Mediterranean Magic at St. Regis

When the chefs at SoBo's 5-star decided on serving the Levant and the Middle East on a platter, an innovative array was the result. UpperCrust goes eating out and gives Sette Mara at The St. Regis Mumbai a thumbs-up

Text: Dr Nishant Kumar
 
It's a treat for all gourmands when a reputed institution known for its food, with great chefs, ventures into a cuisine that is under-represented and much-needed in the city.
Sette Mara checks all the above boxes. After tempting us with, and serving, great Italian, Chinese, Indian and Japanese cuisine, St. Regis Mumbai - under Executive Chef Paul Kinny and culinary lead for Sette Mara, Chef Reuben Bhate - has opened its doors for patrons to experiment and enjoy a gastronomic journey through the Levant and Middle East. Exploring cuisines from Georgia, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

While I have explored Lebanese restaurants across the globe and cherished great Turkish kebabs and Egyptian and Greek delicacies, my knowledge of food from the Levant and particularly Georgia is limited.

Located on the mezzanine floor above the lobby, Sette Mara has some wonderful views of the city and the vast Arabian Sea, and the décor is warm, inviting and lively. The centrepiece of the restaurant is the bar where patrons can enjoy speciality negronis and a wide selection of wines, spirits and cocktails. This area is great to start the evening with a few drinks, good music and for people-watching and unwinding.

The main dining area, which is just adjacent, is thoughtfully less loud to allow good conversation while yet being able to feel the buzz of the bar area. Colour themes are reminiscent of the spice bazaars of the Middle East. There is an interesting mural area with porcelain plates which I am sure is a ‘selfie' favourite for those who must post their every movement. One dines under a wondrous navigational compass suspended from the ceiling.

Top service is what is expected at a premium luxury hotel property; prompt, polite, attentive but non-invasive. And both, Chef Bhate and Chef Kinny, know what it takes to make a restaurant a favourite. Chef Bhate has trained with some of the best chefs both in India and in the USA, and worked with multiple Michelin- star chefs, and Chef Kinny started his career at the most exalted and celebrated Zodiac Grill at Taj, Bombay. They are enthusiastic and keen to educate diners about the nuances of the cuisine they serve and make them aware of the less-known cuisines of Georgia and the Levant.

The menu is extensive, and like most Middle Eastern eateries there is an array of cold and hot mezzes, salads. There is a Georgia-inspired khachapuri bar, a mangal grill and a range of main courses and desserts from the Levant and the Middle East.

This is a versatile menu for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians with an abundance of choices for both.

We started with an assortment of cold and hot mezzes, the ideal way to enjoy this cuisine. It is advisable to order a number of small plates of the mezze, which are served with warm freshly baked bread. The Classic Hummus and the Roasted Corn and Jalapeno Hummus are a good way to start the meal. The Classic Hummus is smooth with the pureed chickpea and tahini- based dish served with a dash of lemon, olive oil and some fresh paprika. I like my hummus smooth with an almost creamy but firm texture, so this was perfect for me. Some purists prefer to have a coarse texture of the chickpea to give it a 'home-made' feeling but for me, and in the best Lebanese restaurants, it is a smooth texture with enough consistency that it is a bit of effort to drape it onto the pita bread that makes it 'just right'. Sette Mara gets this right. There are a number of variations of the Classic Hummus here. The Corn and Jalapeno Hummus adds the sweetness of the corn and the spice of the jalapeno. Next time, we will try their Hummus bin Dijaj - with minced chicken and pine nuts. My all-time favourite hummus is the hummus with awarma (minced roasted lamb) and pine nuts, and Chef Bhate has promised to put it on the menu.

The Truffle-scented Tirokafteri is whipped Feta with roasted red pepper and truffle. We had not eaten this before and were surprised how light and airy the normally stodgy Feta was in this dish. Tastes great with some wholewheat pita.

This evening, however, our favourite mezze was the muhammarah - a staple Middle Eastern dish made with walnuts, roasted peppers and spices. It is a very simple dish with only a few ingredients but one that is difficult to get right. Overdo the walnuts and it's too bitter, too much spice and the walnuts are overpowered. At Sette Mara, the muhammarah is as good as it gets. Great texture, the right combinations of good quality walnuts, the sweetness of the peppers and just enough spices to transport you to a bustling spice bazaar. A must-try.

In hot mezze, the root vegetable harra sees a twist on the traditional batata harra. Instead of potatoes, the chef uses root vegetables like yam, taro, sweet potato with Aleppo peppers and a red bell pepper tahini. Crunchy and crisp on the outside and mushy on the inside; reminiscent of the triple-fried chips which is found now in most 3-Michelin-starred restaurants. The Levant Seven-spiced Prawn is gently marinated tiger prawns which are grilled and served with an apricot and prune dip. The dip is a wonderful foil for the prawn and quite an unusual one.

In salads, we sampled the Burrata Sette Mara, which is good quality Burrata with hazelnut dukkah (a Middle Eastern condiment made of nuts and spices) and zhough (a hot sauce from Yemen made from peppers), served with pink grapefruit. I liked the hazelnut and Burrata combination and the acidity of the grapefruit and the spice of the zhough balance the creamy Burrata with a good nutty crunch at the end.

I was most excited to try the khachapuri, which I now know is a typical Georgian dish. It's amazing how so many cuisines have a dish which combines cheese and bread in some form; the most known is the pizza, and then across the world there are variations like the Italian calzone, Turkish pide, various flatbreads from across Europe and the old global favourite - grilled cheese toast.

The Georgian khachapuri is typically an 'eye'-shaped dish; I had to bring that in, being an opthalmologist and retinal surgeon who does not usuallly find many things which are eye-shaped. Khachapuri traditionally is bread with raised edges with a central filling of cheese eggs and a variety of other ingredients.We tried the Zhoug and Truffle Oil Khachapuri - a variation that has Halloumi, rocket, roasted baby tomato and cheese with zhough. Just for the novelty and the 'tick box' exercise of trying a Georgian dish, one must try a khachapuri when at Sette Mara.

A mangal grill is a typical Middle Eastern grill and the wonder of a great Turkish or Lebanese kebab is that the meat is the centre of attraction. Almost no marinade, minimal seasoning, just high quality meat, usually lamb, barbecued to perfection. In India we struggle to get such quality lamb meat and most high-end restaurants offer New Zealand lamb for their dishes where the meat is the star of the dish. The next course served was Chicken Adna Kebab - minced chicken skewers served with a variation of labneh was good, but perhaps we should have ordered the New Zealand chops, which looked pretty good on an adjacent table. Yes, I do notice everything!

Another revelation was the Israeli Couscous Risotto with wild mushroom, labneh, sumac and a seed brittle. I am not one to favour anything vegetarian, but this dish was a knockout. Had I not been dining with the editor-in-chief of UpperCrust, Farzana Contractor, there is no way I would have shared even a bite with anyone else. The couscous is such a great substitute to the traditional risotto rice and it soaks up the earthy flavours of the wild mushrooms and there is sweetness from the mushrooms and labneh that coats every grain of the sago-sized couscous - a dish I have never tried before and will not forget in a hurry!

The Falafel-crusted Sea Bass with vegetables and lemon caper butter was a different dish. Combining the falafel with fish was innovative, though I thought the falafel crust overpowered the sea bass and the caper lemon butter was a bit too sharp for the dish.

There is no way to end a good Middle Eastern meal without baklava, and most times the sweet is soaked in sugar syrup and rose water making the fingers all sticky and gooey. Despite one's best efforts, one cannot eat more than a few bites of traditional baklava.

Chef Kinny and his team have recognised that diners want to enjoy baklava without feeling that you had enough sugar for a month in one bite-full. Here, the baklava sticks to the traditional recipe of nuts in a flaky filo pastry but moderates the sweetness so one can actually enjoy the dessert and taste the nuts and feel the crunch of the pastry not drowned in any syrup.

Their pistachio ice-cream is made in-house with toasted pistachios and it is a shame you cannot take a 1-litre pack home after the meal - it is that good.
Sette Mara is a valuable addition to the gastronomic journey of St. Regis, and for the city as well. There are very few places which do good Middle Eastern cuisine and while almost every cloud kitchen and 'multi-speciality' restaurant serves hummus, falafel and kebab, there is a lot more to Middle Eastern cuisine.

Introducing us to Georgian khachapuri, Levant dishes like the Israeli Couscous, the Yemen hot sauce, zhough, re-interpreting classics like the batata harra and refining the classics like the simple hummus, the Middle Eastern grill and yes, the baklava, make Sette Mara a destination worth a visit.

Sette Mara
The St. Regis Mumbai,
462, Senapati Bapat Marg,
Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013
Ph: 022 6162 8000