Everybody's Meeting at the Tratts!

For close to two decades now, the Trattoria at Hotel Taj President has been not only Bombay�s favourite Italian eatery, but also the hot hangout for most people. The catchword is: "Let�s meet at the Tratts!" discovers MARK MANUEL

I HAVE not been to Italy. Not eaten at any of the sunny roadside trattorias with their colourful sunshades and pink-checkered tablecloths that I see in food and wine magazines and Fellini films. Friendly moustachioed waiters holding aloft Mozzarella pizzas and bearing bottles of Valpolicella. The rich, sour smell of Parmesan probably overpowering that of Italy's 49 other cheeses. Salami and parma ham to choose from among the cold meats. Splashes of vivid red provided by pomodoro tomatoes dried in the Mediterranean sun., and green yielded by the olives. Espresso and Cappuccino on tap. Lucciano Pavarotti floating out from the barista's radiogram.

And I don't think I will miss this experience for another quarter century either. Because most Sundays I am in Bombay, I spend at the Trattoria in Hotel Taj President over brunch. I'll admit it cannot be the same as being in Italy; but this is the closest I can come to wining and dining at an Italian trattoria and still have the comfort of losing myself in the local Sunday papers. Of this I am fairly certain. Especially since the tables before and aft me are often occupied by expat Italians dressed in their cool Sunday cottons and probably wishing somebody would break into an aria. Besides, I meet friends often for dinner during the week; and when the choice of the restaurant is left to them, they always say: "Let's meet at the Tratts!" So I am familiar with trattoria food.

Sunday brunch is a leisure affair. I tend to linger over it more if I get a table by the window and can watch the Cuffe Parade traffic outside. The scene must not be like anything in Rome or Milan where pretty signorinas ride Honda mopeds, because none of the Italians rush for the window tables at Trattoria. So I can safely assume it is the food that brings them there. And the food at Trattoria I have it on the authority of Chef Giovanni Leopardi, who they worship like a Pope in Rome, resembles that of an upmarket fine dining restaurant in Italy as well as a roadside trattoria. It is the cooking of Rome, which is the centre of all food in Italy, with the seafood influences of Capri and Naples in the South and the brown-based meats and cheese dishes of Florence and Naples in the North.

Chef Sheroy Kermani at the Trattoria, who has twice been to Italy to train at the popular Meo Patacca restaurant in Rome, tells me that the food here is extremely suited to the Indian palate. "It is tomato-based and spicy, with lots of peperoncino chilli," he explains. Peperoncino are small, fiery-hot, red chilli peppers that Italian chefs of the world add to practically everything from eggs and meats to vegetables. Bottles of 'olio santo', holy oil made by infusing olive oil with chopped peperoncino, are placed on the table for drizzling on the food. And the food is al-dente, cooked not too soft so as to be firm to the bite. "Italians have their food al-dente only," Chef Sheroy says. "It is eight minutes al-dente, that is the way they eat. We don't add too much sauce nor extra cheese. They like to get the flavours of the pastas and pizzas when they eat. And at Trattoria, they freak on the food." So there you are, you cannot get more proof of the food's authenticity than its Italian takers.

In its 21-year history, this is the third avatar of the Trattoria that I am seeing. The old Trattoria that was opened in 1980 was an Italian theme coffee shop that also served Continental food. That is the best way that I can describe it. In 1990, shortly after he joined the Taj President as executive chef, Ananda Solomon gave the Trattoria's menu a much-needed facelift. He made the food 80 per cent Italian and kept 20 per cent Continental. "What to do," he tells me of the 20 per cent bit, "these were popular dishes on the old menu and Trattoria regulars kept asking for them. I used to receive ten comment cards about this every day."

Ananda should know. The Trattoria has an incredible client base of at least 25,000. He recognises a good 40 per cent of them. "I don't know their names," Ananda says, "but I know their tastes, what they eat and don't eat." Then some time last year, the Trattoria was moved out of the hotel lobby and temporarily taken to the poolside. There, to diehard patrons' dismay, it operated from the premises of the defunct Mexican restaurant. But this was to facilitate the final change downstairs. For close to a year, behind wooden partitions, workmen toiled day and night to give the restaurant a new look. And finally in January this year, Ananda flung open the doors to reveal the new face of Trattoria.