How cuisine-agnostic restaurants are redefining the dining experience

I experienced my first cuisine-agnostic meal at Farmlore in Bengaluru in October 2021. One of my courses started as what looked, at first glance, like a beetroot salad with small blobs of Bocconcini and some edible flowers and Pennywort leaves. A sauce was poured all over it — and its South Asian aromas instantly changed my perception of the dish. What I thought was Bocconcini was pidi — a steamed rice ball from Kerala, the beetroot (harvested from the farm that the restaurant is located in) represented the side dishes popular in South India and the sambal sauce, with curry leaves and peanuts, a inspiration from the flavours of Sri Lanka.

When I dined at Nāvu, also in Bengaluru, both the Cauliflower Crème Brulee with truffle oil and leeks and the Mustard Ice Cream with Tomato Salad defied categorisation and cuisine.

The focus of cuisine-agnostic restaurants is usually on seasonal ingredients and techniques from a wide range of culinary cultures that best showcase flavour pairings, both familiar and unfamiliar to the diner. Chefs across the few cuisine-agnostic restaurants we have in India work on varying principles of this understanding; The Table, which opened in 2011, and Masque (2016), both located in Mumbai, perhaps the most popularly known in this genre.

The Approaches to Being Cuisine-Agnostic

So, how do chefs train the spotlight on ingredients without adhering to cuisines? “At Ekaa (in Mumbai), nostalgia plays a significant role in shaping our menu,” says Niyati Rao, Head Chef and Partner. “In our Tasting 4.0 menu, we have a dish called Ghar, inspired by one of our chef's Sunday meals at home. This is a spice-infused rice, chargrilled tindli (Ivy gourd) with many layers of complexity. The vegetarian version has grilled morning glory and fresh shiitake mushrooms, with a 12-spice jus is poured over it. Another version has chargrilled koji mackerel with a rich shellfish jus. This dish is served with an asafoetida broth to balance spice levels and cleanse the palate. Everything that is familiar, yet not like anything we know. Another dish is Durian, a testament to our commitment to exploration”, explains Niyati.

Ekaa is the first Indian restaurant to introduce the Indian Durian to the subcontinent’s dining experience. “Whatever ingredients I see and which inspire me, I take them through a journey of my experience, which already has many influences, and I use those techniques to create something,” Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar, Chef and Founder, Edible Archives, Goa, says. She puts her Shaanxi-style Brinjaland Long Beans dish in perspective. “Just before we opened the restaurant, we were in China for a month for an art residency. I saw purple brinjal in the market there, along with beans and peanuts, quite different from what we have here in India. I wanted to use these ingredients and substituted them with local Goan ones and cooked them with Sichuan pepper. It is not a combination of ingredients you would see in Indian cuisine,” Anumitra says.

At Nāvu, besides being ingredient-driven, Kanishka Sharma, Co-Founder, describes their menu as being flavour-forward as well. “When we find flavours and ingredients to work with, they come from lots of different cuisines. We take from European techniques and cuisines and also use Southern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavours. Inspiration comes from across the world and our travels equally. We take ideas, flavours and thoughts and layer them to create a plate” she says.

Convincing the Diner

Johnson Ebenezer, Co-founder and Chef Patron, Farmlore, strongly believes that half the hurdle is crossed when a guest makes up his mind to visit a cuisine agnostic restaurant because already comes in with an open mind. And since food is subjective, dishes presented can be open to interpretation. He cites the example of Farmlore’s dish called Madavai, Rameshwaram Red Mullet with tamarind from their farm, charred brinjals and King Fish Roe. “I envisioned it as a bouillabaisse, but to the folks who ate it, they said it reminded them of rasam and fish. The references therefore end up being from all over the world,” says Johnson who describes his menu as being with no boundaries.

At Ekaa, dishes are named based on the main ingredient used. Lamb Chump is named so because it’s that part of the lamb that is showcased in the dish, making it relatable. Niyati adds that the team takes pride in providing narratives to diners because they believe it to be a part of the experience. “We like to do it personally and brief our diners every single time, no matter whether it's seven or 70 covers that night”, she says.

“We stay away from jargon and work with words that are familiar, yet which intrigue guests and create excitement,” explains Vanshika Bhatia, Chef Partner, OMO-Soul Food Community in Gurugram, an ingredient-forward, all-plant-based restaurant. “We have a potato gnocchi dish on the menu with different textures of onion. Each element on the dish takes a day to make. The onion jus takes one chef constantly stirring the pot for hours and then further processing it to the consistency of a sauce that is poured onto the plate. There are also pickled and grilled elements of onion on the plate. Yet, the easiest description is for a guest to imagine the familiar flavours of potatoes and onions and their excellent pairing,” she adds. Here, besides the approach of training service staff on the menu, chefs also come to the floor with the dishes and often the ingredients too, to talk to guests.

Long conversations on the food and ingredients between the chefs and the diners are a given at these restaurants. That said, all chefs I spoke with agreed on one aspect — as long as the food tastes great, you will have guests who will come back for more. Of course, there is always going to be a small percentage of folks for whom nothing can beat the comfort of knowing exactly what they want to order from a specific cuisine.

“People like to put things in boxes and not think too much about it. But we want people to think about the food they are eating when they dine with us. We don’t want them to sit at the table and order what they like because it is familiar, but rather we would like them to explore beyond the boundaries of food, and flavour and widen their horizons,” says Kanishka.

Being Out-of-The-Box

Convincing people to think beyond their comfort zone when it comes to food is one challenge. There are a few other practical issues that cuisine agnostic restaurants sometimes face.

Anumitra says that when they get listed on aggregator sites, they are often misrepresented based on what someone gathering information randomly sees on the menu. Speaking to guests, however, helps change perceptions in such cases, she adds. Vanshika agrees that misrepresentation can be an issue but, working with tried and tested keywords helps. With her restaurant being plant-based, the keyword vegetarian works well, as do the words organic, sustainable, seasonal, vegan-friendly and healthy. “While the cuisine isn’t defined, I believe the term modern cuisine may work aptly here,” she says.

The question of what cuisine they offer was a difficult one to answer for Johnson, but for Farmlore, the other aspects related to their storytelling, sustainability measures, the farm etc. added heft to their narrative. Also, the idea of being farm-to-table helped give them a free hand to be cuisine-agnostic.

With the food being borderless in a cuisine-agnostic restaurant, inspiration for chefs can come from anywhere and everywhere in the world. For diners, this means a never-ending culinary experience that is fuelled by creativity. And creativity as we all know, knows no boundaries.