If you are the one who does ample online research about the menu, ambience and prices before heading into a new eatery, then you are the perfect candidate for Jahan Bloch and Ronak Nanda. As co-founders of 425 Omakase, a new pop-up in town, they want customers to surrender to them.
Jahan Bloch and Ronak Nanda
If you are the kind who does ample online research about the menu, the ambience and — most importantly — the prices before heading into a new eatery, then you are the perfect candidate for Jahan Bloch and Ronak Nanda. As co-founders of a new pop-up in town, Bloch (28) and Nanda (29) want customers to surrender to them. Their six-month-old pop-up is called 425 Omakase, meaning, ‘what the chef wishes to serve.’
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When we meet Bloch and Nanda on Saturday for lunch at the former’s Versova apartment, we have no clue what’s on the menu.
“There are several pop-ups and watering holes in the city where people go to in order to have a good time, but there are not enough places where you can pause and savour food,” says Nanda, trained at Le Cordon Bleu, San Francisco. Having worked in kitchens in San Francisco, such as that of French minimalist, Atelier Crenn, Nanda believes in seasonal produce and highlighting technique. There is also the element of surprise.
“We hope to start a culture in Mumbai that is not about knowing everything on the menu,” says Bloch, adding, “Unless the chef runs the restaurant, most of them will tell you that the menu is compromised by the restaurant owners and trends. Here, we have the liberty of creating fresh menus every time across global cuisines.”
Since inception, 425 Omakase has done three pop-ups, two Japanese and one with world cuisine at Flavour Diaries (Khar West) and Magazine Street Kitchen (Byculla).
If all of this makes 425 Omakase sound like the chefs are king, and not the customer, then here’s our experience of the five-course meal that Nanda and Bloch served us:
Rye sourdough bread and nori house-cultured butter
The 425 Omakase's take on bread and butter was pretty straightforward. Bloch is a self-taught baker and dessert chef and she presents the starter — a slice of sourdough bread that she has baked. With a snappy crust, the spongy bread is accompanied by butter sprinkled with nori (dried seaweed) crumbs.
Scallop ceviche with wine reduction, apples, pears and fennel
“Our lunch today is inspired by nouvelle French cuisine. We haven’t beta-tested any of these dishes,” says Bloch. Known for its delicate flavours and emphasis on presentation, the scallop ceviche makes for a pretty social media post, and delivers on the taste too. However, while we are unabashed non-vegetarians, what about customers who will squirm at the sight of raw shellfish? “Before we host a pop-up, we get a general idea of preferences and also give customers a hint about what to expect. Oh, and we ask them about allergies too,” explains Nanda.
Potato fondue and baby vegetables
Another appetiser, this time vegetarian. You think ‘fondue’, and the Mumbaikar expects a pot with molten cheese and veggies on skewers. The 425 Omakase version has cabbage chips, deep-fried mushrooms and roasted potatoes with a potato fondue sauce over them. Nanda sprinkles a powder over them, which he first calls “pixie dust”; with some cajoling, he says it is mushroom powder. Nanda then jokes, “I have come a long way from being a flight-attendant asking customers, ‘veg’ or ‘non-veg’?”
Fried chicken with cauliflower grits, kale chips, snow peas and a pepper medley
The main course had chicken cooked twice — sous vide and then deep fried. Nanda and Bloch hope to serve people as many as seven courses and Nanda takes the example of Benu in San Francisco, which serves 21-course meals. “The portions are small and there are multiple courses,” he says. However, snow peas, like scallops, are not seasonal produce surely. Unless you are keenly interested in sustainable farming, fresh and yum produce should be alright.
Vegetable garden
Here, we think, is where 425 Omakase was best highlighted. A deliberate use of several vegetables made for an absolutely smashing dessert, conceptualised by Bloch. Carrot coral, caramelised pumpkin sauce, pea ice cream, beetroot merignue, ube (bubble yam) and nut granola came together for a dessert made for a stylish end to the meal, where every aspect of the dish — the carrot coral made using a whipping siphon and the dainty meringue peaks embellished with shiny crystals of beetroot juice — were meticulously attended to, in a way only the best of poets can. “Vegetables in desserts are common in India, like carrot halwa. I wanted to take the concept ahead,” says Bloch.
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