This Bengaluru pop-up restaurant promises Indian food in a modern context

Chef Tejas brings together modern cooking techniques and traditional Indian flavours in the Amaranta pop-up

If you’ve ever wanted to have the fine dining experience you see on TV or in movies, the Amaranta pop-up restaurant is one place you need to add to your to-do list.

The Oberoi, Bangalore, presents its first pop-up restaurant with The Amaranta, which serves Indian cuisine in The Oberoi, Gurgaon. Tejas Sovani, an award-winning executive sous chef packed his knives and travelled South to present this menu to foodies in Bengaluru.

With the belief that ‘less is more’, Chef Tejas focuses on highlighting authentic Indian flavours in minimalistic ways. The Shezwan Court has been converted to The Amaranta to give diners a taste of fine-dining.

“There’s a great amount of affinity towards Indian food, so that was the main source point to create the pop-up,” says Tejas. “We’ve got some great Indian restaurants that are doing some cutting edge food in today’s context and we thought why don’t we get those experiences to Bengaluru. That was the thought process behind this whole experience.”

Amaranta presents Indian food in a modern context. The plating, technique and presentation is European, however the taste, ingredients and flavouring are Indian. Amaranta also does a lot of coastal food, so it takes elements from the entire coastline of India and does modern renditions of the same, he adds. You will see influences from Goa, the Konkan coast, Kerala and Bengal.

The menu is an explosion of flavours from all over India. First up on the menu is an amuse bouche, a bite-sized appetiser of a dokla-pakoda drizzled with a green mint chutney. Next comes the 63 degree Celsius poached egg, which is a reminder of the typical Chettinad curry. Before the main course is a palette cleanser - a fermented plum sorbet, the sourness of which leaves the sides of the jaws with a tingling sensation.

The pop-up offers both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes with one vegetarian main course option and two non-vegetarian main-course options.

Each course has an ingredient that any diner familiar with Indian flavours can recognise. Be it a comforting kichdi (rice and lentil porridge) or the decadence of kurma gravy, Chef Tejas presents traditional flavours with new and innovative techniques.

As someone who believes in a greater purpose to fulfil with his cooking, Tejas works to rid the world of stereotypical notions of Indian dishes and showcase authentic Indian food that isn’t as well known. “Over a period of time I felt that our country needs ambassadors who can go out and talk about our food. Everybody knows about this food but it’s not really highlighted. It is offbeat food, not something that is generic or usual,” he says.

To be a master in the kitchen, Tejas believes it is essential to keep one’s temper in check, “When you’re running a restaurant, there is a lot of pressure in the kitchen. You are the leader and captain of the ship. If you are throwing pots and pans, then people are not going to respond. The most essential thing for great cooking is to keep calm. We are young, irritable, want things in a jiffy and in our way but that is not how it works.”

With a mission to continuously experiment with flavours, Chef Tejas wants to produce cutting-edge cuisine that is quintessentially Indian with the addition of modern methods to amplify the dishes.