There's no faking this accent

Chyawanprash cheesecake, sweet pickle pork ribs and khichdi with German sausages and mustard... there are just some of the dishes  by chef Manish Mehrotra, who has been taking the Delhi food scene by the storm since 2008, when he started his signature modern Indian restaurant, Indian Accent.

Treating the palate to inventive combinations, the master of pan-Asian cuisine has been raising the foodgasm ante. Proud his Bihari roots, the chef who is Punjabi by descent has mastered the marriage between traditional Indian and international food with the luxury restaurant that is the derneir cri in Indian food. Considering the dishes he concocts, Mehrotra may well be mistaken for someone who comes from a long lineage of gourmet chefs. “Absolutely not,” demurs this first generation chef who hails from a “completely business family”.

“My father owns a petrol pump in Patna. No one in the family is even remotely associated with hospitality, forget being an expert in any cuisine,” he smiles, adding that he grew up in a strictly vegetarian household. family. “My father does not eat onion or garlic and his food is totally satvik. I come from a home that followed strict kitchen rules, and the area was a woman bastion. Men hardly ventured there.

There were different sets of utensils for food to be cooked with onion and garlic and for eggs. Non-vegetarian food was a strict no-no. “My grandmother was very particular about what was being cooked. It may sound odd today, but we were not even allowed to boil eggs in the kitchen. We had a separate stove and utensils, which were specially kept to cook eggs,” Mehrotra recalls.

That was also the time when the conventional careers of medicine, engineering or being a bureaucrat were considered the only choices. Being a Bihari, a career in the IAS must have been the ideal choice after graduation? “I was at sea about what to do after school. I never wanted to be an engineer or doctor. I was also clear that I would not look after my family business. So I thought, chalo hotel management kar lete hain,” he grins.

“But I never faced any opposition. In fact, my family was happy I was finally doing something professionally.”

The celebrated chef, with several national and international awards to his credit confesses that he had never envisaged that food would catapult him to such fame. “Going places with food was not in my vision. Once I started experimenting with different ingredients during my stint in the Institute of Hotel Management in Mumbai, I realised nothing warms my heart like the crackling of spices,” Mehrotra says.

The conversation steers towards the golden feather in his cap – Indian Accent, that audacious move he made eight years ago to infuse freshness in Indian cuisine. The menu was conceptualised after extensive research, trials and tasting. He consciously kept away from the staple north Indian staple of butter chicken, chicken tikka masala and dal makhni.

“I wanted to strike a balance between traditional and international cuisine and introduce my audience to foie gras, scallops and pork ribs on a platter they have grown up with,” Mehrotra says.

“My team and I experiment a lot in the kitchen. Our work involves fact-finding, analysis and tasting. Every new dish is first tested for the combination, tasted by my chefs and passed to my staff. Only after it gets approved by majority consensus does it get served to our guests,” he explains.

Despite being an authority on various cuisines and having over two decades of experience, Mehrotra likes his wife to take over the home kitchen. “Primarily because of a busy schedule. Besides, she is a brilliant cook.”