There is this zing thing around the month of February that stokes your passion for everything indulgent. The weather is just right, love is in the air and food sits beautifully on your taste buds. All you need is an enhanced setting to spend an evening of joy with a platter to cap it all up by the time you reach the mid of the month.
Thankfully, there is Sevilla at The Claridges, the romantic oasis on a green stretch in the heart of central Delhi, to take care of your good-food good-life quotient. Just a lamb taco may not be enough to find the way to your heart through the stomach but when you are biting into its juicy, flavourful confines under a gazebo in the shade of an old banyan, with flame fired heaters warming your cockles next to live Russian girl duo band giving melody an old world charm, definitely it must have been love but is thankfully not over yet, at least till the 15th of this month!
The eight-course Mediterranean meal curated by the young chef duo from Spain, Maria Adrover and Rafael Barrientos, visiting India to breathe in the desi flavours and yet belt out souffle light, aromatic, tongue tingling variables from the Spanish platter, is a revelation on how food can be good without the spices too.
The shaven olive dust dotting the Lamb Bonbon, the cream cheese droplets on the amazingly innovative Compressed Eggplant, the out of the world carrot cake soup candied with walnuts, rum raisins and crispy duck flakes and a clear Gazpacho Consomme shot under a bruchetta do well to seduce your mindset and taste buds out of the mirchi haldi wallah desi platter.
The flavours are uniquely appealing. The juices flow into your mouth without overwhelming you. The texture gives smoothness a tall identity. And the presentation is a work of art. Under the gazebo, with a warm toddy paired with the solids on a dry pre-election night, you couldn’t have asked for more.
But first about the amazing Compressed Eggplant. The ever-smiling food enthusiast chef Vivek Rana leads you through the overnight compression that the good old baingan goes through at a constant 37-degree temperature to come out not as eggplant in taste or demeanour but as juicy crunchy logs of, say, pickled carrot. Savoured with flavoured cream cheese and corn dust, it comes as an expansionist veggie religion with potential to uniformly convert all brinjal haters into twirling their tongues in awe and saying ‘we are unabashed subjects of the baingan world’.
By the time you come to the mains at Sevilla on this lovely evening, Elton John’s candle in the wind has already teamed up with lady in red to give the young Russian violinist a toddy toast. It’s the time when the Chilean Sea Bass comes to you swimming in par seared beetroot and pink pepper sauce. The boneless blob of fish complements the appetisers to make room in your stomach and settle down without any heaviness. It is also seared with flavours all standing out for attention, even as the Mushroom Risotto doused in almond milk and cheese draw you into an indulgence late into the life of this wonderfully coursed meal.
Nuance this with Curry Crumble with Coconut tickled by lemon ganache and frosty coconut ice-cream and the end comes in wonderfully for those lucky few who can make it to Sevilla before the 15th of this month.