de-fine-dinning

I felt really demotivated after that bhakhree incident that I badly needed some booster to put me back in cooking mood! So they had to treat me somewhere!! let me take you to one of the newly opened restaurant. It would be more appropriate to call it food chemistry lab! Its an art, artistry, culinary and science and new techniques rolled in one.

At risk of sounding more like a teacher than a friend I write this…

Its called Caperberry. serves traditional Spanish, French, Italian, Greek ingredients but cooked with most modern technique. Concept of the menu was also different – they prepared Single main ingredient with 3 different techniques for one dish.

First, came complimentary Melon foam shot, super light, frothy and full of fragrance. Made with nitrogen. Lot of their recipes used nitrogen for cooking. This was served with 2 tiny cubes of feta cheese and apple jelly/jelo/tutifruti in a soup spoon.

One of the main dish had 3 preparations of aubergine. Aubergine cappuccino (frothy hot soup), abergine cannelloni (fine sliced and rolled with fetacheese stuffed inside), and baked/roasted slab of cheese stuffed obergine.

One of the dessert dish was made from apple. Spongy cupcake style bite size portion and garnished with apple wafer slice, apple sorbet with concentrated flavor and third with toffee style jelly wedges. All fresh.

Mushroom soup had five exotic variety of fresh mushrooms.

Oh, so you are saying you get all these in Inndeeaaaa???? Aur nahi toh kya?

(Caperberry, considered an aphrodisiac in Hebrew claimed to awaken senses. Its dark green berry with pink flesh and white flowers grow on climbing shrub). When asked chef if I could go inside kitchen and see his tools of cooking in vaccuum, with nitrogen and at ultra low temp and surface cooking, he said no big deal he could prepare the portion on my table if like!!

Now let me try something similar at home next time. My ingredient is good old golden besan. First technique steaming and make tiny portion of dhokla garnished with chilli garlic paste, second technique is boiling, miniscule portion of khaandavi roll drizzed with green chutney and finally the third frying in form of fafda , stack of 3 small squares garnished with diced green chillies.

See, Gujarati fine cuisine looks just as good and is also healthy especially when served on most essential ingredient for fine dinning, a big square white plate to arrange all three bite size portions diagonally.

Enjoy your weekend. Ta.

--------- time pass from menu till food arrives ---------

Deconstruction – Modern reinterpretation of a classic dish using same ingredients but different cooking techniques.


Cryo Cooking – An innovative method of cooking using Liquid Nitrogen. At minus 196°C liquid nitrogen cools the surface of food very quickly creating an interesting texture. At Caperberry we use it for preparing chilled mousses called ‘cryo espuma’ that are frozen on the surface and soft within. They act as palate cleansers and refresh your taste buds.


Sous Vide – Sous vide can be defined as slow cooking under vacuum at a precise temperature. Harold McGee describes it as ‘one of the most important culinary innovations of modern times’. It involves two steps and equipment. The food is packed in a vacuum bag with the help of a vacuum packing machine and then immersed in a water bath heated to the optimal cooking temperature. This prevents the leaching out of juices, retains the tenderness and flavour while cooking the food to perfection.


Espuma – Mousse or sauce incorporated with air using a nitrogen canister or bamix. This makes it light and frothy and helps bring out the flavour.


Caviar – A technique of containing a liquid by itself without any external casing in the form of mini encapsulations resembling caviar. When made to the size of a soup spoon it is also referred to as spherification or skinless ravioli.