This new restaurant in Mumbai serves up what India's royals once ate
A ‘kheer’ with hints of garlic, and ‘raita’ prepared with liver, The Silver Train takes a deep dive into the palace kitchens and comes up with meticulously researched plates
A bowl of kheer appears before me and Anuradha Joshi Medhora, chef and co-founder of The Silver Train restaurant, challenges me to identify the main ingredient. The silken kheer is sweet, of course, but there’s a hint of savoury that I can’t quite place. Medhora reveals that it’s made with garlic.
“The waters of the Yamuna were quite polluted, so Jahangir’s hakims prescribed garlic for his delicate stomach. The palace khansama came up with this bennami kheer recipe by boiling garlic in milk," she says. Other unusual dishes like kaleji ka raita (liver in yoghurt and mustard) and ande ka halwa (eggs folded into khoya, saffron, and sugar) also originate from the palace kitchens of Jaipur and Awadh respectively. Medhora’s love for food and appetite for research clearly show in the menu of The Silver Train, which opened last month inside the spanking new Gourmet Village at Phoenix Palladium in Lower Parel.
Born in Indore, Medhora’s earliest memories were of grand dinner parties hosted by her parents and grandparents. She was also introduced to the cuisine of the erstwhile royal families through her friend circle at boarding school and college across Indore and Pune. She moved to Mumbai in 2004 and worked in advertising and marketing for a few years, before the lure of kitchens led her to launch Charoli Foods in 2015. “Charoli started as pop-ups where I served the royal food of Malwa in western Madhya Pradesh, which was the food I grew up eating. I wanted to take it to people so as to preserve these recipes," says Medhora, who is not a trained chef, but has learnt on the job. Being a research nerd also helped as she pored over archives and gathered recipes and oral histories from family and friends, translating them into immersive pop-ups and curated catering.
While Charoli Foods highlighted the cuisine of Malwa, Medhora realised that the wide range and depth of India’s many royal kitchens needed a larger platform. An offhand conversation with friend and now business partner, and seasoned restaurateur Shravan Juvvadi led to The Silver Train (he is also the founder and CEO), named after the miniature silver serving train that once circled the laden tables of Maharaja Madhav Rao Scindia I of Gwalior.
The USP of the restaurant is its thali, a silver platter of daily-changing dishes that give you a taste of the royal kitchens of Gwalior, Hyderabad, Awadh, Travancore, Kashmir, and beyond. It begins with tamarind water to aid digestion and ends on a sweet note with shrikhand that Medhora says is in memory of her late grandfather. In between, you may savour Thanjavur usal (tamarind-laced moth bean curry) or Jodhpur-style panchratna dal, or apple gourd from the Bhonsle kitchens of Nagpur, or Mewar’s dahi bhindi. Servings are unlimited and you can also add one dish from the à la carte menu.
This menu offers a choice of serving sizes, so you can order the starters and mains in portions of one, two, or four. Choose from dishes like smoky and flaky machhli jaali kebab (twice-marinated freshwater sawal fish barbecued on an open flame) or the perfectly rendered junglee maas chaap (a shikaar or hunting recipe where the meat is cooked with only three ingredients — desi ghee, red chili, and salt). A particular favourite at my table is the Malwa ke kathal kebab or jackfruit seekh kebab served with a hung curd dip drizzled with hot honey. “The recipe comes from Nimatnama, a 15th-century recipe book from the Malwa Sultanate. The kebab has no chillies as they hadn't yet arrived in India," says Medhora.
The mains feature dishes like the rather moreish Bilaspuri baingan bandhejan where aubergine is stuffed with caramelised onion masala, tied with a thread, and slow-cooked in ghee with a sticky lemon syrup. Or the mild-flavoured Dogra chicken kofta in a rich onion and yoghurt gravy, or badaam nariyal ke jheenge, a prawn dish that combines Mughal and Maratha flavours. Accompanying these are assorted naans made the ‘old way’; “there isn’t a drop of water in it, we knead the dough in yoghurt and milk and let it ferment," says Medhora. There’s also an extensive rice section, featuring dishes like Dogra ka guchhi pulao (Kashmiri morel pulao), begum ki biryani (from the kitchens of Bhopal’s Begum-Nawabs), and even dahi chawal that comes with four regional tadkas or tempering for you to DIY. The bar menu was not yet available when we visited but we did try a couple of sherbats — the deliciously piquant Spice Bazaar (clove, kokum, ginger, and mint leaves) and the not-so-great Chameli Bagh (jasmine, lime, coriander, soda).
While the rest of the menu remains staunchly traditional, Medhora has added a playful twist to the dessert section, so the orange kalakand is encased in brandy snap and served on betel leaf, and everything is to be eaten together taco-style. On the other hand, the creamy kulfi on a stick is cloaked in a pistachio white chocolate shell and sprinkled with sea salt. “We want to make the food of the royal palaces popular and its history more known; we want to make it accessible to everyone," says Medhora. By blending history with hospitality, The Silver Train turns royal dining into an experience that feels both timeless and deliciously new.
Prachi Joshi is a Mumbai-based travel and food writer.
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