Guests going to Yuuka by Ting Yen, the modern Japanese eatery at the Lower Parel hotel, St. Regis Mumbai’s 38th floor would have noticed some construction at Li Bai, the bar that sprawls across the 37th level, with night-time views that look out onto our pullulating vertical metropolis.
This is in some sense long overdue. Li Bai, named for a Chinese poet, was conceptualised when the hotel was to be run by the Shangri-La, a Hong Kong-based chain. Post its management contract with Starwood Hotels and its subsequent rebranding as St. Regis Mumbai, the bar’s Asian flourishes, both in its cocktail list and its décor, didn’t jive with the new branding.
Under the newly appointed Director of Culinary, Martin Kindleysides, the bar is now being rebranded to Luna Nuda, with an accompanying fine-dine Luna Gusta opening one floor above it.
This is the most overt change being made by Kindleysides after coming on board in June 2016. The menu promises, in Kindleysides’s words, to be “eclectic European. Modern elements with a little bit of theatrics at the table as well,” that allows both chef and diner to be pushed out of their comfort zones. Mark your calendars, as the restaurant should be open before the year-end.
Around the worldBefore getting into his own personal journey, Kindleysides says, “I guess my backstory is pretty interesting.” From the farm to the kitchen, chef Kindleysides has had a journey that seems straightforward. He was born and raised on a dairy farm in Australia and started cooking at the age of 16 when he followed his brother (who is also a chef) into a restaurant kitchen. Since then, it’s been a slow journey across South Korea and Bengaluru, before Kindleysides’s current appointment as the Executive Chef at St. Regis Mumbai.
Interestingly, Kindleysides never wanted to be a chef. During our conversation he says that growing up, he wanted to be a park ranger, but his stint in the kitchens resulted in a change of plan. Studying environmental sciences was the original idea, but after a week, “much to my mother’s dismay, I pulled out of university and joined the kitchens again.”
He soon found himself cooking in Canberra before living in Sydney for 12 years, then moved up to Queensland and onwards west to Perth. His first stint away from Australia was in Seoul, where he admitted that language was a huge barrier. One of the reasons he moved to India was the widespread usage of English. Kindleysides says he doesn’t regret his career choice, “because it’s afforded me a travelling lifestyle, living in different countries, learning different cultures and cuisines.”
Life on a farmGrowing up on a dairy farm, Kindleysides remembers, “Going to a supermarket was very rare for my family, and we had, like, chickens out the back that we’d slaughter, and collect eggs. We had a huge vegetable garden, an orchard. We would barter between other farming families around the community. So if we slaughtered a lamb, we’d swap like a side of lamb for something or the other that the other farming families had on their farm.” This childhood has shaped his attitude towards food, and especially how vegetables and animals are grown. He describes his mother and grandmother as “very natural cooks, not methodical — they’d never weigh anything.”
Change is afootGetting back to the St. Regis Mumbai, with 10 food and drink outlets on the property, there’s a lot to keep an eye on and Kindleysides is up for the challenge. His farming background makes him interested in where the hotel’s produce comes from, in addition to working on the hotel’s restaurants and banqueting offerings.
With a two-year stint in Bengaluru as Executive Chef of the Sheraton Grand Bangalore at Brigade Gateway, Kindleysides is used to the catering requirements for lavish Indian weddings, and is familiar with both the vegetarian slant to Indian menus and our love of bold flavours.
As a result, he’s hit the ground running, working on food trails for Luna Gusta and getting to know the team at the Lower Parel property.
During his Bengaluru stay, Kindleysides interacted with small farmers around the city and is now planning to carry some of those relationships forward, by having them supply to St. Regis Mumbai. He gives the example of a supplier in Mysore who rears organic pork using best farming practises, and First Agro, which has a farm near Bengaluru that grows all its vegetables in an organic manner, even though it is not certified.
Working for the Starwood Hotel Group, Kindleysides is proud of the stand that the hotel chain has taken on being a sustainable company: like refusing to serve shark’s meat (including fins) at any of its properties around the world, including those on Mainland China, where it is considered a delicacy.
Kindleysides says Starwood Hotel Group encourages its hotels to source vegetables and meats from within a 100-mile radius of its properties; though he admits it’s hard to do the same for the Mumbai property.
Fan of Chettinad foodAs for the desi food he’s tried during his tenure in India, he admits that while exploring the city is on his agenda, he hasn’t managed to do much of that so far. While in Bengaluru, he took a trip to Chettinad, where “I fell in love with the food from that region.” We can only hope he manages to discover all that Mumbai has to offer.
