Chef Prateek Shadu's Mumbai restaurant wins my Miele One To Watch 2020 pre dedicated to new kitchen talents. And it puts India on the map of international fine dining
Talking about Indian cuisine is like talking about Italian cuisine: a somewhat superficial generalization. Ten times larger than our country, it extends thousands of kilometers, like from Sicily to Denmark. It is the seventh largest country in the world, has over 1.3 billion inhabitants, but for the rest of the planet – including us – it eats curry and samosa. Seen from Italy, 6500 kilometers away, knowledge arrives for stereotypes and it is easier to see the least common denominators rather than the very wide differences.
The cuisine is as vast and different as the Himalayas in the north and the Tropic of Cancer in the south, still alive and cooked in the houses, shopping is done at the market, frozen and ready meals are non-existent: whether you eat outside or in the restaurant, it's all done from scratch, as tradition dictates. "India first" it was the slogan with which the current prime minister won the elections and it is undeniable that nationalism is serious here, even in the culinary field.
Globalization has brought McDonalds, Starbucks, American chains and a few Italian restaurants to the streets of Mumbai, but Indian food is eaten. Innovating here is certainly not easy and doing it by skipping the steps is a triple leap forward. But Mumbai is "the gateway to India”, Also gastronomically speaking and it is chef Prateek Sadhu he is trying, innovating his immense gastronomic heritage with a contemporary and international language, which speaks to that slice of foodies that travel the world by Michelin stars and avant-garde restaurants. His Masque restaurant headed straight for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants and in 2020 he earned the Miele One to Watch Award intended for restaurants to "keep an eye on".
Looking forward to know the 50 best restaurants in the world
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list draws up the list of the 50 most influential restaurants in the world every year, those that mark the evolution of contemporary haute cuisine and that are making the history of catering. The Miele One to Watch award celebrates the emerging talent of those who are out of the top 50, but who have the potential to climb the rankings in the coming years, so this is just the beginning for Prateek, Aditi and their kids. . The award was announced pending the award ceremony on June 2 in Antwerp, Flanders, like a teaser, to create even more anticipation for what in the industry is equal to the night of the Oscars.
Prateek Shadu, a chef returning home
Born in Kashmir, Prateek left to work in the most famous kitchens in the world (The French Laundry, Le Bernardin, Alinea and at Noma) and returned home with a method and an idea in mind: to change Indian cuisine forever and bring his Country on the map of world gastronomy. Madness? After all, Renè Redzepi did it, transforming Copenhagen into the culinary capital of the world when nobody knew a recipe for what later became a destination for intercontinental gourmet travel. Sadhu of the Nordic lesson has taken on the concept of seasonality, terroir, raw materials and ethical approach, and has moved it to India. Very ambitious, more perhaps than Retzepi's own project. In Scandinavia, in fact, the culinary culture was almost non-existent, tabula rasa, and rebuilding from the foundations is paradoxically easier. Second, state support and the creation of a restaurant movement made the vision of a madman a shared project to be supported. In India the culinary culture is vast, rooted, alive, the wonderful ingredients and the panorama of chefs with whom to share the project has nothing to do with that of the New Nordic Cuisine Manifesto.
Masque, the first tasting menu in the country
Masque has four years of life, founded in 2016 by the chef and the entrepreneur Aditi Dugar, in a post-industrial context which today is rich in premises, but which at the time was essentially abandoned to itself. Nothing folkloristic, the interior design is sophisticated, "western" and very different both from the slightly tamarra elegance of the Indians and from the classic old-fashioned taste. We drink wine (also Indian!) And cocktails inspired by Ayurveda, which is certainly not the practice here, and above all we eat meat, in a country where 30% are vegetarian. Tasting menu, 10 courses, the first of its kind. "Our mission has been to rediscover Indian ingredients, evoke a sense of place and promote sustainability," explains Prateek. «Masque adopts a modern and progressive approach to catering and is committed to redefining Indian cuisine. For us, it's not about going back to regional recipes and simply serving them up in a new way. It means rereading recipes and ingredients with a new purpose and through new processes, not to close, but to create intercultural bridges . A radical, subversive approach that rediscovers the history of Indian food as a product of migration, exchanges and influences, with the aim of building a new conscious identity, not turned towards the past but towards the 21st century.
The new Indian cuisine is here
Before the opening, Prateek and Aditi spent 18 months exploring the different regions of India to find small farmers, high-quality products from the country, but together they also developed the agricultural estate in the nearby city of Pune from which most of the of the ingredients used in the restaurant. The new Lab has just been inaugurated next to the restaurant, a space created to experiment with techniques, ingredients and dishes, in the wake of similar experiences born alongside the most innovative restaurants in the world: now India too has its own.
During a trip to a distant country you want to taste typical cuisine, traditional flavors, street food and get in touch with the most genuine things. Fine dining restaurants are often interpreted as the opposite, as a sophistication of the truth. But if Mumbai is India, the real one, which is no longer just that of elephants and temples, deities and traditions, Masque is Indian cuisine, which is no longer just that of street food and food eaten with your hands. You cannot say that you have been to India without having been to Mumbai, today you cannot say that you have eaten Indian cuisine without having been to Masque.
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