Condé Nast Traveler: In Mumbai and Delhi, finding inspiration in the unapologetic flavors of India’s street food (feat. Unapologetic Foods)
I'd seen images of baby Krishna atop a banyan leaf in pop devotional art posters all over India. Yet it was only on a dusty lane in Jaipur's Old City that I witnessed the leaf of the banyan tree deliver something divine in person. “That's outstanding,” said Chintan Pandya as he tasted a piece of kesar pista makhan—a seemingly simple bar of saffron-tinted butter topped with bits of crushed pistachio—picked off the dried leaf. “No…mind-blowing.” Licking his fingers, America's most acclaimed Indian chef passed the bar to me. “Here, use your hands.”
Everything from Gulab Chand Dairy, from lassis to rabri and shrikhand, had been excellent. This makhan, however, was sublime: at once inexplicably light and visceral, textures and flavors bursting as it melted on the palate. Pandya's cofounder in the Unapologetic Foods restaurant group, Roni Mazumdar, plucked makhan off another leaf. “Unreal,” he said, his eyes half-closed. “I remember having a bite like this as a kid.”
Perhaps inevitably, Pandya's rendition of this makhan would become a staple of the menu at Dhamaka, one of New York's buzziest restaurants. Its deceptive simplicity spoke to the chef, who in recent years has been on a mission to cook only dishes he feels connected to. The nostalgia it evoked appealed to Mazumdar, a restaurateur who trained as an actor at Lee Strasberg Studio, for whom eating is an emotional journey, a story to be told.
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