Farzi Café, as regulars know, is not about over-the-top interiors; it is instead about the food that always surprises. The all-wood look and feel is a sort of neutral backdrop against which the food appears: for starters, a shot of mishti doi topped with strawberry jelly. It’s just enough to get the mouth watering. It looks solid — well, wobbly, but take into your mouth, and it sort of explodes.
I’m in Cyber Hub, Gurugram, but Farzi also has outlets in Connaught Place and Aerocity in Delhi, besides in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Jaipur, and Lucknow. They opened in London in 2018. My eyes go straight to the Tandoori New Zealand Lamb Chops (the meat is imported) and the Amritsari Fish ‘N’ Chips. As usual, Zorawar Kalra has us intrigued, mixing a little bit of this with a little bit of that, really understanding fusion without it being contrived or silly.
Next up, Rock Shrimp that sounded like we’d have to hammer through a hard exterior. But when the dish came to the table it was a dainty little thing, as close in flavour to a fresh-off-the-boat catch.
The avocado chaat was refreshing, a sort of bridge between the still-cool Delhi afternoon and the hot summer months that lie ahead. You could almost see the chef scooping it out, chopping up some green chillies, throwing on the sev and mint chutney — a take on aloo chaat, just fresher, with buttery chunks to sink the teeth into. The dish, ‘imported’ from the menu at Farzi Café, London, sources its fruit from either Thailand, or Australia, sometimes even South America.
Edamame hummus, in its green avatar, gives good old chickpea hummus a run for its money.It’s surprising how the garlic and olive oil work just as well. It’s a smart choice, given it’s Delhi’s current Japanese fix. Farzi serves it with wafer-thin Kori roti, a snack made using boiled rice paste.
The Corporate Executive Chef, Saurabh Udinia says they were experimenting with dishes in Farzi in Bengaluru. “I went on a food hunt in rural Karnataka. I discovered Kori roti there and was convinced it would work,” says Udinia.
After all this, the chicken wings seemed a but tame. It wasn’t, flavoured as it was by Thalassery pepper (from Kerala) used in the marination. The curry leaves toned down the hot hit. To round it all off, there was Paniyaram, except here they were steamed into rice-batter ‘bowls’ with quail’s eggs within.
The concept of Farzi Café is to play around with different ingredients from across the world but keep the basic flavours of Indian cuisine intact. The imported ingredients only enhance its deep Indian roots.
Meal for two: ₹2,000; Ground floor, Cyber Hub, 7-8, DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, Haryana; Time: 12 noon to 12 midnight
