“Have you placed your water order yet?” Water? When did Chennai get so la-di-dah?

Though, to be perfectly honest, ‘On The Rocks,’ the swish new restaurant at the Park Sheraton, is really a world away from everyday Chennai.

Which is nice — after all everyone needs their Neverland.

Clearly, for some, designer water is where it all begins. Throwing caution to the winds, we ask for the water list. After all you only live once, right? And what could be more deliciously reckless than a wild night of water?

Matt, wine-turned-water sommelier at On The Rocks continues, “Well, we have Perrier.” (But of course.) “Evian.” (Which will go delightfully with the fish, no doubt.) “Qua and Himalaya.” Matt pauses dramatically. There’s a reverent hushed silence as we make our choice. After much agonizing soul-searching we pick ‘Regular’ – a cheeky little number that’s delightfully down-to-earth. The French call it Eau-de-Tap. Okay, not really. But they could. It would look so grand on a glossy menu.

On The Rocks is so terribly posh it’s dangerously close to being intimidating. Set in what was once the well-loved, boisterously-swingy, perpetually-packed Gastby disco, and then the much less memorable Provogue Lounge, this restaurant manages to completely reinvent this space, much to it’s designer’s credit. The look is now sophisticated, cosmopolitan and – most admirably – fresh.

With discreet lighting, well-spaced seating and a small but classy wine library, On The Rocks rises a couple of notches above mere swish, by Chennai standards. The suave staff speak in those hushed tones peculiar to cathedrals. The food is beautifully styled, and arrives with appropriate fanfare. Matt, who turns out to be a perfectly friendly Aussie bloke, is on hand to help you pick your wines. He matches our starters with a lush Margaret river cabernet sauvignon. It all feels very ‘Lifestyles of the rich and famous.’

There’s plenty of culinary drama, thanks to Chef Nikhil Nagpal, who tirelessly styles every dish to degrees that would make Victoria Beckham insecure. The food is almost bewilderingly exotic, gathered from all over the world.

We try creamy baked camembert, sweetened with a rich honey reduction and twanging with the gorgeous flavour of roasted garlic. Chef Nagpal’s strength is his decisive pairing of unexpected ingredients, which works best with simple dishes. So the white chocolate squares crusted with rosemary and pepper, and served with paprika cheese are spectacular. But the fussy grilled zucchini muffins with herbed cheese, kalamata olives and English cucumber result in a confusion of textures.

The highlight here are the rocks: Australian lava stones heated to about 400º and then set on your table. Remember meat generally cooks at about 280ºC, so this is seriously hot. This is where the magic begins. The chefs pop raw meat on the stone, and you watch it cook in an astonishing matter of minutes. A prime tenderloin, for instance, begins changing colour in a matter of seconds, is done in six minutes and well done in eight. The meat, sourced from Brazil, is excellent and cooks with nothing more than a thin dusting of salt to prevent it from sticking to the stone. It comes with fancy marinades, ranging from an orange ginger sauce to a Wasabi demi glaze, but really tastes the best plain.

Our meal ends with a pretty almond clafoutis with marinated baked plums, a crunchy crumble and maple cream. There’s also the intensely sweet Vidal ice wine, made from frozen grapes by the Niagra.

The menu changes every two weeks, so be prepared to experiment.

This restaurant will work for you if you like flamboyant culinary capers, daring pairing and unabashed luxury.

It does however teeter on the verge of becoming a refuge for the snooty and jaded with it’s rarified atmosphere, which borders on cold.

Perhaps if they added our local water packets to their Eau De Menu? Hmmm… Don’t hold your breath…

On The Rocks costs about Rs 2000 per head, not including alcohol. Call 24994101 for reservations.

Baked beans on toast. Hardly the heights of fine dining in these days of culinary high jinks, where caviar is handed out with all the nonchalance of popcorn, and death by chocolate is more of a steadfast purpose than a menacing threat.

Yet, in the 1970s, when Spencer Plaza was Chennai’s ‘It’ place, I have it on reliable authority that once of the coolest things to do as a college kid was to stylishly spoon up baked beans on toast.

The ultimate British comfort food? Well, it’s hardly surprising. Wikipedia states that the mall goes right back to British Raj. It was established around 1863-1864 and was really the first departmental store in the Indian subcontinent, comprising India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Hence this quintessentially item, which was
one of many on their bangers-and-mash menu.

Then, in 1983, Spencer Plaza burnt down and had to be rebuilt. Things began to change. By the 1900’s India was accelerating rapidly, and so was good old ‘Spencers.’

Today it’s arguably the best place in the city to take a reasonably tasty culinary journey across a diverse array of cuisines With two bustling food courts and a variety of little stalls and restaurants boasting everything from coconut water to fresh waffles, you can travel from starter to dessert in fifteen minutes – depending on how
fast you vaccume it all up of course. Just don’t go there on the weekend when the all the city’s languid and lethargic people seem to converge into one aimless, amorous mass, which then proceeds to conquer every corridor, lift and store.

On other days Kolkata Chaat’s really the place to be if you like the whole elbow-to-jowl brand of socialising that’s rampant in these kind of joints. It helps that many swear this place makes the best pani puri in the city: crisp outside and deliciously mushy inside, accompanied with a burst of cold, tangy tamarind-spiked pani puri
juice.

Then there’s the ever-popular Thattukada, which already has die hard fans despite being a relatively recent addition, thanks to it’s peppery chicken roast ‘porizha Kozhi’ served with soft chapattis, If you’re feeling more indulgent try the scalding chicken curry that arrived with their signature Kerala parottas, which are simultaneous crisp, flaky and fluffy.

However, what really seems to be grabbing attention now is Su Wai, which is a surprisingly authentic Thai place, set in the midst of the babel, chicken biriyani and filter coffees of the Akshaya Food court in Phase one. Run by a Thai family, the food is cooked and supervised by the owners who are also on hand to serve and explain the food.

We try the aromatic green curry, paired with a astonishingly fragrant pineapple fried rice. The highlight however was the basil chicken, deliciously succulent and laced with the powerful flavour of bright basil leaves. The pad Thai was less endearing, since the ingredients here don’t really pop with that enthusiastic freshness that
characterises most Thai food. However, considering it operates from a tiny kitchen, Su Wai really is quite a remarkable little place. The menu’s reasonably extensive, featuring all the favourites: Vegetables in garlic sauce. Drunken noodles and the intense Tom Kha, bouncing with lemon grass.

The best part? It’s in a food court. So you can pair it with combinations that will make food connoisseurs go white with horror.

Some Ponnuswami chicken 65 for instance. Or maybe a curd rice from Sarvanna Bhavan? 

We’re relatively boring. We go for the Brain Stimulator juice, to deal with some issues of absent-mindedness, and a vitamin C enriched drink. 

I wonder what the new age equivalent for baked beans on toast would be anyway? Organic lima on whole-wheat bread served with a dash of salmon roe? And if it’s Spencer, it will probably come with a liberal helping of masala chaat and sweet-and-sour ketchup.

Globalisation can be quite fascinating. Especially when it plays out in a crowded foodie mall.

It all began with Louis Vuitton. There’s an urban myth that luxury luggage coyly rubs shoulders with pirated copies of “Slumdog Millionaire” at Burma Bazaar. Talk about smugglers with posh taste! You can just imagine them cheerfully packing kilos of gleaming IPhones, handfuls of electric razors and squishy packets of Tang in the latest Chanel tote, before stylishly pouting their way through Customs.

Which, of course, makes a great story. And that’s how a colleague and I found ourselves wandering down Burma Bazaar, having Oscar nominated movies shoved in our faces. (These guys are with it!) We eventually gave up on Dior and Co. Turns out they’re as hard to spot as the Lochness monster. Tougher really. At least Scotland isn’t awash with virulently coloured, disconcertingly shiny, flamboyantly labelled fake monsters.

So we ended up at a quirky little junction, opposite Burma Bazaar, flanked by Burmese food, a stall selling plump strawberries by lantern light and a restaurant that was titled — to our delight — ‘Zum Zum’ in flaming orange. Unfortunately, the watchman wouldn’t let us in. Apparently there was a swinging party in progress and they wouldn’t countenance gatecrashers. Even if we had come bearing fake Dolce & Gabbana.

And that is how we discovered Hotel Sri Nataraj next door and bread masala dosa.

Everyone who’s whining about Chennai becoming just another colourless, slick, hip global city really should dive into its more individualistic corners. They’re simply magnificent. Like many Chennaiites of my generation, dosas necessarily come from the Saravana Bhavans, Sangeethas and Vasantha Bhavans. Unless we’re being brats and eating them at the Taj.

At Nataraj the waiters are dressed in a delightfully lurid pink that conjured up images of tall glasses of overly sweet rose milk. (You have got to love a restaurant that has the courage to think pink to that degree.) They’re proud of their bread masala dosa here, which our waiter succinctly explains to us is “Bread. Masala. With dosa.” It turns up golden, crisp and ghee-laden, accompanied with startlingly tasty chunks of bread that have been enthusiastically fried and then determinedly overwhelmed with masala.

Don’t you love the way we manage to appropriate even the most British of foods? In fact bread, seen as food for invalids by traditionalists for the longest time, still manages to find its way to the breakfast table in the most unexpected avatars. I’m not talking French toast, garlic bread or bagels. Desi bread’s far less la-di-dah.

There’s the bread dosa, served with either old-fashioned chutney or a dribble of gleaming honey. It’s made by soaking day old bread and then grinding it with rice flour, sooji, curd and salt. Then adding spices like chilly powder, mustard and curry leaves to zing up the batter.

I’ve even heard of dosa-coated bread, which sounds rather iffy. But then I guess you can’t really knock it till you try it. This involves mixing chopped onions, green chillies and coriander leaves with dosa batter. Then you dip slices of bread into it and cook them individually on a tawa.

But one of the most unusual is probably what Lonely Planet calls a Benares butter sponge dosa, covered with little pieces of fried bread. The accompanying picture is determinedly traditional: a well-perforated dosa covered with cubes of deep brown bread, accompanied by steel spoons, plastic plates and little bowls of chutney. All set off with a tablecloth that looks suspiciously like a sari or dupatta. Of course travel experts deliberately hunt down exotica. But then, in the more robust, matter-of-fact, everyday parts of the city, the unusual happens everyday.

Besides, you can’t deny it’s rather charming to eat a dosa that’s three times the size of your face and then bump into a ‘Hogo’ Boss bag at the shop next door. Imagine what a great conversation piece it will make at your next swish party in Paris!