There is no paneer on this vegetarian menu. Mumbai’s recently opened Avatara won a Michelin award in Dubai last year for a good reason. Now the world’s first and only vegetarian, Indian and one-Michelin-star restaurant, it finds imaginative ways to use local vegetables that people dislike, overlook or take for granted.
Bitter gourd, for instance, is reimagined in a tikki form with ghee-roast masala. It is paired with a creamy gelato made of mango sambar, served with dosa crisps for a crunch. The humble turnip is presented as a galouti kebab with a creamy curry made from rajma and turnip — a dish which takes inspiration from Kashmir — along with katlam, a flaky, Kashmiri bread.
Karuvelvilas (Bitter Gourd)
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Special Arrangement
Avatara comes from the house of Passion F&B, which includes Dubai-based establishments such as Tresind Studio, Carnival by Tresind, Tresind, Bistro Aamara and A Capella among others. Chef Himanshu Saini and Chef Rahul Rana along with head chef, Mumbai, Sanket Joshi, are eager to bring the unique experience to Indian customers. After all, the restaurant’s 14-course vegetarian degustation menu does not feature any of the regular suspects, including paneer and mushroom. To take it a step further, there is no onion or garlic either.
Intrigued how that is going to pan out? So are we.
Interiors of Avatara, Mumbai
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The two-week-old restaurant awash in white, blue and sea-green, is on the seventh floor of a building in Santa Cruz and while there is no view of the city, there is plenty to admire on your plate.
Our meal begins with a cold beverage — pineapple rasam with curry leaves. The first course, aptly titled Naivedhya, is inspired by the holy offering to the Gods and comes encased in a plate with peacock-themed design. Homemade butter, popping sugar and a bon-bon filled with panchamrit (honey, vanilla, almond milk, rose water and orange zest) acts as an amuse-bouche.
Sandhita
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The Alpahara (which means snacks in Sanskrit) is designed by Avatara Dubai’s Chef Omkar Walve, who won the coveted Michelin Young Chef’s award last year. “I tasked Omkar, who hails from Maharashtra, to showcase a dish inspired by his region and he came up with Alpahara,” Rahul tells us. Crisp air-fried okra is stuffed with chilli thecha and alu wadi. Alu wadi transforms into a mini taco packed with taro leaves and roots. Sol kadi, served on the side, is poured over a green apple shaped like a rose and soaked in kokam.
The next course named Jadon focusses on root vegetables such as yam, beetroot, lotus stems, orange sweet potato, tapioca and purple sweet potato. Thinly-sliced and baked to perfection, they can be dipped into a tangy pomegranate or creamy chickpea mash.
The courses showcase the diversity of India’s regional cuisine. For example, a dish called Shikhalu features charred babycorn served on the base of Rajasthan-inspired missi ghevar, while in Karuvelvilas, bitter gourd is cooked with artichokes. Broccolini and carrots find themselves in a pickle along with a makhani gravy in Sandhita, and jackfruit-stuffed momos are drenched in a fragrant and earthy sea buckthorn and lemongrass thukpa in a dish named Panasa.
Panasa
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Before moving on to the mains, we cleanse our palate with a burst of passion fruit, strawberry and spiced guava water. Rahul says the Mumbai restaurant serves two new signature courses, Shubhanjana and Vrihi, which draw inspiration from the culinary traditions of Bihar and Maharashtra. Inspired by Bihar’s famous litti chokha, Rahul gets creative with a drumstick chokha and sattu kachori. Mumbai being his domain, Sanket shows his culinary prowess with the Kolhapur-inspired vrihi, which combines tambda bhaat (red rice) with a parsnip rassa and black lime pickle. It is the kind of good-spicy and tangy that makes us keep going back.
Ksira (Kheer)
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Of the two desserts ksira (kheer) and madhuram (sweet), it is the latter that impresses. Created by pastry chef Kamlesh Singh, it is a nostalgic take on Uttarakhand’s bal mithai with milk chocolate fudge; its sweetness cut down by the tart buransh-flavoured sparkling homemade wine. Honestly, this could have been the last course without the addition of Parna, a chocolate-coated shell with betel leaf extract which comes perched on an elaborate peacock feather-lined plate.
Bal Mithai
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There’s a lot at Avatara to appreciate, including the stunning plating — a takeaway from Chef Rahul’s pastry chef days — to the use of seemingly-boring vegetables in creative ways paired with unheard-of flavour combinations. Our takeaway — never turn up your nose at the sight of a turnip. It might just surprise you.
A meal for two costs ₹4,500 plus taxes at 7th floor, Krishna Curve building, Opposite Juhu Garden, Santacruz West, Mumbai 400054.