Even with food, good looks matter

thin man with a gentle face, Chef TR Arun Kumar, the man behind Delhi’s restaurant Zambar, looks out of the window as we sit across the table with a plate of hot medu wadas separating us.

We are sitting in a traditional houseboat, a common sight in the backwaters of Kerala and now a signature motif for all the Zambar outlets in Delhi and Pune. It helps that Arun is from Kerala and that many of his recipes are from his grandmother’s two kitchens in the tiny village of Thiruvvilamla in Kerala.

In a changing India, where palates are evolving, there is a growing appetite for gastronomical adventures and many of us look for a place that can help provide the right ambience for the cuisine on offer. Most designers and restaurant owners say the key elements to a restaurant are the cuisine, the intimacy of the space and the service they can offer to the guests. For restaurant owners, chefs, designers and architects, getting the right “feel” for a restaurant is an unpredictable science. No one really knows what works while designing places to match the cuisine they offer.

Different cuisines present different design challenges. Located in Mumbai’s Palladium Mall, Indigo Deli seems almost like an antithesis to the bright lights outside. A wood and copper feel to the walls and floor helps darken an already dim restaurant. Malini Akerkar, the promoter, says the idea behind the design of Indigo Deli, was to keep it “warm and approachable.” Working out of a restored colonial bungalow, the somewhat grandiose architecture of the parent Indigo restaurant in Colaba had an intimidating price list to match. Says Akerkar, “The intent behind the new delis was to find a larger demographic with more affordable prices. And you needed the kind of design that would fit that brief.” She agrees that the open kitchen and the seemingly underground atmosphere of the establishment help accommodate the variety of a menu which stretches from sandwiches and burgers to raviolis and risottos.

She does, however, stress that a good product remains paramount. “That comes before all else,” explains Akerkar.

Something that Aseem and Fauzia Grover, the couple behind The Big Chill restaurant chain, would agree with easily. While designing the place with a “youngish crowd” in mind, they fell back on the massive Hollywood films poster collection that Fauzia has amassed since childhood. It certainly helps that pastas, lasagnes and Irish cream cheesecakes are offered in the company of  Steve McQueen or Cary Grant.

 “We look at the overall experience,” says Ankur Choksi, who heads the design team at Lotus, a firm of architects who have created several restaurants across the country. “We try and imagine what we can leave the guest with and the ‘touch points’ for our target audience. Of course, much of the design is led by the cuisine being offered to the guests.” Often, the charm of a place lies in the details. In case of Ritu Dalmia’s Café Diva, a fine dining restaurant that serves European cuisine with an emphasis on Italy, Lotus was struggling with the small space and just couldn’t get the lights right. One look at the wine casks and the designers struck upon an idea. They used the motifs seen on the labels of the wine casks as prints on the lamp shades. These and other food motifs subtly remind diners of the cuisine that is prepared in the kitchen. “We wanted the guests to feel that they are a part of the kitchen,” says Ayesha Kapur, who manages the Café.

And then there are those like the Hakkasan restaurant in Mumbai’s Bandra which comes with a few signature variants. Their speciality is Cantonese cuisine with a contemporary twist and the restaurant’s design blends modernity with an ethnic base. Here, the woodwork is all Chinese. And, as Jeetesh Kaprani, vice president operations of Ka hospitality explains, you can find Chinese embroidery on their sofas.

On occasion, Thai food lends itself to some interesting design aspects. Ritika Mamik, who runs Thai High which is located in Delhi’s historic Mehrauli village, travelled to Thailand to pick up artefacts and statues of Buddha that now decorate the terrace garden that overlooks the Qutub Minar.

“As an architect, I need to get three things right: Density (of the seating arrangement), decibel (of conversations), beat (or the rhythm of the place). You get the three elements right in the perfect measure and you know you have done a good job,” says Rahoul B Singh, who worked on several outlets of the Fres Co restaurant in Delhi.