If you love seafood, then there's no better place to go to than the fine-dining Mediterranean restaurant 'Azure' at Vivanta by Taj in Yeshwantpur. Launched recently, the restaurant has caught the fancy of the expats, families who live around the corner and a few office-goers who drop by to feast on their favourite dishes.
The ambience is not too imposing and the menu has been carefully designed to suit the Indian palate.
The dishes on the menu draw their inspiration from the olive producing province of the Mediterranean region and most of the dishes are the signature food of that region. The texture of the dishes are not tampered with. It is kept simple and presented in a contemporary style.
Uddipan Chakravarthy, the executive chef, explains that care is taken to make sure that all the dishes retain their original flavour. "Indians have started adapting to food from the Mediterranean region.
Our idea is to develop the Indian palate and we never mess with the original food concept. Ever since we have opened, we have seen the same families come back to order the same dish," Uddipan explains.
Delving into the menu, Uddipan says that it is sequenced and structured in a manner that there's no time wasted just waiting around for the food to arrive. "You could order the soup, starters, followed by the main course," he says and adds, "one dish serves two and it is also priced competitively."
Rimoun Obaid, chef de cuisine, observes that he selects only those dishes that are eaten during family gathering in the Mediterranean region. "Our restaurant hovers around the idea where we encourage sharing of food and promote it as a family-friendly restaurant rather than a fine-dining hot spot," he emphasises.
Some of the popular dishes are the 'Lamb and leek bouillon' with minty mascarpone wherein the small meat pieces are dipped in a tangy soup. This is served with a portion of pita bread or herbed foccacia.
The 'mix mezze platter', which is popular with the expats, comes with a mix of hummus, muhamara, stuffed vine leaves, spiced labneh, tabouleh and hindbeh.
The oven-baked salmon with cilantro and white wine hollandaise and horse gram lentil is one where the salmon is just cooked till soft and has a tangy taste to it. The 'oak leaves and brie risotto', mixed with blue cheese is the perfect combination of sweet and spice. For desserts, warm chocolate fallen cake with organic vanilla ice-cream is a good bet.
Talking about the common ingredients that are used in all the dishes Uddipan says, "All the key Mediterranean ingredients are used such as cheese, olive oil, olives, wheat freekeh, various seafood and meats and we also have a varied selection for vegetarians."