A couple of months ago, when Mumbai’s high-end Chinese restaurant, Golden Dragon, at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower re-opened its large wooden doors, my husband and I decided to visit our favourite eatery in the world, in support of the recent horror on 26/11 that the hotel had witnessed, as also to indulge in our preferred meal. My family has been celebrating every occasion at the Golden Dragon and this was indeed a singular moment. We moved comfortably into the slightly new restaurant design sporting greater white spaces and a central workstation revealing the dexterity of chefs in action. In the midst of the hurly-burly and emerging from the silhouettes of hanging roasted duck forms clouded by kitchen-fire smoke, was an energetic, commanding form, nodding approval, pointing out deficiencies. He emerged into the clutch of diners at tables, cast a nod, and without much ado, bustled out of the restaurant, looking pleased with the afternoon’s work. Chef Hemant Oberoi, Corporate Chef, Luxury Division and Grand Executive Chef, The Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, Mumbai, has never been one to socialise with the hoi polloi, even as he jets around the world, overseeing and managing the group’s several A-rated spaces, in Mumbai, Delhi, Boston, New York, San Francisco, Maldives Dubai, Cape Town, with skill and dexterity. Everywhere he is called simply ‘Chef’ with deference, for that is what he is – the creator of sublime cuisine.

Gateway to bliss
The Golden Dragon thrills the palate as always. We refuse to budge from our old Sichuan favourites and Chef’s team indulges our predictable requests. The stir-fried noodles are crispy-soft and laden with vegetables and meat, as always. The konjee crispy lamb is crunchy and tangy. The fried rice, fluffy and satisfying. The squid in butter chilli oyster sauce presents a perfect blend of flavours. I move out of our menu clichés only weeks later, when Rakhee Lalvani and Nikhila Palat, of the Taj, have me over for lunch. I finally concede that the flaky radish dumpling is more recently to die for. Forgetting the name of the appetizer though, a week later, my family and I go through all the radish and turnip starters in the restaurant, finally hitting on that crispy perfection. And on that day, I realise how superbly Chef has catered to the desires of his clients, 40 per cent of whom, in a city like Mumbai are in fact vegetarian.

It was as likely that he would have ended up a doctor as a chef. But only because being a doctor was fashionable at the time. Being a chef, on the other hand, was being a cook. “Tum bawarchi banoge?” his grandmother had asked, perplexed. “I didn’t become a doctor because I did not get enough marks,” he says. “But I never wanted to be a chef.” Even after finishing catering college he did not dwell on this. “But I think it was written in my destiny,” he says. At his first job interview with Ajit Kerkar of the Taj group, he was asked if he knew how to make a dosa. No, he answered. Will you make me a good steak, Kerkar asked. “I had never cooked beef since beef was not allowed at that time in the Delhi area. I said that if I knew everything I would not be joining the Taj.” He was given the job and the first thing he witnessed was the wedding of actress Mumtaz. “I had never before seen such a mela. Outside the hotel there were 8000 people. Randhawa and Dara Singh were holding people back at the grand staircase. All the four floors were taken.” On a stipend of Rs 150, he worked furiously for three months and when he received Rs 450 towards his first salary, he was happy to be given this princely amount.

Plateful of happiness
I am at the newly renovated Wasabi by Morimoto at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower. The restaurant has been voted 54th in the top 100 restaurants of the world in the 9th annual listing of The S. Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurants, seeing it climb up 16 places since 2009. An honour indeed for Chef who swells up visibly and understandably with pride. And yet, “I want to get into the bracket of top 50,” he says. In the private area, where the oyster-shaped table opens up invitingly, we indulge in delicacies that defy the imagination. Textures, tastes, temperatures and colours tease the senses as small portions in huge platters are placed before us. A veritable ceaseless tide of flavours and sculptured gastronomic formations. The assorted sushi platter is almost too exquisite to eat though of course I attack the unagi (fresh eel) hamachi (yellow tail), and maguro (lean tuna) carefully with my chopsticks. The rock corn tempura remains crisp under its sauce blanket. The fish carpaccio is sliced fine like glass. There is a delicious cold soup with a blob of sorbet in it, making for unexpected textures. And the pièce de résistance remains the black cod miso, the fish so flaky it seems to peel off in tender layers, while the partly-crisped skin holds on to the marinade. The vegetarian specialties are as appetising – asparagus tempura, spicy avocado rolls, eggplant aka miso, for have I said this earlier, Chef has perfected the vegetarian repertoire. He has even created a substitute for nori (seaweed) in the form of a trellis of asparagus for those who cannot appreciate the salty flavour.

At the table, Chef does not eat a morsel. The tasting has been done through the months of experimenting. Today, the perfect product of this labour is before us. “The best part is,” he says, “that Chef Morimoto who gave us the know-how, his own restaurants in Philadelphia and New York are not on this list. It’s the way you run it, it’s the way you satisfy the customer.” We, for one, are satisfied; and amazed at the sheer logistics of running a restaurant like Wasabi in a city like Mumbai. Here’s the scene, straight out of a Bollywood thriller, minus the gore.

It all begins at Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market in Japan at 4 a.m. In 10 or 15 minutes flat, millions of dollars worth of fish is auctioned. It is a silent auction and Chef who has attended only as spectator has yet to understand the signs and codes that play out a ritual of finger movements denoting price, size, quantities. Chef’s man-on-the-spot piles the goods into thermocol boxes and rushes off to Narita International Airport for a direct flight to Mumbai. A chiller truck screeches to a stop at the Mumbai airport and conveys the goods to the hotel where three young chefs are waiting to clean, process, cure the fish and salt the cod for exactly 24 hours. The fish is marinated immediately and put into a special freezer at minus 86 degrees, of a type used in hospitals, to keep it super fresh until use over the next couple of days. “For us it is very important that the tuna remains pink from inside and this freezes it from the outside and keeps it fresh. This is why our quality of fish is totally different. It is very easy to open a Japanese restaurant but very hard to sustain because of the quality of ingredients. If you buy frozen tuna, it is not the same thing. Like I always say, every four wheeler cannot be a Mercedes.” Chef, incidentally, drives a Toyota.

The nature of contentment
We are ensconced around the round table at Chef’s Studio, an exclusive room catering to specialised meals. Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their brood spent over five hours here one afternoon, savouring the delicacies and enjoying the meal to the hilt. (Brad Pitt loves fresh white truffles, Chef discovered.) A collection of exclusive Versace plates and dishes, exclusive Villeroy & Boch cutlery and fine china is laid out. The open-plan kitchen beckons. We are discussing the Masala brand that Chef has introduced to the Taj restaurants (Masala Kraft, Masala Art, Masala Bay, Masala Klub). The Masala restaurants are leading a quiet revolution, contemporising without losing the roots of Indian cuisine, enhancing without changing. Even at this moment, he tells me, the ‘Masala chefs’ are roaming the smaller towns and villages in Punjab, Jamu, Srinagar, eating on the highways and in the dhabas, collating notes and recipes. He is excited at the discovery of a place that makes chicken in Amritsar where at mealtimes the queue of over 60 to 70 cars necessitates waiters on cycles. “I don’t think anyone cooks at home in Amritsar,” Chef says sardonically. “It looks like everyone is here.”

The Masala chefs will bring in new concepts, new ideas that will be incorporated. “Our Masala brand is unique, bringing total freshness, least usage of butter and cream and incorporating olive oil if required. No butter masala, no dal makhani, no butter nan….” Turning around a predicable genre involved some innovative thinking. A sugarcane juice machine and an atta ka chakki are part of the Masala kitchen. A phulka trolley provides new bread to the table. A show kitchen, similar to a teppanyaki counter, allows food to be prepared in front of the diners. Some tables are equipped with an electrically heated hot stone on which diners can cook their own marinated meat and fish. I still remember my first try of tandoori salmon at Masala Kraft, Mumbai. Tender pink salmon with piquant masala seemed like such an anomaly but melted like heaven in the mouth.

Chef’s best idea to date may be Varq, the Indian restaurant in Delhi which goaded Delhiites to eat Indian food with a fork and knife. “I have put a lot of thinking here; my biggest challenge has been serving Indian food in a French way, without altering the flavours. I taught Delhiities to eat the food course wise, interspersed with tamarind chutney sorbet or aam ka panna ka sorbet which please the Indian palate. You can eat a tandoori lobster in a different way…you can eat tandoori asparagus also, edamame beans (fresh soy beans) can also be made in a different way. There is life beyond tandoori chicken and biryani.” If there is indeed an infusion of modernity in Indian cuisine, would I say that Chef is spearheading it? It would seem so, considering that Varq has recently been voted among the 100 best restaurants in the world.

Ode to a dariole
The platter in front of me is large and white, the centre holds a fluffy confection of perfection. I can only wax eloquent every time I think of The Zodiac Grill’s camembert dariole. I dream about its smooth cheesiness, of dipping the slice of brioche with its hint of sweetness into the creamy sauce. This, for me, is heaven. Followed by a perfectly cooked rack of lamb, I can ask for nothing more. Except perhaps the kahlua mousse to finish with and some snake coffee to truly end the meal. It is also the small things I look forward to at this French restaurant, one of which are the bite-size onion croissants and the tiny hard rolls, with slaps of butter – or without.

Earlier there was the classical French restaurant at the Mumbai Taj, the Rendezvous, heavy with plush carpeting, red velvet sofas and drapes, in the style of the time. “My first challenge was to convert the Rendezvous into The Zodiac Grill.” More contemporary in gastronomy as well as design, The Zodiac Grill opened with a pay-as-you-like policy which brought the customers in, to form their association with signature dishes like Chicken Zodiac, Norwegian pink salmon and prawn à la kiev. Today, Chef’s first love, The Zodiac Grill, remains the country’s premier fine dining experience and a favourite watering hole for urban A-listers.

Now, crowding into his little chef’s cabin in the depths of Mumbai’s Taj, among the sparkling kitchens, I ask him his favourite restaurants in the world. “I go back to French Laundry and Per Se, both of Thomas Keller’s restaurants whenever I can. I would not travel so many hours from London to go to Fat Duck again. But at the same time, I will travel for hours to visit some Michelins in Europe. I have not yet had a chance to visit El Bulli. When I travel to Tokyo, I make sure that I cover at least 30 restaurants in 10 days. In Tokyo, there are 250 Michelin star restaurants. Every top chef has a restaurant there from Paul Bocuse to Nobu, Thomas Keller and even Jean Georges.” And what about in Mumbai? “I like my seafood restaurants…the smaller ones where I can eat peacefully without people coming up to me constantly.” And at home he prefers not to interfere in the kitchen and enjoys ‘very very simple food’ cooked by his wife Mallika.

I ask about the couple of awards that line the wall behind his desk where a sign on the wall proclaims, ‘Never But Never Question The Chef’s Judgement’. And I discover that Chef has a grouse. “Till 15 years ago, this profession was looked down upon,” he says. “I had to tell some people in the ministry, come on, you honour everyone, every tabla player and cricketer is given an award, why not us? We are the country’s ambassadors. When I go to talk at the Asia Society in New York, I represent India. In Davos, at the World Economic Forum, I speak about India’s food culture and civilisation. Why are we not recognised? Finally the Ministry of Tourism started the ball rolling six years ago and awarded me Chef of the Year. It is not for me but for all chefs. We are still fighting for Padma Shris!”

Perhaps his greatest success in life has been to inspire his two sons, the younger one, Saransh to be a good chef while the elder Siddharth, looks after the Bombay Brasserie in London. “Our line is different, it’s tough,” he says. “You have to be passionate…if not, get out fast. The passion has to come from the heart.”

Who did Chef feed?
As far back as 1977, Chef Hemant Oberoi was delegated to head a unit in Muscat with which Taj Hotels had a contract. This was for the Royal Guest Palace in Muscat where the visiting dignitaries for the State of Oman stayed. “Umpteen number of heads of state visited there,” he says. “But there was no challenge in serving only heads of state and no one else. After some time you get bored, so I came back.”

Since then Chef has entertained five US presidents, including both the Bushes, father and son. He has planned meals for Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, Prince Charles, Hosni Mubarak and John Major, among others. Bill Clinton, he says, was most appreciative of Indian food, as also Hillary Clinton. He was surprised, he says, to discover George Bush eating biryani from the handi at a lunch in Delhi, since he was normally not a fan of Indian food. John Major was so appreciative of the food that he hesitantly asked for a second helping of dum ka ghosh and saffron pulao at a sit-down dinner. “We had made the dum ka ghosh in Bombay Brasserie in London and sent it to 10 Downing Street. It was called John Major curry there,” he recalls.

When the Ambanis hosted Bill Clinton for a special meal, Chef was there with his team and they prepared 20 items. When Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt visited Mumbai, Chef served them a five-hour meal at the Chef’s Studio. He accompanied former Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee on all his trips abroad. He catered for the mega wedding of Lakshmi Mittal’s daughter in Paris for an entire week. And at the World Economic Forum, it was Chef who led a team of 25 in Davos.

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