Restaurants which had to shut down for months are now opening cautiously. Since the economy is still down and needs us to spend, we decided to go and ‘help out’, ie enjoy some meals! The Seven Kitchens restaurant at the St Regis is large and well lit, with plenty of private spaces for groups (and hand-holders). Its food services use a large variety of goods and employ people at all levels.
Hence giving them (and others who have similar work) our business seems wise right now. All concerned benefit! Many restaurants are managing without supplies which normally come on time from abroad and even those from local farms are sometimes difficult to get. In spite of these constraints, the St Regis has worked at excellent standards of food and services.
We like buffets because they avoid sulking: all concerned get to choose and no one needs to share! So what does the Seven Kitchens offer? This all-day venue offers European, Oriental, Indian, Japanese and Mediterranean cuisine at live cooking islands. The food, as expected, is good: satisfying Indian dals and pulaos, pizzas and pasta, oriental noodles, sushi, khau sway and plenty of cakes, etc: many egg-free. (India manages to make almost anything vegetarian, including chocolate mousse.)
There is a pancake counter, plenty of ice creams and sorbets and tables full of India’s beloved sev puri, a great pani puri, and street specials. One saw people eat sophisticated sushi, noodles or carefully cooked biryani and then sigh and top up with a few pani puris! A food which unites Indians and whoever was once Indian completely across the world.
Wonderful stories
Indian chefs are legends worldwide and really well respected for their skills and services: We once met one in Alaska and another worked at the world’s northernmost lighthouse. One said: “Parents wanted me to be doctor in a white coat. Well, I am wearing white all right. As a chef”. Recently Vikas Khanna, once severely handicapped himself, touched people across the globe as he fed half a million migrants, coordinating across time zones and continents.
Being an executive chef can be a 24-hour job for s/he is usually responsible for half-a-dozen restaurants, some bars, several hundred room service orders at 7 am for fresh dosas or omelettes done just so, banquets, wedding catering, etc. and if one thing goes awry, people say, ‘Call the chef!’ Those who do this painstaking job love their work and are delighted when we are delighted. Chefs know assorted cuisines, the vagaries of staff, training, supplies, sales, and of course, overall chic and their own je ne sais quoi! Many have wonderful stories of how they started cooking and ended as senior managers.
Chef Paul Kinny, Director of Culinary, at The St Regis Mumbai brings decades of rich culinary experience. He began as a sous chef at the Zodiac Grill and later at excellent restaurants where he won many awards. He launched Sachin Tendulkar’s venue, Impresario Entertainment’s ‘creative and whimsical’ restaurant, and hospitality at IHG and Phoenix Mills. Chef Kinny, more brave and adventurous than us, eats occasionally at street stalls: pau bhaji, fish curry at Bhojanalaya (with its delicious rice bhakri), vada pau …. He was recognised as the Most Admired Chef, 2013, by Star Awards. Here, he directs ‘award-winning vibrant, distinctive F&B’, work which adds flavour and joy!
The St Regis describes Seven Kitchens as having ‘the city’s best dessert spread’. It is wonderfully situated next to a glittering mall, an open air plaza, a theatre and has residences, rooms and a terrace. The legendary John Jacob Astor IV started the first St Regis in New York city a century ago.