MC Recommends: Swimwear for the perfect summer holiday, stargazing destinations and Eid-ul-Fitr feast

Beachwear by Verandah, a conscious luxury travel brand stocked at retail stores such as Neiman Marcus.

Swimwear to heat your summer

India’s designer swimwear market is at its hottest at the moment. Shivan & Narresh, the big daddies of Indian swimwear, continue to create flamboyant stuff for both men and women. BotanEye, their Cruise 2022 collection of floral high-waisted bikinis and needle honeycomb skirts used as cover-ups, is bold and sophisticated. Iconomash, swimming shorts for men, are a technicolour canvas. IZSI, a new launch, puts out swimwear handmade by local artisans. Their first collection has bikini sets in fun prints and unisex lounge shirts. Verandah is a conscious luxury travel brand stocked at retail stores such as Neiman Marcus. Expect swimwear with hand-illustrated prints, embroideries, and sustainable fabrics. Zara has put out an interesting range of swimming trunks in stripes and floral prints for men.

The Beach Company’s Ombre Blue Swim Shorts blends beach colours of blue and white, while its stripes and solid range are crowd favourites. The brand’s Colour Splash long-sleeve swimsuit recreates the fashion trend of long sleeves. Aviva Bidapa’s pool and beach party range are jazzed up with ruffles, sequins, and bold colours. If you are coveting international brands, J. Crew has helped invent the concept of mix-and-match swimwear with tops and bottoms in a variety of chic silhouettes, from bandeaus to high-cut briefs, and inclusive sizes. Nike is at the forefront of athletic-focused designs that look good enough to show off on a sun lounger, while Versace’s swimming trunks have Greco and Medusa motif waistline.

Zara swimming shorts with stripes.

The art of fermentation and loving the ingredients with Chef Vanika Chaudhary

Chef Vanika Choudhary’s kitchen in her stylistically minimal restaurant is an ode to her love for fermentation. It looks like a lab with its jars of vegetables and other such goodies, which are fermented over weeks and months, lining the shelves. She says her fetish for fermentation was inspired by her maternal grandmother’s love for pickling, while her ingredient-first philosophy comes from her childhood days in Srinagar where the produce was fresh and often plucked from farms and forests.

At her restaurant Noon serving modern Kashmiri cuisine, the chef makes her kanjis, kombuchas, kefirs, misos, kimchis and coconut milk yoghurt. You will taste dishes such as purple corn tortillas with pickled white onion, among other ingredients, for instance. Her love for fermentation extends to craft cocktails that the restaurant serves: A Pineapple Tepache made with house-fermented pineapple, Kashmiri raw honey, and tequila, for instance.

This coming week, Chef Choudhary’s restaurant is hosting a limited seating dinner in association with Sommelier Nice Nikhil Agarwal (CEO, All Things Nice) and Executive Chef of Four Seasons Hotel, Anupam Gulati.

The Eid Feast

Iftar parties are sumptuous but there is nothing to beat the ultimate Eid feast. A few meals to enjoy Eid al-Fitr or Ramzan Eid next week across India, then.

- Shangri-La Bengaluru ends the holy month of Ramazan with an elaborate Arabic and Indian feast of Gosht Haleem, Lamb Keema Samosa, Hyderabadi Kacchi Gosht Dum Biryani, Chicken shawarma and my favourite, Sheermal, a saffron-flavoured flatbread which originated in Iran. A rare dish being served is Umm Ali, a bread pudding with pastry, sugar, nuts, and raisins.

- Four Seasons Bengaluru’s Daawat E Khaas is putting out a repertoire of dishes from the royal Mughal kitchens at its Eid celebration. Kebabs such as Galouti Kebab and Murgh Chandi Tikka, while mains include Murgh Handi Qorma and Tabakmaaz (a portion of lamb/mutton meat with cardamom, fennel, and ghee).

- In Mumbai, Four Seasons Mumbai’s San: Qi will serve an Eid feast of Nizam dishes, including kebabs and haleem. The quintessential Shikampuri kebabs, made using chicken and dal with a filling of flavoured thick yoghurt in the centre, are best eaten with flavourful bread such as khameeri naan and taftan.

- Delhi’ hotels such as JW Marriott Aerocity and The Leela New Delhi have curated eid feasts and buffets that showcase classic Indian Mughlai and Awadhi dishes to Arabic mezze, Sujuk Kebab and haleem.

Eid feast

Star-scaping in India

Leave the smog and the dust of Indian cities behind and head out to the mountains of stars and unpolluted skies for a spot of stargazing.  The Uttarakhand Tourism Board is developing Benital as India’s first Astro village with activities such as stargazing, constellation hunting, sky observation, astrophotography and solar observations.

Travel startup Starscapes has observatories in Kausani and Bhimtal in Uttarakhand and a mobile observatory in Jaipur.

Meena Bagh Homes, a luxury villa in Ratnari, the handiwork of photographer Sanjay Austa, has a spanking new observatory. Spend a magical night pointing a telescope at distant objects — star-speckled skies, planets, stars, and galaxies.

At Phyang monastery in Ladakh, monks have combined Western science with Buddhist cosmology to draw stargazing tourists to the desert region. The astrohub at a monastery dated 1515 was inspired by another Ladakhi homestay run by Astrostays, a hospitality chain that specialises in stargazing experiences. Astrostays is owned and operated by the community and utilises astronomy as a tool for development. The model goes beyond traditional astronomy-based offerings; travellers can experience community life along with star-gazing experiences.

Over time, Ladakh has emerged as the top spot for travellers to see the night sky. On a regular night, you can see constellations such as the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia, and the Pole Star. Sometimes, you may even spot the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, zoom into the craters of Earth’s moon, and identify numerous other stars and constellations.

Astro Party Night Scape (c. Shikhar Gupta for Starscapes)

Indri: India’s new award-winning single malt that is perfect for torrid summers.

At the World Whiskey Awards 2022, Indri Trini—single malt from the house of Piccadilly Distillery—trundled past the established big daddy of Indian single malts to emerge a winner. The dram was rated as the best single malt across all categories, snagging the gold, while Paul John’s Mithuna and Nirvana came in the second and third positions.

In Mumbai, Indri was launched at an event organised by the Single Malt Amateur Club (SMAC), where it was served with a bit of water and ice (sacrilege, you say?); and had as a cocktail in a high ball glass with loads of ice.

The single malt—by master blender Surinder Kumar and Siddharth Sharma, director at the distillery—is smooth, light, and made for Indian summers. And yet, it is complex in terms of its flavour profile and nose. Indri Trini is matured in three casks—first-fill bourbon, Ex-French wine, and sherry cask. It is made using traditional Indian 6-row barley, matured in selected barrels, and blended carefully to bring out the Individual contribution of each wood. It has hints of black tea, caramelised pineapple, and spices, with a smooth fruity finish.

Indri Trini single malt whiskey