Hold the Meat

Vegetarian concepts are gathering steam — from restaurants in five-star hotels, casual-dining eateries to cookbooks and home kitchens.

Nasi Goreng at Asian Street Kitchen, Mumbai.

Earlier this year, there was a strong rumour that chef Joel Robuchon, who has been awarded with the highest number of Michelin stars — 28 to be precise — is headed to Mumbai. With an unlikely location that he found in Mumbai’s Dadar, Robuchon is looking to set up his signature French fine dining restaurant L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon at Kohinoor Square Tower. However, what surprised culinary experts was his confession: it was vegetarian cooking that got him interested in the city.

While waves of various kinds have been sweeping the nation’s consciousness to much uproar, India’s restaurants have another movement taking root in their kitchens and dining areas, one rather close to our new Prime Minister’s heart— vegetarian food. For instance, Colaba’s latest entrant Burma Burma is a pure vegetarian restaurant that specialises in Burmese cuisine, which is inherently non-vegetarian. “We realised that there has always been a gap in the market that needed to be filled with imaginative and affordable vegetarian options,” says Ankit Gupta, the restaurant’s co-owner and a third-generation restaurateur. Even a non-vegetarian may find delight in various vegetarian thoke (salads) made with interesting ingredients such as tea leaves, tofu, grapefruit and even a deep-fried samosa.

At Asian Street Kitchen — a pan-Asian restaurant in Chowpatty — dishes from Thailand, China and Japan have been reinterpreted to suit the vegetarian palate. For its Nasi Goreng — an Indonesian delicacy — traditionally used prawn wafers were replaced with rice wafers while the scrambled eggs topping has given way to a tofu scramble. “Such innovations are sure to whet the appetite of even those who love their meat,” says Mitesh Rangras of Sid Hospitality that owns Japanese restaurant Aoi and pan-Asian restaurant Lemon Grass, both in Mumbai.

Rangras is also the brain behind Asian Street Kitchen’s experimental menu that features a vegetarian version of the Vietnamese Pho that uses a concentrate made of shiitake mushrooms instead of beef stock. According to Rangras, innovation with fresh vegetarian produce is the future of modern cuisine.

Unthinkable a few years ago, Chandigarh is now seeing a rise in pure vegetarian restaurants. In the heart of Sector 9 market, which houses a range of eateries offering meat specialties, is Garlic and Greens. Its menu includes sandwiches, burgers, pastas, salads to a sizeable dessert line-up. The meats have been substituted with soya in some cases but the emphasis is on fresh vegetables and exotic flavours. Unlike Garlic and Greens, the name isn’t a giveaway to the menu at Casa Bella Vista, a pizzeria and restaurant housed in Chandigarh’s Sector 10 market.

Its all-vegetarian fare is gaining popularity with meat-eaters. It has a pasta in toffee butter, lemon rind and sage sauce added to the popular four cheese sauce. “It’s a misconception that Italian fare can’t be vegetarian or sumptuous. Our veg pizzas have been received well,” says restaurateur and owner Jas Giri.

Manish Mehrotra, executive chef of Delhi’s Indian Accent, which is known for its take on modern Indian cuisine and regarded as one of India’s finest restaurants, attributes this trend largely to health and lifestyle choices. “Internationally, there’s a surge of vegetarianism with concepts such as Meatless Mondays and Chicken-less Fridays,” says Mehrotra, who has introduced vegan and gluten-free dishes to his menu.

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“This is more of a lifestyle trend, similar to going gluten-free or vegan. We get at least two guests a day who request gluten-free or vegan dishes,” he says.

Even smaller eateries have joined the vegetarian brigade. The Rolling Joint is a vegetarian roll restaurant in Delhi, while the Zen Café in Mumbai’s Lower Parel area specialises in vegetarian pizzas, sandwiches and wraps.

Even home chefs find it exciting to experiment with fresh produce. Vidhu Mittal, author of cookbook Pure and Special: Gourmet Indian Vegetarian Cuisine, says, “Today, there’s a much wider range of ingredients available even at roadside markets and I incorporate these into Indian dishes.” Celebrated chefs such as Ritu Dalmia and Vicky Ratnani have also championed the cause of vegetarianism with their books.

“The next big thing in vegetarian cooking is the use of sprouts and micro greens such as beetroots, fennel, sunflower seeds and okra,” says Ratnani.

(With inputs from Shantanu David and Jagmeeta Thind Roy)

meenakshi.iyer@expressindia.com

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