Restaurant review | Manu Chandra's European-themed LUPA is many restaurants rolled into one

Chef Manu Chandra, founder-partner, Manu Chandra Ventures. (Photo courtesy Nishant Ratnakar)

One of the first things you’ll see as you arrive at LUPA on MG Road, Bengaluru is a roaring fountain in the middle of a courtyard. Turn around and the curved terracotta roof and shingle tiles reveal themselves, followed by the tall Mediterranean style plants in humungous stone urns and wrought iron doors. It’s like being in a villa in Tuscany. Only the sharply peaked mountains, fields of sunflowers and Italians whizzing around on scooters are missing! “I literally sketched this courtyard by hand 10 months ago. My inspiration was my travels to Italy. I was absolutely clear that I wanted a courtyard and the sound of water. It’s so peaceful. It drowns out some of the traffic on MG Road,” says Manu Chandra about his newest restaurant LUPA, after he moved away from the Olive Group, a company he nurtured for 17 years. Culinary consultancy and a bespoke catering company Single Thread has been keeping him busy all along. His partner in crime (sic.  culinary) for LUPA is hospitality veteran Chetan Rampal.

Manu Chandra and Chetan Rampal, founder-partners, Manu Chandra Ventures. (Photo courtesy Nishant Ratnakar)

What’s LUPA?

LUPA is named after the mythological she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome. It’s also an ode to Chandra’s love for all things Italian — history, food, wine and the materiality. The best thing about LUPA is that it’s many restaurants rolled into one. If the outdoor is balmy and summery, the indoor is sumptuous and seductive. Think 1920s New York — art deco, sleek leather chairs, lavish suede sofas and softly lit chandeliers. A winding staircase leads to an opera style PDR with the best seats overlooking the dining area. Another coveted seating is the deck outside the bar. Nestled under the shade of a century old tree it makes for a charming alcove for drinks and conversations. “I wanted the interiors to be original and create a singular ethos throughout the entire space. And not be another industrial or minimalistic space that most restaurants are trying to be,” says Chandra. Around 12ft underground is a stone wine-cellar, home to a curated collection of 2,000 bottles of wine. There’s also a gelato lab that will be churning out freshly-made gelatos with seasonal fruits within minutes and a Salumeria serving freshly sliced hams, cured meats, pâtés, terrines, pickled vegetables and cheeses made especially for LUPA.

(Clockwise from top, left) Burrata with tomato dust; desserts; Salumi platter; and the food spread at LUPA. (Photos courtesy Assad Dadan)

We start our evening at the courtyard with a charcuterie board of parma ham, Spanish chorizo, salami, black forest ham (a variety of dry-cured smoked ham produced in the Black Forest region of Germany) and picante. It’s accompanied by tigelle buns (flatbreads not too dissimilar from English muffins, a popular street food in Emilia-Romagna region of Italy) and condiments such as chili oil, pickled gherkins and a spicy green peppercorn mustard relish. We wash it down with the astutely constructed negroni — Lupa’s twist includes a cold brew infused coffee. Next to come was the creamy, comforting and umami-laden Caesar salad with poached chicken and a moist egg dressing. The crackling garlic sourdough provides an immediate lift-off. The burrata dusted with tomato powder and basil oil is equally delicious, but the dish that really jerked me to attention was the pressed chicken (a simple roast chicken with Tuscan potatoes and beans). It has the ruggedness and deliciousness of a home cooked meal with the magic of Michelin. It's this jugalbandi of the new school and the old, that is at the heart of the charms and challenges of this much-anticipated opening. My only pet peeve in the entire dinner was the baked salmon encased in a brioche with dill, cream cheese, snow peas and other things. I feel the dish could have benefitted from, as the old Coco Chanel maxim goes, taking off an accessory or two.

All through the evening breezy, informed staff ferry plates with aplomb while retro tunes blast in the background. Everything at Lupa has the sumptuousness and laser-honed precision of fine dining along with that special sprinkling of magic that only comes from personal memory, travels and a chef with heart and head perfectly in sync.

(Left) The bar overlooks the dining area; the balmy courtyard at LUPA. (Photo courtesy Kuber Shah)

According to Chandra, Lupa is a culmination of years of learning what not to do in a restaurant. “I know how much people hate to sit at low tables where you have to lean to put your drink down. So we raised the height of the tables. Even the table legs have been designed in such a way that when you cross over your legs you don’t hurt your toes, ankles or hit your shin. We wanted the bar stools to be at the right height so that ladies who come in dresses or skirts and not uncomfortable. And only leather. Fake leather makes you sweat. If you ever sat in an old Maruti Omni you know what happens when you get out of it, especially if you live in Mumbai. A lot of bars don’t put that kind of detailing which is sad.” The two-tiered kitchen is also the result of years of toiling in hot kitchens. The space has a European-style hot line on the lower level and ancillary production kitchens on a level above looking down into the main cooking line, allowing chefs to keep a firm handle and eye on everything.

We finished the preview dinner, as you should, with featherlight and boozy tiramisu — the perfect crescendo to a stellar meal.

(Left) LUPA's twist on the classic Negroni; the Notorious F.I.G. cocktail at LUPA (Photos courtesy Assad Dadan)

As I sipped the last of my negroni I couldn’t help but quiz Chandra on the future of fine-dining, especially in the light of Noma wrapping up in 2024. “The siloing of fine-dine based on one restaurant in a country in Scandinavia is an unfair comparison and a massive disservice to what fine-dine actually stands for. Fine-dine doesn’t have to be unsustainable, overly intellectualised pursuit of changing the form of food to what it shouldn’t actually be. That is not the definition of fine-dining. Noma does not define fine-dining for anybody in the world except for a bunch of journalists who decided this is the truism and for some very rich people headed there because it was impossible to get a booking. They created a false sense of demand. I don’t think even the founders wanted to be what it became. But who created the monster? So, it’s unfair to write off globally that fine-dine is dead. Fine-dine is alive, aspiration will never die, wealth will never die, the need for shiny things will never die.” At a time when the restaurant business is fraught with brazen cynicism and fearful glances towards the future, LUPA is a passion project that urges us to live, gloriously, in the moment. Fine-dining has a new fresh prince. We have no option but to bend the knee.