Food

At Avartana, drumsticks — wrapped in a crunchy gram flour coat — look like they hopped off the Met Gala red carpet. Buttermilk — spiked with pepper, jaggery, beans, asparagus and toasted almonds — resembles an embroidered sari with pink-yellow petals and green leaves. The award-winning restaurant, launched in Chennai in 2017, is known for its progressive South Indian cuisine. The food is avant-garde, poised on technique, and marries surprising combinations. Loyalists are familiar with the menus available. Now, the team of chefs has added an inventive new collection of recipes to the roster. But you cannot just walk in…

What could possibly be common between a dentist, a chartered accountant and an IT professional? Superficially, nothing much. But Abraham Mathew, Antony Jose and Sreejith M are bound by a passion for food that they quit their careers and turned restaurateurs, setting up three of Kochi’s popular, specialty restaurants. Abraham confesses he has not worked as a dentist for too long. He worked in Chennai briefly before returning home in 2015-16, to Irinjalakuda, to join his family’s medical practice where he worked for a while before making the detour. “I come from a family of doctors, and I also went down the…

Bunuma Patgiri | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT The Leela Palace Chennai presents the seventh edition of Shefs at The Leela in collaboration with ‘Dean With Us’ — the mother-daughter duo of Rupali and Akanksha Dean. The event honours the transformative role of Indian women chefs who are shaping the future of gastronomy. After past editions hosted across Bengaluru, Gurugram, Chennai, and Jaipur, the seventh edition in Chennai will bring together four women chefs — Sambhavi Joshi, Taiyaba Ali, Sehaj Ghuman and Bunuma Patgiri, who will bring their years of expertise into curating a menu that speaks both of their work…