There�s A New Mediterranean
In Town!

One of these evenings, drive up Pali Hill and sit under a starlit sky and eat what they describe as New Mediterranean food. It's a large but still select menu, not overpowering, pizzas and pastas; white salmon grilled in balsamic vinaigrette; feta and parmesan and harisa cream; garlic braised broccoli and almond pate; and everything done in extra virgin olive oil.

ONE fact that food people have to face in the new year is that a daring new breed of young restaurateurs has hijacked the trade from the hands of the fancy five-star hoteliers. Though several new or renovated restaurants have come up in the lobbies of the five-starrers during last year, the trend is definitely towards the independent streetside restaurants offering a comfortable formula of ambience and food. Rahul Akerkar, A. D. Singh, now Henry Tham, they belong to this new breed. Watch them go!

While Akerkar is the ultimate culinary artiste, A.D. is the happy entrepreneur. Together they ran Just Desserts, for a few brief months breathing life into Flora Fountain after 9 p.m. Then Akerkar went on to Under The Over and Indigo, A.D. to Copacabana, Soul Curry, Soul Fry, the Sports Bar at Chinchpokli, and Olive Bar & Kitchen. Tham Junior is burrowing deep into the old Mandarin at Apollo Bunder, almost doubling its size and food potentials. Await opening.

But what is opened right now is Olive (by the youngish quintet of A.D. Singh, the singer Sagarika, Martin D'Costa, Anupam Mayekar and Henry Tham) and this piece is about it. One of these evenings, drive up Pali Hill and sit under a starlit sky and eat what they describe as New Mediterranean food.

It's a large but still select menu, not overpowering, pizzas and pastas; white salmon grilled in balsamic vinaigrette; feta and parmesan and harisa cream; garlic braised broccoli and almond pate; and everything done in extra virgin olive oil. You would say that's Italian - it is. But it is also Greek, South of France, Spain, definitely Morocco, some Lebanese, and Turkish food is on the way, I am waiting for it. You go to Istanbul and sit in the Taxim Park Square and breath the Turkish food displayed in the restaurants around you.

At Olive Bar & Kitchen (kitchen has so much more evocative connotation than restaurant, or even restobar) also you can breath in the food. Mostly dry cheeses, but also a lot of seafood, calamari, oysters, lobsters, and olives, fruit and oil, couscous, the brown Italian rice, chocolate sauce. The kitchen scents should always dominate a restaurant, not be concealed from the customers. And the chef should make himself visible every 30 minutes.

Dev Malik is the chef here, a young face, earnest eyes peering from below the chef's toque and behind steel-rimmed glasses. Part of the place is glass enclosed, air-conditioned, part open to the skies. I prefer the open side. The bar is in one corner, also half open, half closed. Candles and lanterns brighten the place, and soft sea winds climbing up the hill keep it cool. The last time I was there, it had not yet opened for lunch, but I understand it now is.

The sea is a couple of minutes down the hill, you may feel it, not see it. The menu has style, and is a little unusual, not too much. Not fine dining, more comfortable and relaxed. The nice part is that it is not fusion, which is neither here nor there nor anywhere.

There are two soups and two salads, one of them, a Flame-Grilled Lobster with Mesclun Leaves and Asparagus Tips tossed in a sun-dried Tomato Remoulade. I am a soup man, and at the Olive, so far, I have been �eating� my soup, a Catalan Seafood Stew that you have to chomp through before tilting it over and drinking the broth.

It is a fish broth, and many fishes have gone to make it: on any given day I have had clams, squid, shrimps, prawns, white salmon, red snapper, occasionally tuna, and the broth is treated with white wine, parsley, peppers, tomatoes, olive oil, and finished with a little cream. The proximity of the Danda fish market must be helping. It tastes like bouilabasse with a saffron heart and soul.

With the soup I ask for the Balsamic Sizzle. This is the Italian foccacia bread that you soak in the specially treated extra virgin olive oil and bite into as it dribbles down your chin and shirt. Yes, the oil has been treated with white wine, vinegar, garlic, onions, lots of basil, parsley. It comes sizzling hot on the table, though it tastes nice and buttery as it cools down.

I can sit at the bar, which is kept sensibly separate from the restaurant (sorry, kitchen), have my white wine Spritzer and make my meal exclusively out of the balsamic sizzle. I think it is the most Italian dish in the world, more than pizza, pasta, the brown rice.

Another appetiser, which has its relations nearer home, is the Prune and Olive Kebab. It is what it claims to be and is said to have originated from Turkey (they call it kaboob). It is vegetarian, or for the vegetarians, chopped prunes and olives, spiced with cumin, turmeric, flavoured with basil, done on an open grill, looks like a seekh kebab. And it is served with a tzatziki sauce, which also we are familiar with, with yoghurt and cucumber and mint. Sells a lot in the bar, but also with dinner.

Dinner is the best time to be there. Advance booking, week days and weekends, is advised. The ambience cannot be better, al fresco dining, candles and old-fashioned lanterns, friendly waiters trying to please, and the presence of two or three film stars, suburbia cool. To reach the place, you go down Turner Road, turn right at Otter's Club to Carter Road, past the Rajesh Khanna bungalow landmark, and take the first turn right before Khar Danda, climb up to the top and there is Olive.

I suggest you begin your dinner with the seafood soup and the black pepper corn calamari. The squid would have already been marinated with coarsely ground peppercorn, rock salt and freshly squeezed lemon juice. It is served on a pan with unsalted white butter and a sweet marinar sauce to offset the sharpness of the pepper. A special touch with the Olive Calamari is the lobster butter that is drizzled on it when it is ready. Then you may move on to a house pasta or a pizza made on a thin and crisp olive fresh dough base. There is a Salad Pizza, nice and summery, which is new in concept and execution. Unfortunately, I am not a pizza man, I find them too dry and bready. I prefer an omelette with pizza toppings.

If you are still hungry, go for a chicken entree. The Grilled Chicken Eespetda is said to be ethnic Portuguese, done on skewers that are tall hooks, prepared in a feta cheese pesto marinade, with Moroccan couscous. You break a chicken piece off the hook, like a fruit off a tree, and eat it. Pick a piece well burnt on the sides, they are all juicy inside. Or ask for half a roast chicken, wrapped in bacon. The meat is done in mustard and rosemary, a touch of honey, and yoghurt with garlic. The chicken's leg, before being wrapped in bacon, is stuffed with scaramoza cheese, roast corn and wild mushroom sauce.

What else? The oysters come daily from Tiruchirapalli and are served in olive oil, a little red vine vinegar, with finely chopped orange rind, served broiled in caper butter, or raw on crushed ice. Amazing, a couple of years back there was nobody serving oysters in Bombay, now there are so many, and all of the best quality. And risotta, the rice from Italy. At Olive they use the arboria, the one with the shorter grain.

And they make it nice and glutinous, obviously they have got a guy in the kitchen who knows how to make his risotta Italia. And the lovely desserts that take you back to Parisian Dairy and Just Desserts at mid-night. Try the Dark Secret, it is a chocolate mousse, a combination of bitter and sweet chocolate, and something that is known in the trade as vienna stockings, and marschino cherries. People also talk about the baklava here. On day two of the opening, it became popular here. Plus, there is the bar, but I am still discovering it. Three more visits.