Le Meridien, Gurgaon tips its hat to Delhi NCR’s love for Italian fare by firing up the stove in its new restaurant-Bella Cucina.
With the glorious winter sunshine blooming, we decided to celebrate it with a siesta at Le Meridien’s brand new kitchen (#ToastyTuesday anyone?). High ceiling, flamboyant colours, large windows, walls adorned with vintage pictures, and a kitchen right in the middle-the Italian experience seeps in even before you’re seated. As we made ourselves comfortable with some carbs in the form of their bread basket we were over the moon to have discovered one of the best in-house breads in the city! Already finding fans in us, we were served the Mushroom Cappuccino with Porcini Brioche as the start off to our meal.
To say that the drink was splendid would be an understatement, this melange of three types of mushrooms, complete with a cappuccino-style foam, drizzled with shaved olives had a mushroom-hater amongst us asking for seconds. The French bread made with Italian mushrooms complemented this perfectly. As we manoeuvred through their array of salads, Chef Amit Kumar came to our aid and suggested the beautifully plated Compressed Beetroot with Goat Cheese Snow and the Smoked Chicken with Avocado Mousse. The jelly-like beetroot cubes and arugula were topped with goat cheese ‘snow’ to keep things light, giving a new twist to the classic appetiser. High on the jelly factor, the non-vegetarian salad came on a bed of cucumber gel with smoked chicken and avocado cigars on top, while the chicken was herbed just right and the cigars added zing, it was the cucumber gel base that emerged as the underdog here.
We took a break to soak up the sun on their private verandah, where Chef Amit shared with us his unusual journey that lead him to helm a top Italian restaurant in the capital today. He makes no bones about not following through the “unsaid ritual of being passionate about becoming a chef since childhood”. Hailing from Motihari, Bihar, his parents had the classic Indian dream- for their son to go to IIT. However, something else was brewing in fate’s cauldron, and seeing most of his peers miss the IIT mark, Amit chose to pay heed to his lack of academic skills and joined the Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute. It was only then that he realised a front-desk hospitality profile was not his cup of tea and started training as a chef. Since then there’s been no looking back, working with the likes of The Oberoi, Chef Tanveer Kwatra, and Chef Ravitej Nath honed the young chef’s skills, who after two years of groundwork, now runs his own restaurant at 29 years of age.
Returning from that fascinating tale, we had the prawn ravioli waiting for us. Prawn bits inside the pasta with baby tomatoes on the side, doused in bisque foam, the dish was a faultless combination of taste & flair. The foam managed to retain the taste of bisque rather than simply serving a decorative purpose as what most places serve these days, the tomatoes were succulent and flavoursome, and the prawn was fresh-as-can-be. This was followed by a portion of the Fresh Local Fish with Olive Caper Sauce and Creamy Spinach and the Chicken Parmigiana with Tomato Capellini. While the caper+fish did its magic, the spinach sauce lent an extra zest; the chicken cut easily through the layers of cheese and sauce without crumbling-it was tie between the two quintessential dishes for the winner spot!
We were bursting at the seams by now with all that deliciousness, but as they say, there’s always room for dessert. Once again acing the plating game we had Classical Tiramisu and the 8 Layer Chocolate Cake tempting us to dig in. The tiramisu was a stellar white, fluffy mouse with a chocolate-espresso center, and the cake was a rendition of Peter Gilmore’s 8 layer cake, of Masterchef Australia fame. The divine cake was a sublime concoction of chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, milk chocolate praline, chocolate ganache, chocolate hazelnut dacquoise, chocolate caramel cream, dark chocolate disc, and hot chocolate sauce-we have to admit, we were sold on this even before taking the first bite, and the cake proved to be the stuff that dreams are made of!
With that flawless finish to a terrific lunch, we thanked Chef Amit for curating a top-notch menu and put our napkins down, knowing we’ll be back again soon. This ‘lovely kitchen’ (Bella Cucina) promises to be an exciting new chapter in the capital’s affair with Italian cuisine.
Reserve your spot by calling on 0124-4992000, and head to Le Meridien, Sector 26, M. G. Road, Gurgaon. Enjoy your meal and lose weight equivalent to Rs. 4,000 for two.
