On the landmark homecoming of Gaggan Anand’s brand new restaurant, rāga, New Delhi, Rashmi Uday Singh, who has watched the rise and rise of the globally acclaimed chef, shares his rollercoaster journey
I am at a loss for the appropriate title! So please pardon my resorting to the grammatical “portmanteau” (blended word) GagGenius ... which is also not sufficient enough to capture this phenomenon that is Gaggan Anand! I have known Gaggan for almost two decades, experienced his food in all his restaurants, popups, rockups from Seoul to San Francisco and now at the hot new rāga in Delhi. I have a deep and abiding affection for him, he calls me his “Godmother” and I cherish that title even though it established what an old budhi I am. In spite of all this I am unable to find the appropriate words to describe him or his cuisine. Both he and his food defy all labels.
Chalo! Let’s try! He is a paradox redefined. He is a radical modernist who is deeply nostalgic. The more futuristic his food becomes, the more you discover the India of his childhood hiding underneath it.
For sure! Gaggan doesn’t merely want you to taste his food, he wants you to feel.
Gaggan himself has spoken about how we eat with all our senses – seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, tasting and remembering. He artfully uses science even though his food has always been rooted in memory, particularly the street food and home cooking of his Kolkata childhood.
He can be rebellious, outrageous, but he is surprisingly sentimental. I love the way he spoke about his mother (and wanting her approval), his childhood and the food he grew up eating with a tenderness that contrasted beautifully with his deliberately rebellious persona.
Behind the international awards, the avant-garde techniques and the swagger is still a son wanting his mother’s approval.
I have spent much of my life travelling, tasting, writing and searching for the extraordinary hidden inside the ordinary. Gaggan does something extraordinarily similar from the other side of the table. He takes the ordinary – a chaat, a curry, a spice, a memory – recreates it and makes us see it and taste it again. He understands that innovation without emotion is merely technique. Magic happens!
WHERE DO I BEGIN?
Should I begin with the feeling of awe while watching Gaggan’s life story unfurl, his impoverished childhood in Kolkata, his ambition to be a drummer and onto being the world’s best chef. This in NYC, sitting on a high stool, flanked by Gaggan and the brilliant director of the Netflix Chef’s Table series, David Gelb.
Or should I do so with my own goose bumps of joy, at the standing ovation “Gaaa-ggan. Gaggan” which filled the high ceilinged hall in Macau when Gaggan was crowned “Asia’s best chef” in 2018, for the fourth time in a row?
Equally thrilled to interview him on stage for the high-profile India Today Conclave where he was an invitee with likes of Bill Clinton. Or hand him the Culinary Icon Award at the glittering Hello! Hall of Fame awards.
Or maybe begin with that feeling of wild abandon while holding up my dinner plate and licking straight off an edible work of art painted on it. Multi-sensorial dining at its most sensual while listening and licking to music!
Rewind to 2010, his original Bangkok restaurant where I first tasted his multi-sensorial masterpieces. And over the years went on to taste them in his “popups” “rockups” “four hands” “residencies” in Seoul Delhi, Mumbai, San Francisco. Evolution in revolution ... Flying against all the norms of fine dining. Daring, creative, provocative ... Gaggan continues to redefine, reimagine traditional Indian cuisine.
TURNING SETBACKS INTO COMEBACKS
As powerful as his food is his larger than life persona as he strides across the globe with his irreverent swagger, infectious smile, collecting accolades and turning his setbacks into comebacks. In 2019, after receiving two Michelin stars and landing the fourth spot on World’s 50 Best he left the restaurant that made him famous, and started over with “Gaggan Anand” Bangkok. In the same year, he divorced his wife of seven years, continued to stride on ... an emblem of defiance and a food-world antihero.
Shortly after that, in Valencia it was wonderful to welcome him back at No. 17 on the World’s 50 Best awards list. He is unstoppable! He keeps changing rules. His Bangkok restaurant has banned photography of the dishes. Gaggan’s progressive Indian is in demand the world over and has collaborated with the greatest of restaurants in Stockholm, Oslo and even a whole month of residency in Delhi where he took 20 of his staff with him. The deluge of offers and invitations worldwide continues. He opened with Louis Vuitton and now rāga in New Delhi.
GAGGAN @ LV
Once again this rebel surprises us. I dined at his dining counter restaurant Gaggan in Bangkok where he continued to serve up chaos, music, irreverent fun of “foraging” and “sustainability” by cooking up a “rat”. And the very next day had the opposite experience ... the hallowed, almost two century old, luxury brand Louis Vuitton chose Gaggan to open their first-ever fine dining restaurant. To serve up experiences of the intersection between food and fashion at the highest level.
Gaggan curates a ‘food journey’ in “Gaggan at Louis Vuitton.” What’s the world’s most awarded culinary rebel superstar Gaggan Anand doing in partnership with the conservative heritage Louis Vuitton fashion brand?
Quite the opposite of the counter seating, informal, wild Gaggan Anand experience is this serene highly stylised LV Gaggan. Here, LVs motifs peep in and out of ice cubes, plates and glasses. LV transforms the private dining room into its iconic trunk shape and Gaggan’s wild dressing style into the elegant LV one. Happily, there is no takeover, both brands do the foxtrot and bhangra together. Each one retaining its identity.
Our meal begins as we slide the quivering delicious chatpatta “Yoghurt Explosion” (Gaggan’s molecular masterpiece which shot him into the limelight since 2010 and is served up in rāga with a chatpatta guava petalled flower) onto LV’s edible monogram and pop into our mouths. There are playful twists and surprises and each time the LV monogram takes a bow.
Dish after dish sashays in with a flourish and then the globe arrives. It dismantles into three drawers with tantalising bites of flavours from all over. Award-winning Dej Kewkacha s desserts are the sweet finale.
rāga THE HOMECOMING
So when I heard that Gaggan was finally coming home to India with rāga on August 26th, I excitedly took a flight Mumbai to Delhi! For Gaggan, coming home is not a geographical return. It is an emotional one.
rāga brings together three distinct journeys (Gaggan Anand, Rydo Anton and Zorawar Kalra) united by a shared belief: Indian food can be rooted in its origins while constantly reinventing itself.
I love the sprawling, high-ceilinged bungalow with two-tiered kitchens and an ambience of hushed expectation. It sets the tone for the immersive five-hour culinary experience: explosions of flavour, Tsunami of Umami, textures, sound, light, memory, humour and surprise. Twenty two courses which surprise, seduce, tease the intellect and the taste buds ... am not going to describe them here (simply because I do not want to spoil the surprise for you). Go you must. Rs11,111 for 22 courses. No à la carte!
Sure raga is Indian classical music but it is also an acronym. RA for Rydo. GA is Gaggan (of course).
