Food connoisseurs came together to celebrate the finest in the industry on an evening full of glitz and glitter as NDTV Good Times hosted its first ever Food Awards at The Westin hotel in Gurgaon. The awards honoured the top restaurants, restaurateurs and chefs from across the nation. Highway On My Plate anchors Rocky and Mayur kept the audience in splits with their wisecracks.
Awards in as many as 10 categories were given out and the winners were selected by a jury that comprised seasoned journalist Vinod Dua, popular Chef Ritu Dalmia, food impresario Marut Sikka, anchor and chef Aditya Bal, restaurateur and chef Vicky Ratnani and Highway stars Rocky and Mayur. The validation process was undertaken by Ernst &Young.
The nomination list was developed from about a cosmos of about 1000 restaurants by evaluating major journals and magazines, covering eight major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Goa, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.
Delhi's very own Karim's in Nizamuddin was awarded the all time favourite restaurant while Bukhara at ITC Maurya bagged the award for the Best North Indian food. Chandi Chowk's Moti Mahal was also nominated in both categories.
Speaking on the occasion Smeeta Chakrabarti, CEO NDTV Good Times said, “Indians are a passionate lot and few things unite us more than our common passion for food.” Elaborating on plans about the second edition of the awards she said, “This year we wanted to keep it tight and short but next year we hope to include more categories . Besides the Food Awards, we are also planning Gadget Guru awards soon.”
On the occasion Rocky and Mayur also launched their food guide, “Highway On my Plate – The Indian guide to roadside eating”. Telling us how the book came about, Rocky said, “ Highway On My Plate The sheer amount of information in this book is so huge that it took us actually six months to put down details of locations, where the restaurants are, what kind of food they serve, what recipes, how much they cost, so anything you need to know if you go to visit any other town or city is in this book.” The evening ended on a musical note as Pakistani Sufi singer, Shafqat Amanat Ali enthralled the audience with some melodious tracks.
