If there’s one word that summarises the experience of dining at the newly opened Indian Accent at Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in BKC, it would be nostalgic. Exuberating finery and opulence, its interiors celebrate the city’s Art Deco style — the lighting and bar layout with large mirrors and arches reminded us of an inviting popcorn stall in theatres like Regal and Eros in their prime, and giving it perfect company are black and white pictures of Liberty Cinema.
The feeling of reminiscence isn’t restricted to decor, it seeps seamlessly into the food. Imagine Delhi’s famous Daulat ki chaat, a saffron-flavoured aerated milk foam with smoke coming from underneath — symbolic of winters in the Capital — and fake currency notes on the side. Or expect anar and churan kulfi sorbet, a palate cleanser plated in a smaller pressure cooker, a reminder of the cooking set many spent their afternoons playing ghar-ghar with, in their childhood. It was served with a dash of sour and sweet anardana.
Imagine Delhi’s famous Daulat ki chaat, a saffron-flavoured aerated milk foam with smoke coming from underneath — symbolic of winters in the Capital — and fake currency notes on the side. (Photo: Special Arrangement)
We visited the 75-seater restaurant helmed by culinary director chef Manish Mehrotra on a mid-week afternoon and to our surprise, not a single table was empty, including the two private 18-seater and 10-seater dining spaces. To our delight, almost every table offers a view of the Fountain of Joy. We took one of the cute sofa seats that sit two (side note: It is perfect for a date night) and went for its 10-course chef’s tasting menu, available in both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options.
The indulgent doda burfi treacle tart, with a nice caramel-ish aftertaste. (Photo: Special Arrangement)
First arrived bite-sized blue cheese stuffed naan, paired with corn shorba. Although the sharp blue cheese is an acquired taste, the shorba balances it well. Next came one of our favourite courses — four small plates of flavourful chaats. The tart-shaped papdi offered the right mix of sweet, spicy and sourness you need from a chaat. Their mini bowl-shaped bhature with chole in the centre and pickled onion on top left us pleasantly surprised — we were not expecting this tiny bite to give us a condensed taste of the actual dish. Impressing us just as much were mildly chilli smoked eggplant served on a crispy plantain as well as their sweet and sour churan ka karela served on a small disk made from rice crackers. We washed down this riot of flavours with their orange bar fizz, an otherwise ordinary soda drink that came with an interesting honey chilli brittle.
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Then came murgh malai, gobindobhog (an aromatic rice variety from West Bengal) and mushroom payesh with summer truffles. While payesh is usually sweet, the mushrooms and the sprinkle of summer truffles brought out a savoury twist, which complemented the chicken very well. The idea, we learnt from head chef Rijul Gulati, was to serve chicken tikka, another Delhi’s favourite, but they wanted to do it differently and in the process discovered that savoury payesh and tikka work very well.
We had a mildly tangy hundred-layered paneer (inspired by hundred-layered lasagne) served with Kashmiri tamatar chaaman gravy as part of the vegetarian menu and the whole seafood stew with crunchy gunpowder fried prawns, scallops and crabs served alongside chilli and raw mango curry as the non-vegetarian menu. (Photo: Special Arrangement)
After a couple of more dishes — mostly hits including a comforting rasam made from coconut and Kanyakumari crab with XO balchao and a few misses such as a very dry baked paneer pinwheel and beet and peanut butter chop with very thick and heavy goat cheese raita — we reached the main course. If you have grown up in North India, you would know that nothing completes the main course like butter naan, dal makhani and raita, and this restaurant with its roots in Delhi knows it too well. We had a mildly tangy hundred-layered paneer (inspired by hundred-layered lasagne) served with Kashmiri tamatar chaaman gravy as part of the vegetarian menu and the whole seafood stew with crunchy gunpowder fried prawns, scallops and crabs served alongside chilli and raw mango curry as the non-vegetarian menu. The accompaniments — the rich black dairy dal, the paneer/chicken stuffed kulcha and the unlikely combination of wasabi and curd, as raita, offering the right pungency left us craving for more. We round up this meal with the indulgent doda burfi treacle tart, with a nice caramel-ish aftertaste.
Next came one of our favourite courses — four small plates of flavourful chaats. (Photo: Special Arrangement)
If there was a dish that sums up our experience, it was their DIY kathi rolls with ghee roast soya boti, roomali roti pancakes, four kinds of chutneys and a salad of cucumber and radish. It was delicious and engaging, just like our time at the restaurant, with the chef and staff presenting each course with information about ingredients and interesting anecdotes.
(With inputs from Sadaf Modak)
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