MojoRojo (Rohan Joshi) the AIB comedian, is looking at me in grave disapproval and some distress at Saligao Stories, a quaint little restaurant in one of the quieter neighbourhoods of North Goa. There are at least two reasons for this: I have refused to share a lunch thali with him and then I have also confessed that I don’t really know his name.
Goan food writer and researcher, Odette Mascarenhas, has been taking a motley bunch of us through a unique food experience, part of a cultural trail in Goa being showcased by Airbnb. Lunch has involved four different thalis with six to eight dishes each, representing the evolution of Goan cuisine down the ages - at no point during the afternoon do I regret not sharing.
There’s a Saraswat thali of the fish-eating elite Brahmins, a Hindu thali from lower down the pecking order and we examine the differences, like how the Saraswats used better fish.
Then, there’s the Portuguese plate and finally the food of Christian converts, with local influences marrying colonial ones. We trace the journey of the shagoti of the Hindu communities to the well-known Goan xacuti , and how the Saraswat homman (fish curry), with its sharp taste of turmeric, became the generic Goan fish curry as we know it. Talking beloved breads, dessert and rissois (stuffed with prawns and white sauce) that you don’t quite find anywhere today, it’s a unique way of tasting food and history from a state better known through its broad stereotypes.
Beyond the shacks
Goa may be India’s favourite vacation spot, but there’s more to it than just the beaches and shacks. Beyond the typical Goan holiday experience, there exists a more nuanced culture that is at once more refined and elusive.
If the food experience curated by Mascarenhas is bespoke and exclusive (priced at ₹60-₹80,000 for a group of 10), even existing restaurants, like Saligao Stories in the quiet neighbourhood of Mudda Vaddo, that serves Goan and Hyderabadi food, remain oblivious to most.
Then there is the question of where to stay. For most people, that means a toss-up between the partying North Goa and the quieter charms of the South. For a more nuanced experience however, consider a heritage home that’s not by the beach.
Assagao, in the last few years, has become Goa’s most fashionable neighbourhood. The locals often label it mini Delhi given the number of “outsiders” who have bought homes here and settled into a life of relative quietude. It is telling that Assagao’s most famous restaurant is Gunpowder, a Delhi import specialising in Kerala food, set inside a lovely old Portugese home.
Satish Warrier, a former journalist, had kickstarted the whole Hauz Khas Village (HKV) revolution in Delhi seven years ago, when he started his home kitchen there.
Assagao today is an arty enclave like HKV was, a little bubble, exclusive and expensive, that excludes the brasher touristy Goa as well as humbler local neighbourhoods. Old homes have been restored and are now owned by the cosmopolitan set that hopes to strike roots in the state, or let out to foreign and discerning domestic tourists. It is in this neighbourhood that The Villa sits, dubbed the most stylish (ostensibly) home in Goa.
Meet The Villa
An elegantly refurbished 200-year-old mansion done in a blend of Portuguese and Indian styles, The Villa has five rooms, much wilderness, a central courtyard, a salubrious garden and a long swimming pool. The entire property is set in a two-acre estate with the non-manicured greens transporting you to distant tropical lands. Looking out of the round windows, you could imagine yourself in Bali or another idyllic paradise.
The Villa is now an Airbnb listing. In the last one year, instead of focussing only on value for money, Airbnb has also changed tack to building its list of luxury, heritage vacation homes in Goa. The Villa aside, its portfolio also includes Figueiredo Heritage Inn, home to one of the most influential families of Goa for more than 400 years, and Lar Amorosa, dating back to 1934, regarded as an architectural legacy of the Portuguese colonial regime.
Of all these, however, The Villa is the most intimate as well as the most stylish. It is given out exclusively as an entire space to just one group at a time, at ₹60,000 per night.
Mark Bell, its owner, and our host, who goes off to live in a new hotel each time he gets a booking, (“I love checking out hotels”, he confesses) confirms that though the clientèle was largely European earlier, in the last few months, some Indian families have stayed with him.
As you finish your laps in the pool, and sit down to dinner, made by a private chef in the courtyard, with a glass of cool chardonnay, the louder Goa, where you are always in danger of running into your neighbours from the big city, lies forgotten.
