Conjuring up an Indian summer in February LUNCH FOR TWO £ 160
KUTIR 8/ 10
the likewise starred Vineet Bhatia, is not exactly a hut, but rather an elegant town house made over in a palette of jewel colours starring some sumptuous wallpaper by Cole & Son; the whole effect calling to mind a mini Rajasthani palace. However it turns out that, according to Ghai, “Kutir is inspired by Abhi’s and my early careers in luxury heritage hotels within wildlife sanctuaries across India.”
The set lunch looked to be good value – £20 for two courses and £25 for three – and I would happily have or- dered prawns masala, truffle and khichadi kedgeree and steamed raspberry yogurt with honeycomb and rosemary. However, it turned out Lucy was nursing a fairly fresh root-canal and, having glanced at the à la carte, was now distracting herself with the “Expeditions” tasting menu, subdivided into “Signature” (£65 for seven dishes) s) “Vegetarian Signature” ” (£60, ditto) and “Hunter’s” ” (£55, five dishes), and eye- ing up the wine list. Who o was I to deny her some fulllblown culinary anaestheesia, especially on a Friday? y? The restaurant kindly y helped things along by seelecting a spa-style le soundtrack of ambient nt twiddling.
We opted for the gameeinspired “Hunter’s”, byy passing the suggested £40 wine flight in favour of a couple of glasses of Doomaine St Hilaire chardon- n- nay. Service was pitched right at the point where hovery-stuffy meets casually-laid-back, i.e. pretty much exactly where most of us, whether in St Leonards-on-sea or Chel-sea, would want service to be at lunchtime on a Friday.
I didn’t always catch the speedily delivered descriptions of each dish: so do bear with me while I make up my own. The quail-egged naan with truffle shavings was a lovely light kick-starter, and while I had to take their word for the tandoori partridge with its beetroot side actually being a partridge, it was a delight.
Same for all the meat, really: while the venison was easy to identify, the duck in the korma and the guinea fowl in the biryani were less so; however, the joy of top-notch Indian cooking is that the total flavour-equation adds up to more than the sum of its parts. Note, too, this was very much the menu choice for committed carnivores, and even they might appreciate something other than carb-heavy sides of naan, chapatis and rice: our only veg dish was a fine daal.
As Lucy downed another glass of wine and cleared up an intense-looking chocolate dessert with deep fried banana-bites, I lost myself in one of the greatest puddings I’ve ever had: a stunning-looking, refreshing and delicate falooda rabri – a creamy pud-drink made with vermicelli noodles, cream, sugar, nuts, and cardamom and presented in knickerbocker glory-style layers. This blissfully Nirvana-nudging dessert that has stayed with me. Our lunch came in at a not-to-besn sniffed-at £163, which is e exactly what Lucy had paid the previous night for dinner at a north London restaurant we’d both enjo joyed previously. “This was far better – and better value. I love it. Can we co come back?” Yes – for the se set menu; I only spend 80 quid on lunch for the benefi efit of my reader. If you pa paid 80 quid a head at Cinna namon Spice, you’d probabl bly end up owning it.