At The leela, the food and art edition of the CSSG summit was nothing short of an amazing journey with nine world-class, Michelin-starred celebrity chefs who put together their creative best. Navneet Mendiratta reports
Suggest an idea to a creative mind and the results are sure to surprise you. There is no other way to describe the burst of creativity at the CSSG Summit 2013 — food and art edition, held at The leela Palace. So be it the floating buffet of canapés tied to helium balloons suspended at the eye level and surrounded by surreal blue light at the ball room of the hotel or art installations in the adjoining room, there was all evidence that food is the new art at a special evening hosted to showcase the talent at the end of a very fruitful day on October 1.
And these were no mean food installations, but ones that had been created by top chefs that the country boasts of, like Ritu Dalmia, Sabyasachi Gorai, Jatin Mallick, Mickey Boite, Avanti Mathur, Nira Singh and Manish Mahrotra, where each left their creation open to interpretation by the college of art students and hence forming a connect. “One has heard of fashion and art connect and fashion and food connect. This is one of its kind summit that takes us to a different level in the world of gastronomy,” said Anand Kapoor, director of UK-based NGO, the Creative Service Support Group (CSSG), while introducing the third edition of their fund raiser in aid of underprivileged young adults.
So there were talks, dinners, learning and associations spread through the two days of special celebrations post the summit that was held from September 13 to 15. Among the installations, it was chef Saby’s (as Gorai is popularly known as) foodwork, Bheja Fry, that had guests stop for more than just a look. For here was an installation made of completely edible food stuff depicting the frying of the brain in a pan along with four upside down human heads made out of bread dough with sugar work on them. These heads were made to hang in a way that it appeared the brain was falling out of them into four pans on a gas burner. The highlight of the installation, however, was the head of the Chinnamasta (Kali’s headless avatar), which was fully coloured and sitting upright.
“The inspiration comes from my life experiences and childhood memories,” said chef Saby, “Added to those are interpretations drawn from socio-economic scenario suggesting brain drain and at the food level, the Iranian speciality called Bheja fry.” Given that chef was a student of art before he chose his career only ensured he got the forms (even if bade from bread dough) perfect and not caricature like.
Ritu sketched Italian landscape using breads and pastas and Avanti Mathur called her foodwork sweet nothings. But reminding the guests of a creative Khoj-like work was Nira Singh’s Serendipity which turned out to be an amazing play of sound and taste. In four corners of a thela, Singh set up flavours meant to be enjoyed with certain recordings. For instance, there were a bok choy strips meant to be savoured with a special dip as you listened to the sound made by grazing cows. It was as if you were making the sound or crackers to be savoured with a dressing as you heard the traffic wiz past. The noise on the street somehow fit the noise in the head. Chef Manish Mehrotra put together what he does best fusion in pint-sized pressure cookers.
The summit also featured six renowned international chefs, of who four are Michelin-starred — Anjum Anand, Ian Curley, Frances Atkins, Vineet Bhatia, laurie Gear, and Marcello Tully — who spoke on the influence of gastronomy on other creative sectors. On the following day, nine participating chefs held special day long culinary sessions, offering insights into perfecting the art of elite cooking. “Gastronomy is nothing short of art that still has not been awarded its due in India,” said Kapoor who is planning his next edition on art in the coming year. “It’s an endeavour that The leela totally supports,” said Rajiv Kaul, President, The leela Palaces, Hotels & Resorts. “And therefore we were more than happy to co-host some of the events here. The response has been amazing too. We certainly look forward to more of such events,” he said. An interesting coming together of like-minded and the challengers as one would say!