Telephone: 020-7225 1881
Address: 10 Lincoln Street, London SW3
Rating: 18/20
I still salivate when I call to mind the sublime lamb biryani that Vineet Bhatia served in Zaika, oh, five years ago. It was a dish that lives in the memory for its subtlety, for its sophistication, for its downright mouthwatering, 22-carat gold edibility. As you know, I am not much of an expert when it comes to the cooking of the Indian subcontinent, but I can recognise tiptop talent when I come across it in whatever guise. While eating that biryani, I knew, just knew, that here was a tip-tiptop kitchen whizz at work. It was something about the airy spicing, the dry and moist lamb, the sweetness of each mouthful, the cleverness of a double cooking method, that made me realise that the sun shone, the birds sang and God was in his heaven after all.
Anyway, here we were now, Tucker and I, seated in Rasoi Vineet Bhatia, just off King's Road, where the blessed Vineet has set up shop under his own name, with his own capital and the support of his wife. I have happy memories of this particular site - in former times it was known as the House, where Graham Garrett, a protege of Richard Corrigan, cooked terrific Euro/Brit dishes while Thierry Taliban commanded the front of house with cheery authority. Actually, to tell you the truth, while there are a few Indian artefacts on the walls of the dining room and a new lick of paint here and there, the layout is still very much that of the old House and is none the worse for that. It remains a neighbourhood restaurant of considerable charm. Or, rather, it is a neighbourhood restaurant in terms of size and manners, but the cooking propels it into an altogether different class.
Tucker and I studied the à la carte menu for some minutes in silence, weighing up a medley of samosas (coconut, curry leaf and asparagus; spinach and raisin; shitake mushroom and peanut) against assorted scallops (spice-crusted; chilli and sesame; onion seed) and the likes of spice-smoked tandoori rump of lamb, masala mashed potatoes, crispy asparagus and creamy black lentil sauce, before tossing in the towel and opting for the gourmand menu. That is, nine courses that began with grilled crusted scallop with chilli mash and ended with marbled chocolate, chenna and roasted almond samosa with Indian tea ice cream. In between came such dishes as: grilled lobster, curry leaf and broccoli khichdi, spiced lobster juice, dried broccoli florets, sour spices and cocoa; asparagus, mustard and curry leaf ice cream with tomato-ginger juice; and lamb and morel korma laced with truffle oil, steamed ricecakes and coconut chutney.
As you can see from this selection, Vineet Bhatia's food does not exactly conform to the norms of traditional Indian cookery. Oh, yes, there are khichdis and samosas and biryanis and lassis, the spicing is unmistakably Indian, and it's certainly not Chinese, Italian, French or British, but the combinations, the contrasts in textures, flavours and temperatures, and the sheer expressive range of the cooking comes from Bhatia himself.
This is bravura cooking of the very highest order, creative in a wholly and purely individual way. One dish - wild mushroom khichdi, mini papad and makhani ice cream - seemed to sum up the force of Bhatia's cooking. The creamy khichdi had something in common with an Italian risotto. The mini papad was a neat, crisp barrier between the hot khichdi and the cold, intense makhani ice cream. The khichdi proposed a kind of easy-going comfort and the papad released a breath of spice before the rich, creamy tomato base of the ice cream swept all before it. However you tasted it, this was pretty sharp stuff.
Bhatia takes ideas, ingredients and techniques from wherever will serve the purpose of each dish. Half a grilled lobster is dusted with spices and cocoa powder from a muslin bag as it is served, a technique I last came across at the Fat Duck, where cocoa powder is puffed over cauliflower risotto. We may think of mashed potato as Britain's great contribution to vegetable cookery, but perked up with chilli or monstered with masala, it becomes an idiosyncratic element in its own right, the first a heated foil to a sweet scallop, the second a spicy counter to the delicate sourness of the tamarind glaze on a quail.
I could go on. I would like to go on. The dinner had an effortless rhythm. The contrasts within each dish and between each course were as interesting as they were seductive. But there are some other issues to be dealt with. Namely, that this food is not cheap - first courses run between £9 and £16, and main courses between £14 and £34. Then again, I can see no reason why it should be cheap. What we are paying for here is the vision and skill of the chef. In fact, it is better to judge Bhatia's cooking against that of Gordon Ramsay, Tom Aikens and Richard Corrigan than against that of conventional Indian restaurants, and by the standards of those masters, Vineet Bhatia must be seen to be at least their equal.
· Open: Lunch, Mon-Fri, 12 noon-3pm; dinner, Mon-Sat, 6.30-10.30pm.
Menus: Lunch, £19 for two courses, £24 for three; Rasoi Gourmand, £65 for nine courses.
