Some chefs cook. Others create. Drawing inspiration from influences that may or may not have anything to do with food. And when they finish a plate, it is like finishing a poem or a story or a journey through the world of senses, memory, desire for something beyond immediate gratification and one dimensional pleasure. A few weeks ago, at ITC Gardenia’s contemporary Oriental restaurant Edo in Bangalore, I experienced modern Japanese food created By Chef Vikramjit Roy as a journey of discovery beyond baffling terms like carpaccio, coulis and confit. Beyond technique to imagination where flavours explode, everything is possible, a seaweed can become a wafer and a green apple is sliced so thin that it melts in your mouth before you can register it. Roy has not just understood the essence of Japanese food. He has recreated it. Today his food can be served anywhere in the world and shine on its own because he took his time to not just learn the fundamentals of Japanese cuisine but to imbibe the spirit of Japanese perfectionism and soulfulness. The imagination ofcourse is uniquely his own. An interview..
1. What are your food influences, heroes, and earliest memories of cooking?
I started cooking at a very early age of probably 10 or 11, when I used to cook egg curry and rice for my parents to surprise them after they came back home. The encouragement that they gave me at that time inspired me to cook some more things every time I got an opportunity to do so. They never criticized even though I can imagine now that it wasn’t always very good. My biggest hero is my Mom. She has the ability to transform the simplest of ingredients into some mind boggling and finger licking food. Professionally, I have been blessed to have had the opportunity to work with some fantastic chefs who have moulded and guided me all along the way. Within ITC Hotels, I look up to Chef Yogen Dutta (Executive Chef, ITC Windsor, Bangalore), Chef Ajit Bangera (Senior Executive Chef, ITC Grand Chola), Chef Manjit Gill (Corporate Chef, ITC Hotels), Chef Gev Desai (Retired custodian of Pan Asian brand for ITC Hotels) and Chef Vijay Nagpal (Senior Executive Chef, ITC Hotels). I have also had the privilege to work for several other notable names in the industry, within India and internationally.
I get inspired with everything around me. For me, the key to touch a guest’s heart is by serving dishes with ingredients in its purest form, cooked in the most innovative and modern way with loads and loads of love, paired with unconventional items which work in perfect harmony with each other, and presented in the most creative way for it to look like an art on a plate.
2. What inspires the level of playfulness and invention that you show in your food?
For me personally, food is all about having fun with it or over it. Having food is like a celebration that we miss out on most times. If one is able to invoke surprises, curiosity, mystery, etc with food, it makes the celebration even grander. My objective while creating a dish is always to make sure that it is never uni-directional. I like to take guests on a journey with every dish and make sure that I communicate the history behind each dish through my canvas, which is my plate. Innovation is my strength and I use it to its optimum.
3. What is the most inventive, crazy thing you have ever done to a dish?
I have done a lot of unusual things, which you might want to call crazy because it’s unconventional like making a dessert with Salmon, Bacon, Asparagus etc. Unusual ice creams like frozen guacamole, white pepper corn, yakult and lime, guava and smoked pork, etc. Soups made with apples, strawberries paired with duck fat and Iranian berries. One of the most inventive dishes that I have done which has also been one of my signatures for quite some time is “foie gras encapsuled in apple wood smoked pork belly, fresh vanilla and pineapple compote, black truffle hue and yamazaki tamari soy reduction”.
4. Tell us a bit about the ideas behind the menu you created at Edo..where your food was paired with assorted whiskies..
My idea was to let the whiskies be at the helm and the food should be all about complimenting them along the way. In the same manner in which the whiskies show the different characters in different folds, I wanted my dishes to follow the same pattern of having three major hits – the first is when you put it in your mouth, the second is when you are biting and eating through it and the last is the after taste that comes out after it all goes down. I wanted these three experiences to be absolutely different from each other so that the element of surprise keeps building on.
The other idea and inspiration was how a whisky changes when you add different mixes to it. I took this basic idea and created dishes where the plate was divided in “Zones” and the same dish would taste different in those particular zones.
This probably became the most talked about thing about the Ëdamame Soup”, which was made with this idea and became the hottest seller and the most talked about dish.
5. Do you think, we have reached a point where global is finally local when it comes to food or do you sometimes feel you are far ahead of your time?
I honestly don’t feel that I have reached a stature where I can comment of whether I am ahead of my time or not, but my only focus in life is to give Guests “Gastronomic Experiences” and not just excellent food with the best wines in a pristine atmosphere and well informed servers. I try my best to ensure that I use the best possible ingredient from a source that I have a control on and I am aware of. Also, I try my bit to ensure that I try to eliminate as much “Carbon Footprint” as possible by using the best local produce. But for certain things like Sushi/Sashimi fishes, Chilean Sea bass; Alaskan Crab, etc. ingredients cannot be substituted.
6. What is your biggest food dream and the most favourite dish you have ever created?
My food dream is to be able to run a small, cosy restaurant by growing my own produce. I personally feel that the love for an ingredient can only be felt when you nurture it and produce it on your own. It is only then that one would know the true value of it and can respect it. And when you know how to respect a particular ingredient, the cooking just follows from the heart which would definitely connect to one and all. It’s like food cooked by our mothers, grandmothers etc., which has a universal connect.
Each and every dish that I have created holds a special place in my heart as there is a story behind all of it. To single out one particular dish is both unfair and is like choosing the best amongst your own kids, which am sure one cannot do. Having said this, my present menu at Pan Asian at ITC Grand Chola, Chennai is a fantastic amalgamation of tradition and progressive Asian food, which currently holds the top spot in my heart.
6. And finally, what is your food philosophy?
My philosophy revolves around my goal in life, which is to transform the way Asian food is seen in India by blending in heart touching food cooked in a very progressive way and presented with flair of modernity. At the end of the day, food that touches the guest’s heart and for which he/she craves to come back for more is the sole objective of my creations.
Reema Moudgil has been writing for magazines and newspapers on art, cinema, issues, architecture and more since 1994, is a mother, an RJ , an artist. She runs Unboxed Writers from a rickety computer , edited Chicken Soup for The Indian Woman’s soul, authored Perfect Eight and earns a lot of joy through her various roles and hopes that some day working for passion will pay in more ways than just one. And that one day she will finally be able to build a dream house, travel around the world and look back and say, “It was all worth it.”