Cooking Indian food with a French twist, inspired by grandma's recipes
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Remarkable Living
Cooking Indian food with a French twist, inspired by grandma's recipes
At popular modern Indian restaurant Thevar, chef Manogren Thevar applies the skills he picked upwardly at Guy Savoy and Waku Ghin to put a artistic spin on traditional Indian flavours.
Regular visits to local markets in Singapore inform chef Manogren Thevar's cooking at his eponymous restaurant. (Photo: Threesixzero Productions)
09 Feb 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 16 Aug 2022 10:32AM)
Manogren Murugan Thevar grew up eating Indian food and loving Indian flavours and spices. But he had never cooked Indian cuisine earlier – until he opened his eponymous eating house Thevar in 2018.
The Penang-built-in chef was formally trained in French cuisine and spent his formative years in Michelin-starred restaurants Guy Savoy and Waku Ghin. He had always been fascinated with food from a young historic period, as his parents would ofttimes take the family out to eat.
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"That's how I really barbarous in love with food, specially street food in Penang, where information technology'south a haven of Malay, Indian and Chinese nutrient," Thevar reminisced.
When he was 29, he spent a month travelling effectually India to better appreciate the country's history. That journey and his regular visits to local markets in Singapore now inform his cooking at the restaurant.
"I started my career in French cuisine and I've always wanted to do it with Indian flavours," the chef shared. "In Thevar, we serve modernistic Indian cuisine with French techniques and some flavours from the (Malaysian) peninsula where I come up from. I try to keep the flavours authentic. But the techniques, the way I plate it, I approach it in a modern way."
Thevar wants his restaurant to plug the gap for Indian-style tapas in Singapore, where diners tin enjoy creative dishes such every bit rack of lamb with coriander chutney and fermented greenish chilli, or crispy pork with sambal aioli wrapped in betel foliage, in a relaxed and convivial setting. The eating house also offers Indian-inspired cocktails and fine wines to go with the sharing plates and dishes in the chef's tasting card.
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"I endeavour to proceed it very casual here, where even if you wearable Bermudas or slippers, you can still come and dine-in because my focus is to serve you good food," he said. "I desire a communal dining manner where people can share [the food] and have a skillful time."
As Thevar constantly experiments with new dishes, his grandmother's recipes are never far from his mind. One of his favourites is her rasam, a savoury soup cooked with anchovy sambal and eaten with rice and fried eggs. He wanted to put it on his menu, so he spun a unique version using Irish gaelic oysters topped with rasam vinaigrette and sambal oil.
"Creating dishes is my favourite affair. I can push my boundaries through that and show who I am. Where an artist shows his ideas through paintings, I show myself through the dishes I brand," he said.
Thevar and his team of eight apply a range of techniques to supervene upon boring cooking methods traditionally used in Indian cuisine. The star of the show, withal, are the spices, and Thevar has blended at least 8 dissimilar combinations that form the backbone of the restaurant's menu.
"Indian nutrient is too rich and too heavy in spices and creamy," he explained. "Then what we are trying to practise here is to residual everything. We change the ingredients, but we try to keep the flavours authentic. We've created around 300 to 400 dishes [since the kickoff]."
Even though he is decorated in the kitchen, Thevar would observe the reactions of the restaurant's diners as they ate. "When I serve something to a guest, from their showtime reaction, I'd already know if this is good or not. We tin can see it from their faces and it really brings me a lot of happiness.
"My vision for the restaurant is simple – to melt really skillful food, with good produce, adept flavours, and have happy guests."
Adapted from the series Remarkable Living (Season 3). Sentinel full episodes on CNA, every Sunday at 8.30pm.
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/remarkableliving/where-to-get-modern-indian-food-in-singapore-thevar-252306
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