Gaggan Style

Anand wears his stardom lightly. “The goal for the future is simple — work,cook,eat,and listen to rock music,but only at Gaggan. We are still nowhere close to where we want to be. I am Gaggan,my name is on the board and people meet me at my restaurant,but I don’t want to be a poster chef,”

he says.

The son of Punjabi parents,Anand grew up in Kolkata and studied food production at Trivandrum,all of which gave him a holistic grounding in Indian food. He went on to work with the Taj group before starting his Thai sojourn. “I took a two-hour flight from India to Thailand to work on a three-month consultancy and then,like a typical Indian in a foreign land,never came back,” he says,with a chuckle.

Anand worked with a few restaurants in Thailand before leaving for Spain on a culinary programme at El Bulli,chef Ferran Adria’s culinary bastion that was consistently ranked the best in the world when it was operational. It was here that Anand was exposed to “molecular gastronomy” (a term he and most other adherents hate) and decided to use it in Indian food. “I learned to make Indian food from my mother,aunts and people who cook without any degree but are the best cooks in the world. When I was in Spain,before opening Gaggan,I understood the importance of science in cooking,which,as a chef,we generally ignore. Learning scientific cooking was like attaining culinary nirvana,” he says.

Anand’s experiments make up what he calls Progressive Indian Cuisine,the highlights of which are dishes such as Chowpati Year 2050 (an Asimov-ian take on papdi chaat with spherified yogurt,mango chutney and potatoes),Indian Foie Gras (mutton brain tossed with ginger and sour cream),and Who You Calling Chicken (chicken curry with fiery hot peppers and coconut). Apart from having fun in the kitchen,Anand took the unusual route of bringing a few Spanish chefs back with him to Bangkok to complement his team of Indian and Thai chefs. “It’s simple,we break it up into ‘Taste: Indian chefs’,‘Presentation and Team Work: Thai chefs’ and ‘Techniques: Spanish, Indonesian,Russian,Japanese and Scandinavian’,” he says,explaining his award-winning equation. Unlike his technical approach to cooking,Anand’s food philosophy is uncomplicated. “Just cook and make sure every guest feels the surprise — the element of fun and the happiness of eating soul food,” he says.The final dollop is of music in the kitchen. “Each member of the team gets a chance to play his or her playlist. I listen to everything,from the classics and the ’80s to Dream Theater. But no Lady Gaga,” he says.