The more hands the merrier

An exciting collaboration between four chefs from different corners of the world will offer diners in Mumbai unusual takes on seasonal and local ingredients.

Ever since experiential fine-dining restaurant Masque opened its doors in 2016, it has stayed true to its food philosophy of sourcing and foraging the best produce from around the country and experimenting with its form and textures. At any given time in the year, one could expect the kitchen to be stocked with things like unusual edible flowers, seabuckthorn from Ladakh or local cheese and wood fungi from Kashmir. The fact that Masque’s head chef, Prateek Sadhu, did a stint at Copenhagen’s award-winning New-Nordic restaurant Noma probably has something to do with his ingredient-focused approach to food.

The restaurant has also been a space for collaborations with home cooks, cheesemakers, chocolatiers, coffee producers, winemakers and specialist farmers from India and abroad. Next week, the restaurant will open its doors for guests to enjoy yet another edition of their global chef collaborations. The four chefs will present what they are calling an “8 hand dinner" and will feature Sadhu cooking with chefs Ivan Brehm from Singapore, Matt Orlando from Copenhagen and Trevor Moran from Nashville, Tennessee. Each chef comes with his own area of expertise.

(left) Silken cheese at Nouri; and a sea snail dish from Amass. 

Brehm, who has worked in the kitchens of Per Se in New York, Hibiscus and The Fat Duck in London, helms the Michelin-starred Nouri in Singapore, a restaurant which specializes in crossroads cooking, drawing on the intersection between ingredients and cultures across the world. Orlando, an alumnus of Noma and Per Se, is head chef of Amass, Copenhagen, a restaurant that champions sustainable and zero-waste cooking. This will be Orlando’s second stint at Masque, after a three-day pop up with Sadhu in early 2017. American chef Moran put Nashville eatery The Catbird Seat on the global map with his inventive and simple cooking and focus on the best-quality ingredients. He has staged in award-winning restaurants across the world and now, in a complete departure from fine-dining, will soon open a casual format eatery in Nashville that will serve Japanese-style shaved ice, dumplings and beer.

What brings the four chefs together is their creative approach to food and love for local ingredients—and that is what they will present at the curated dinner. “We all share the same philosophy of sustainability and discovery of local ingredients. Each of these chefs, like me, believes in zero waste. Moreover, the ingredients need to be the star of our dishes and staying true to their original flavours and textures will be our focus," says Sadhu.

They will create their menus after a few sourcing trips—they will get their veggies directly from a farm near Pune and travel through Delhi’s local markets to source spices and other winter produce.

The “8 hand dinner" will take place on 22-23 February at Masque, Mumbai. Seats are priced at ₹10,500, plus taxes (without alcohol). For reservations, call 9819069222.