For a dining concept to survive five years in today’s cut-throat food and beverage industry is something to crow about.
But what if that concept is somewhat secret; with no fixed date or menu, just a shared love of pork?
Swine Dine, as the name suggests, is just that. A meal that brings together pork lovers: the quarterly (they try at least) moveable feast (it’s been taken to Delhi and Bangalore, besides Mumbai) is usually a way for Impresario’s Executive Chef Gresham Fernandes to experiment: both with the cuts of meat used when it comes to dicing up a pig, and the way that they are used.
It’s a return to the days of village feasts, when whole boars were roasted and then shared, when our carnivorous instincts were satiated.
For the upcoming fifth anniversary of the concept, Salt Water Café is hosting a dinner, that’s open to the public. You don’t need to sign up via Facebook or know someone who works at Impresario to snag a table at this dinner, where everything from the cocktails to the dessert has a distinctly porky twist. It could be a cocktail (yes, you read that right) as simple as bacon-infused whisky sour, or a dish as comforting as a Goan sorpotel, that you’ll be able to mop up with some house-made bread.
Chef Gresham Fernandes says about the meal, “I’ve been doing pork dinners for tables of 10-15 friends in 2004, but I didn’t have a way to market it.” As the Impresario team grew, the Director of Marketing Shobhita Kadan decided she’s get the word out as long as Fernandes agreed to put together a meal ever so often.
It is worth noting that chef Fernandes has spent time in kitchens around the world, including the iconic Copenhagen eatery, Noma.
He’s learnt over time though that some of the diners are there for the experiment, and not as adventurous as he is. So you won’t see a full pork head on the table (something he put on a plate last year, to some customers’ trepidation), but he guarantees that the dinner makes use of all parts of the animal: from cheek, to ears to kidney to heart.
In the past, he’s also been known to break down a whole fish, or a whole goat, for a group of friends that ask, but pork has a staying power that the other two meats did not. Perhaps it’s the Internet’s fetishisation of bacon, from the sound of its sizzle to the way it has become a garnish on even a Bloody Mary.
For the upcoming dinner, Fernandes tells us he’s excited about bringing together his kitchen staff from all over the country to cook regional dishes with pork at the centre. He says, “I personally like pork, I grew up eating it.” It is the same for a lot of his team as well. They have chefs from Bengal, Nepal and south India: all of them carry local ingredients and spices whenever they return from home. As a result, diners can expect to eat various takes on the fatty meat; representing a cross section of India’s regional flavours. Fernandes himself makes his well-known dirty pork fried rice, in addition to a light salad that he calls an ode to the Goan restaurant, Bomra. The salad, which is crunchy, sweet and tart, is a treat. As is everything else on the menu. So go ahead… make a pig of yourself.
Swine Dine will be held at Salt Water Café Bandra on May 19. Call 9320098621 or leave a message on www.facebook. com/groups/SwineDine to book a table. Price per person: Rs. 2,500.
The author is a freelance writer
