," says Rajesh Wadhwa, brand chef, Loya, The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai. Dals at this swanky new restaurant get the VIP treatment with waiters tempering it at the table. Meats are smoked and chaats built from a cart wheeled tableside. For the jwala macchi, a whole, pre-roasted snapper is set alight with well-honed aplomb. The dishes also come with a backstory about the ingredients and enthusiastic revelations (the kangra khodiya mutton appears black because it contains charred, hand-ground walnut kernels).
At Bastian Mumbai, chef Amol Phute sends out sizzling hot river rocks along with a plate of thinly sliced tuna. “When the guest places the tuna which has been marinated in ponzu sauce on the rocks, it not just sears the fish but also creates a sizzle and a wow factor. It’s like cooking outdoors. Guests love it and it’s one of the most requested dishes on the menu," says Phute, executive brand chef at Bastian Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. Tableside cooking isn’t always about theatrics; it’s also a chance to connect with diners. At Ottimo, ITC Grand Goa, servers assemble dishes like prawn and burrata salad tableside, explaining the origin of each ingredient—from Vijayawada prawns to cheese from Bengaluru. “Guests appreciate knowing their food is sustainably sourced," says junior sous chef Ayushmaan Gaur.
Trèsind, the modern Indian restaurant in Mumbai, has one of the greatest tableside trolleys. The 16-course degustation menu ends with a khichdi which comes with condiments artfully arranged on a marble map of the country. Each ingredient is then incorporated into the khichdi. At Mumbai’s modern European restaurant La Panthera at Bandra Kurla Complex, when the steaming hot chocolate souffle comes out of the kitchen, phones come out too. A server splits open the souffle to place crème anglaise inside. The slow decimation of the crème is often documented by diners on their phones. These candidly shared photos and videos of flaming desserts and other tableside theatrics are keeping this trend alive.
Nivedita Jayaram Pawar is a Mumbai-based food writer.
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