Poised in Stone: Rooshad Shroff’s 'Balance' Collection Melds Art and Architecture
The form of round river stones playfully stacked on top of each other forms the design language of Rooshad Shroff’s new collection, ‘Balance’. The designer, known for his stone inlay furniture—and who has carved marble lamps and created carnival-spirited window displays for Hermès showrooms—expanded upon the creative inspiration behind a 2021 marble side-table to create a line of furniture and accessories that were unveiled at an exhibition in Mumbai this October. The centrepiece of the show was an ovoid console with a 5 ft by 2 ft green onyx slab resting on an underlay of cast bronze, tantalisingly balanced on an asymmetrical stack of two marble orbs held by a cuboid base. The heavy top pivoted on the small ellipsoid creates a substantial overhang on both sides. The complex simplicity of the 300 kg piece—at once serene yet imbued with intricate structural physics—evokes a meditative zen stillness and a feeling of equipoise. Shroff, however, does not usurp the philosophical interpretations of the remarkable piece; instead, he attributes the inspiration to his interest in cantilevers and suspension architecture. Priced at Rs 25 lakh, this striking piece of collectible design takes about 8 to 10 artisans, four months to craft. In the end, it is quite a balanced worth!
History as Ornament: Prancing Horse Earrings by Sunita Shekhawat
This fascinating story begins in the year 1614 when Mughal emperor Jahangir is gifted a Jacobean painting of a European nobleman by an envoy of the East India Company. Of all the jewels worn by the person in the painting, the emperor’s eye catches a pendant in the shape of a horse—an English thoroughbred with a ‘playful stride’. He wants that. The commissioned piece—a solid gold horse covered in lustrous ivory enamel, set with rubies and diamonds in a Baroque style—is created in Spain. The pendant never reaches the emperor. Passing through various collectors, it arrives at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, the USA, in 2013. Fast forward to 2020. Sunita Shekhawat, a first-generation jeweller from Jodhpur, following her passion to revive and re-establish the lost practices and techniques of Minakari—enamel work jewellery that was introduced in India by the Mughals in the 16th century—sets out to recreate some of the best-known museum pieces of Minakari jewels for her Museum of Minakari Heritage (MOMH), that opened in Jaipur in March 2024. She comes across the ‘Prancing Horse’ and acquires rights to recreate the piece. Five artisans work on the piece for six months—drawing, moulding the form in gold, carving out the striations to fill the glass enamel, repeatedly firing the piece for setting the various hues—to recreate the jewel with ‘Ronde-bosse’, a 14th century French technique that involves three-dimensional coating of enamel all around the figure and selectively revealing the underlying gold as highlights. In June, Shekhawat made an adaptation of the Prancing Horse in the form of a pair of earrings for a private commission. Priced at Rs 14.5 lakh, these are much more than ornaments. It is history prancing around the ear.
A Story on the Platter: Food at Naar restaurant
If you were to take a three-hour flight, then rent a cab and drive for another two hours off the beaten path—off-any kind of path—to reach a spot in the middle of nowhere to have a meal, imagine what that meal would have to be like. In a sylvan quarter on the edge of a pine forest near Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh lies Naar, a 16-cover restaurant, where celebrated chef Prateek Sadhu serves a 15-course degustation menu, with sides of audacity and genius.
Naar—Kashmiri for fire—opened in October 2023 as India’s ‘first’ destination restaurant, “where people travel for a culinary experience” and not just food, in the chef’s words. Far from the trappings of modernist global Indian cuisine—the foie gras kebabs and truffle naans—Sadhu and his team of chefs are taking the road less travelled to develop a micro-cuisine story which he terms as “Himalayan forward”. Elements of regional cuisines of the Himalayas from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh—the traditional recipes and food staples; hyper local produce; grains; and herbs grown or foraged there—are curated and reinterpreted in modernist avatars. Like the flame-crisped Himalayan trout fillet served with a chilli-mustard emulsion over Ladakhi khambir bread. Then there is the pork belly, smoked for eight hours and skewered with tender pine branches on a table grill; each bite of melting meat is tinged with the tart of the pine sap.
Not just the food, but its geography too is served, plated on leaves, bark and even river stones. The solitude of the valley facing the restaurant, and the wafts of pine-scented breeze provide the perfect sensorial calm to unravel and delight in the layering of flavours. Reservations (at Rs 6,500, plus taxes, per person) open a month in advance and fill up in days. This year, Time magazine put Naar in its list of the 100 best places to ‘visit’; very appropriate. To describe it as a ‘best place to eat’ would be to limit it.
Feast Like a King: The silver thaal of Santrampur Estate
The grand plated thaal (XL for thali) is perhaps the finest expression of India’s epicurean luxury and culinary opulence. It is a multi-course meal laid out with all its pairings in a single serving of visual delight. Many eminent designers like Gunjan Gupta and Ayush Kasliwal have interpreted the traditional round plate and its bowls into contemporary expressions of lavishness yet nothing matches the imposing grandeur of the Santrampur Thaal—a mammoth 2-ft broad solid silver moulded plate that comes with its own legs in the shape of lion paws. A recreation of a more than a 100-year-old traditional thaal—used by Maharaja Joravar Singhji of the erstwhile Santrampur State in Mahisagar, Gujarat—the plate has grooves that hold 15 brass bowls of varying sizes for curries, salads and chutneys. In 2019, when Joravar Vilas—the majestic Santrampur palace on the banks of Harsiddhi lake—was converted into a boutique heritage hotel, Mandakini Kumari, the current maharani, decided to recreate the heirloom thaal for the guests to have a “royal dining experience on the table”. The fully hand-carved thaal, shaped like a Rajput palace window arch at the top, comes in both solid silver and silver-plated versions that are now made on order by Code Silver, a Jaipur-based design house. Priced at Rs 5.4 lakh for the silver version and Rs 36,000 for the silver-plated version, each thaal comes with a promise of a unique alchemy for its diner—to transform any food served on it into a royal repast.
Of Beaches and Cream: GianChand Single Malt Whisky
The Indian single malt story is turning out to be a thriller. The intense heat and humidity of the subcontinent accelerate ageing, creating complex spirits in a fraction of the time needed for the process in Scotland. The Indian whiskies, redolent with distinct expressions of flavours created as a result of the unique climatic conditions, are challenging the traditional dominance of Scotch whiskies. Amrut blazed the trail in 2004, while Paul John and Rampur followed with acclaimed releases that showcase India’s diverse terroir. In 2022, GianChand, the single malt from Devans Modern Breweries in Jammu, emerged in the plot as a “gem from the lap of the Himalayas”, as described by sommelier Shatbhi Basu. Named after Diwan Gian Chand, the founder of the brewery, the single malt with a rich amber gold liquor has a smooth character with a delicate fruity nose of sun-ripened apricots and a spice wrapped in a toffee sweetness. The aroma unfolds to reveal a mild peaty woody smokiness coming from the oak casks used for ageing the malt. Upon sipping, the whisky lands on the palette with a creamy honeyed sweetness and hints of salt and dried ginger that leave a trail of tannic astringency with a memory of spice. Last year, GianChand Single Malt (priced at Rs 4,490 in Delhi) finished with a Silver at the International Wine & Spirit Competition. The jury described it as “an evocative whisky brimming with the sensual pleasures of a beach bonfire”. Here’s to arriving at the beach, on the rocks (even in Jammu)!