With 300-million gods and one billion people squeezed into the sub-continent, anyone who’s travelled to India will remember – either with a shudder or a smile –the colourful chaos that fills nearly every corner of the country, especially the Bollywood capital of Mumbai.

So I half-expected something similar in the kitchens of the Bombay Brasserie, one of the latest additions to Cape Town’s fine-dining scene and arguably the best Indian restaurant in the city.

But the ordered, beautifully mosaiced space that opens onto the Taj Cape Town’s signature restaurant is a world apart from the steamy kitchens of the capital of Maharashtra state. The calm in the kitchen is no doubt all down to Harpreet Kaur, the quiet and unassuming young chef from northern India whose soft melodious voice is gently passionate about bringing a taste of real Indian cuisine to South African palates.

“I cook contemporary Indian food,” says Harpreet, taking a rare break from the kitchen in the lull before the lunch rush begins. “I use traditional Indian recipes, but serve them in a contemporary way.”

A stickler for authenticity – “we do play around with the dishes, but only with Indian flavours. I avoid fusion” – much of the menu is drawn from small kitchens in little-known corners of India, which she discovered on a culinary adventure across the vast country.

“We were looking for new ideas for the menu and we didn’t want to just have run-of-the-mill dishes like any other restaurant serves. So myself and a group of chefs from Taj went travelling through the interior, collecting traditional recipes that you won’t usually find on other restaurant menus.”

“All the chefs we spoke to were working in small family restaurants, where the recipes are passed down from grandfather to father to son. And they only make one or two dishes, for generation after generation. We were really inspired by the street food, and what is enjoyed there by the locals is what we serve here in our five-star hotel.”

Street food served with style is also a hallmark of the Bombay Brasserie’s new lunch menu that pays homage to the legendary dabbawallas of Mumbai, the city Kaur and her chef husband left behind for Cape Town.

“In Mumbai you have this door-to-door service of metal containers called tiffins, where housewives cook lunch for their husbands and sons and it’s delivered from home to their office in the tiffin. So the idea sprang from there, and we’ll do a set-meal served in authentic Mumbai tiffins; with kebabs, a lentil dish, rice and roti. A complete meal all in one.”

Harpreet’s inspired street food carries through to her eclectic dinner menu, with the likes of Bhalla Chaat (lentil dumplings in yoghurt) and Khurmani Ki Tikki (apricot and potato cakes) offered alongside more regal fare such as the Galouti Kebab; “a very finely minced lamb meat kebab, which literally melts in your mouth.”

While the menu may be rooted in the tiny kitchens of Delhi, Amritsar and Lucknow, she is adamant that Indian cuisine can be a gourmet experience. Although South Africans often experience Indian food as a simple take-away curry with naan or roti, Harpreet says she is “hoping to change the idea that Indian food isn’t fine dining. That’s the whole experience we are offering here, with silver service, because that’s the kind of respect I think Indian cuisine demands.”

“We didn’t change the recipes or flavours at all, but we just played with the presentation… we can’t serve street food in a fine-dining restaurant!”

And Harpreet’s cooking certainly has an impressive theatre to perform in. This elegant restaurant in the walls of the Taj Cape Town is more maharajah’s palace than bustling street corner. Subtle peacock motifs on the luxuriant velvet chairs celebrate the national bird of India, while rich wood panelling and original parquet floors offer a reminder of the building’s old-money history as the home of the Board of Executors. It’s a space that especially comes alive at night, when the impressive glass chandeliers – with their own story to tell – add a soft romantic glow to the room.

With time running out before Harpreet has to get into the kitchen to prep for lunch, I ask whether she has had to adapt her dishes to suit local palates.

“Not at all, and our guests are loving it. I do get some funny requests, like biryani with lentils, but then I just have to go and educate the guest that we don’t serve Malay food. This is an authentic Lucknow biryani, with the flavours of the long grain basmati and lamb, so please stop digging for lentils!” she laughs.

“In India you’ll also normally find more vegetarian dishes on the menu than non-vegetarian, but here unfortunately if there is no demand for it in the restaurant I need to take it off the menu. But I love to cook this style, because cooking vegetarian food is more of a challenge.”

Along with teaching local chefs the delicate touch of Indian cooking – “it’s about judgment and experience… you need to feel your way” – sourcing quality ingredients has been one of the biggest challenges in creating an Indian fine-dining experience in Cape Town, says Harpreet.

“I have struggled a lot to find the right spices of a good quality. Some of our spices are coming in from Durban, but we still do have to bring in ingredients from India. Spices like nutmeg and maize here are just not very strong, and the coriander seeds are dark black in colour. I prefer to use the bigger green seeds that give it a nice fresh flavour. Rose petals are also a big challenge, and I have still not found betel root. I suppose the problem is that they have just never been used in this part of the world before.”

With spices flown halfway across the globe to ensure the recipes remain authentic, do ingredients maketh the dish or can a skilled chef do without?

“The chef is a magician who plays with their ingredients, so if you don’t have good quality ingredients to play around with half of your talent is gone.”

The tricks this magician uses to conjure up her curries all “depends on my mood,” says Harpreet. “But I love saffron because of its subtle flavour. I use it in kebabs, curries and desserts. It’s a very versatile spice to work with.”

Versatile, subtle… not unlike Harpreet herself, who at just 34 is rapidly making a name for herself as one of Indian cuisine’s most passionate ambassadors. Casting a glance to see if the sommelier is nearby, I ask her one last question before the kitchen doors swing closed; a conundrum I need an expert answer for.

“So tell me, which goes better with curry: beer, or wine?”

“Beer,” she whispers conspiratorially. “Definitely beer.”


Bombay Brasserie
Taj Cape Town, Wale Street
+27 (0)21 819 2000
www.tajhotels.com/capetown

First published in Food&Home magazine, August 2010

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