Chef Sanjay Tyagi never uses the garam masala in his cooking. “Haven’t used it for over 20 years,” he says. The reason? In his food, as in his life, he wants different flavours to speak for themselves. To stand out. To be heard. The affable, soft spoken Tyagi is as enthusiastic about his food as he was when he began in 1989, as a trainee chef at Jaipur’s Rambagh Palace. All chefs have stories to tell. Chef Tyagi has many.
As curries and kebabs simmer and fume in the buffet spread at Tattv, the second restaurant he has launched with associates in Bangalore, this time focussing entirely on kebabs, he recalls that moment decades ago in Delhi when he was assisting a very well known chef and a TV crew came calling.
Tyagi was asked to ‘prep’ for three chefs who would be facing the camera. Prepping required him to chop and prepare ingredients, cook the multiple “stages” of every dish and the final versions too. It took him hours to makes sure that the three chefs would need to do only the basic minimum before the camera. The cameras came calling at the end of a long day but his day had not ended. When the master of ceremonies, the head chef saw Tyagi before the camera, he shouted and asked him to remove himself from the location.
And because only a few hours were left before dawn, he was asked to stay back at the hotel and not go home. After more than 48 hours, Tyagi reached home, dead tired and slept without talking to anyone in the family. When he woke up, he realised his mother was not around. It was then his wife told him that she had been hospitalised the previous night due to some minor complication and was recuperating.
Tyagi never forgot that morning or the day a few years later, when he was asked to face the camera on a television cooking show. Alone. What he has learnt is simply this. You can’t hurry food or life. Both need time to reach a perfect consistency. And that you can’t garnish what is not there. And that everything requires prepping.
In his case, both his life and his work have substance enough to stand the test of time. He has been married for over 21 years and still goes home for every meal that his wife cooks and insists that she cooks better than him. He laughs and shares that there are times though when she comes to his kitchen looking for secrets he won’t share even with her. But there is immense faith and love because in his days of struggle, when he worked days and nights in various hotel kitchens, his wife never called him at work to ask where he was and when he would be coming home. Not even when his mother had to be hospitalised for a minor emergency.
But then that is the kind of foundation success stories are built on. He has travelled and worked all over the world, learning from various food cultures and in various hospitality hubs and five and seven star kitchens but it was in 2004 when he opened Jamavar, the Indian restaurant at Bangalore’s Leela Palace that the seeds of a dream were sown.
With friends Sajit Chacko and Anand Singh, he decided in 2006, to launch a company called AST Foods and also Umerkot, one of the finest Indian restaurants in Bangalore, today. Umerkot, as we know was the birthplace of emperor Akbar and the restaurant is a treasure-trove of Mughlai Gharana cuisine. Despite the success of Umerkot, Chef Tyagi is as involved in the day-to-day functioning of the kitchen as he was when the first guest walked in. He cooks during lunch hours at Umerkot and during dinner hours at Tattv. Once he dons his chef’s jacket, he does not sit in the restaurants though he owns them and even during off days, sneaks in to see what is cooking in “My kitchen.”
Years of research went into Umerkot‘s cuisine and also in the kebabs that are now served at Tattv based on the five elements of nature, using techniques like tandoor, sigri, kadai, tawa and the simmering of fabulous curries cooked in their own unique gravies.
The rare recipes have been sourced from all across the Indian sub-continent, central Asian regions, Iran and north western frontiers of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Tattv menu also boasts traditional roasts and breads and the Indian selection is influenced by the erstwhile princely states like Punjab, Jaipur, Baroda, Cooch Behar, Hyderabad. There are many regional specialities from the south as well.
Tattv’s decor does not have overt flamboyance but gentle overtures to both modernity and tradition with plush seating, a show kitchen, private and public spaces, gold leaf on the ceiling, stone jaalis and understated Rajasthani jharokhas. There is also an extensive wine list . 
And even here as in Umerkot, Chef Tyagi has innovated and created recipes that one can find only here, be it his famous sabz ki jugalbandi (a delectable fusion curry featuring broccoli) or the recent chocolate gujiya that bursts into a liquid sinfulness the moment you cut it open.
A flight of stairs from Tattv, takes us to a lounge called Cloud Bar which is a stucco walled, Mediterranean, sun and star dappled space and is a brave new initiative in a city where concept lounges start with a bang and fizzle out in a few years. But going by the track record of the AST team, both Tattv and Cloud Bar have been initiated for the long haul and not for just the lure of instant footfalls and media coverage.
For Tyagi, the biggest reward is the “maza” he gets while working, the passion, the “shauk” he invests in every pinch of mace he adds to a gravy that asks for it, in every kabab he creates like it were a work of art.
“Enjoy your work,” he says, without needing to mention that the rest will come later. Or sooner.
Tattv is on Lavelle Road, 1st Floor, 25/4, Above Barista, Bangalore
For booking contact: tattv : +91 80 41552225, tattv.cloudbar@gmail.com/ Sujay 09901066246/