Chef Manu Chandra’s new restaurant, BMW’s limited edition 2024 M3 CS, Trèsind Dubai’s 50 Best Discovery listing, Nilosree Biswa’s seminal book on Calcutta food, David Housego’s private collection of Central Asian textiles, Keto desserts, India’s first tequila bar, and Trunks Company’s bespoke bars-to-watch trunks.
David and Mandeep Housego’s Shades of India (which he set up with his ex-wife, Jenny) was one of the first Indian design brands dabbling in fashion, décor, furnishings, and accessories, to export handmade, handcrafted items to the West. So, when he puts out his sumptuous collection of textiles from 19th-century Central Asia on exhibit, you are sure it is going to be worth a visit.
Bukhara at New Delhi’s National Crafts Museum is a 40 + strong piece showcase of handmade textiles from the couple’s private collection. Suzani hangings (silk thread embroidery on a cotton base), Beshir rugs woven by Turkmen tribes, and sophisticated ikats worn by the wealthy explore the legacy of the Silk Route. The influence of Chinese porcelain, Mughal decoration, and Persian carpets on the textiles tell a fascinating narrative of the richness and cultural significance of the Silk Trade Route.
Low on carbs, high on protein, with no added sugar — keto desserts promise indulgence without the guilt of breaking a diet or staying away from sugar. Flour, or maida, is replaced by nut flour; coconut is a favourite ingredient; and the sugar sources are all natural. Restaurants and bakeries such as Jamjar and The Pantry in Mumbai, Infintea Tearoom and Tea Store in Bengaluru, and 24/7 Gallery Café at Hyatt Place, Hyderabad, were the first to expand the keto trend to desserts.
Then followed the delivery kitchens, such as The Keto Kitchen in Gurugram and Artinci in Delhi. Get-A-Way, which just launched Keto cheesecakes, is the first pan-India brand with a model that includes cafes and deliveries. It raised Rs 1 crore investment on Shark Tank India’s S1, and more recently, around 2 million dollars from Biryani by Kilo.
After indulging in making some cheese (Begum Victoria), setting up a high-profile catering company (Single Thread Catering) and cooking khichdi at Cannes, Chef Manu Chandra has gone back to his core strength — a restaurant. LUPA, which means she-wolf in Roman mythology, opens in Bengaluru to curious diners.
The name befits the chef known to be “untameable and sometimes wild”. The 11,000 sqft restaurant, designed like an Italian villa, focuses on ‘experiences’: Salumeria-cum-small plates bar that serves tapas-style bites and in-house cured meats, a gelato lab for freshly-churned batches of gelato, and a stone wine cellar with a curated list of about 2,000 bottles of wine. Experiential dining has found a new home.
Filmmaker and cultural historian Nilosree Biswa attempts a culinary deconstruction of Calcutta of the 19th century in her sumptuous tome, Calcutta on a Plate. She argues that the city’s food culture is “a community’s statement of self-expression” rather than just their culinary heritage. She goes into the private kitchen of an exiled king and the homes of a handful of upper-class Bengalis, including erstwhile zamindar families, to stitch together a narrative for some of the city’s best-known dishes such as dum biryani, fish chops, kabirajis, cutlets and kathi rolls.
What you also discover is that Calcutta food is a happy blend of several styles of cooking — English, Mughlai-Awadhi, Portuguese, and Bengali dishes from medieval times.
Dubai’s Trèsind restaurant is a modern Indian food icon. An ex-Indian Accent hand, Chef Saini picked up the finest nuances of contemporary desi khana from Chef Manish Mehrotra and fine-tuned it to create a whole new genre of Indian dining in the emirate. It befits that the one-Michelin star Trèsind makes it to the World’s 50 Best Discoveries, and features at no 2 on the Middle East 50 Best. It is also the only Indian restaurant in the Middle East to make it to that list and all credit to Chef Saini’s inventive cuisine for that.
If you happen to be in Dubai, drop in for his signature savoury khandvi ice cream or his version of Khichdi, in which he adds 20 individual condiments from different regions of India. Each mouthful takes the diner on a journey through India’s culinary diversity.
Those who track spirits trends will tell you that tequila is the new flavour of the season in India, with tequila brands moving fast, as home parties become a serious showcase of experimental cocktails. Paying obeisance to the new-found love for tequila is Miss Margarita, the country’s first tequila bar. The Delhi bar celebrates all things tequila with a wide selection of cocktails and shots.
It serves all kinds of tequilas and tequila-based margaritas — Devils Double, Kafir Lime Mimosa Margarita, Spicy Berry Blast Slushy, Mojito Rita Slushy, Gigante Bull Dog Margarita, a classic lime margarita served in a one-litre glass with two Corona beers. Tequila finds its way into some of the food too, such as Salsa Tequila Prawns, which are flambéed on the table.
Trunks Company, a Jaipur-based luxury malletier, melds heritage and nostalgia, wood, leather, and metal, in interesting ways in their bespoke trunks. Trunks Company has reimagined antique travel trunks as modern-day accoutrements — trunks as bars, as watch and stiletto closets, DJ consoles, even trunks to store precious spirits such as Louis XIII cognac, each crafted out of leather and other materials, and studded with gold hardware and semi-precious stones.
While BMW M3 borrows heavily from the 2022 M4 CS, it is lighter and faster when compared to a regular sedan. While it has the earlier version’s CSL’s 553 hp engine, its carbon hood, and sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, the new M3 CS is rear-wheel drive and is lighter by 125 kg. The chief change that puts the limited-edition M3 CS in a league of its own is its twin-turbo 3.0-litre engine which produces 40 horsepower more than the 503-hp version, and 70 more than the standard 473-hp M3.
At a colossal 543 horsepower, BMW claims the new M3 CS rockets from zero to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. Power-adjustable heated seats are upholstered in Merino leather and combine black with Mugello red accents with distinctive contrast stitching. Manufacturing begins in March this year, but the bookings for this limited-edition beauty are already on.
