Kitchen confidential

It’s 10.30 in the morning on a bright February day in Lutyen’s Delhi and the man in charge, Achal Aggarwal, is cocooned in the chic confines of Wasabi by Morimoto. “It’s going to be a slow day,” he tells me. Even at glamorous Wasabi, most of the business arrives at dinner time.

Ever since Wasabi took up residence at the opulent Taj Palace Hotel on Man Singh Road almost a year ago, it has been a foodie favourite. Chef Masaharu Morimoto, from the cult show Iron Chef, opened his Indian Wasabi franchise at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower in Mumbai in 2004 (the second Wasabi after the original in Philadelphia). It took the gourmet world by storm. The swish set dined there six nights a week, while average Joes would blow their wallets for an annual dinner of bliss. And to Morimoto’s credit, the Delhi Wasabi looks distinct from the one in Mumbai—it’s smaller with 54 covers to Mumbai’s 72. Even the kitchen’s smaller. And that’s just how Chef Achal likes it: “It’s better when everything you need is within arm’s length, manned by a tight group of chefs.”

The peacable Achal is no Gordon Ramsay-style tyrant and the kitchen actually seems cosy. At the hot counter, Assistant Chef Vikramjit is preparing sauces and garnishes, while out front, the Sake Bar—unique to the Delhi Wasabi—gets a wipe and polish. Meanwhile, Chef Daisuke, the shy Japanese at the Sushi counter, starts cutting fillets of salmon with what looks like a short samurai sword. The knives are all imported and hideously expensive. For example, the one Chef Daisuke uses to peel a carrot into an elegant spiral strip—a technique called matsuramuki—costs Rs 18,000. “Every chef has a set of knives unique to the part of the kitchen he works in,” says Chef Achal.

The salmon fillets go behind the glass counter with all the seafood, meats and 18 different kinds of vegetables, the star being Wasabi itself, which looks like a large gnarled carrot. (The tip is rubbed on a sharkskin tray to produce the famous paste.) “It’s much less pungent than the tube stuff that you get in the markets,” says the chef.

At 11.30 a.m., a fresh Maguro, a giant fish, is taken out of cold storage. There are two large cold storage rooms and one dry goods store in a labyrinthine maze behind the kitchen, an area that Wasabi shares with the other Taj restaurants. All the fish— along with Kobe Beef and gigantic King Crabs—is flown in directly from the Tsujuki fish market in Tokyo, and kept frozen at -85 degree C. All the Wasabis have their ingredients flown in from Japan except for in Philadelphia and New York, where the local markets are good enough. With the overheads of flying the produce, plus import duties, it’s little wonder that meals at Wasabi aren’t cheap. The King Crab dish, for example, costs Rs 1,300 alone, while a meal for two at the restaurant will easily set you back by Rs 5,000.

Come 12.25 p.m., the kitchen is ready to go. First, the counter is decorated— an assortment of vegetables that wouldn’t look out of place on a Hula Hula dancer is piled into a large see-through glass pot of ice. Chef Sowrav sets about the Teppanyaki counter with a pair of large metal spatulas, while Daisuke—one of two Japanese chefs at the restaurant—is slices and dices, chatting away with Chef Achal in Japanese.

Then—customers! There are two covers on Table 3 and they’re going straight for the Chilean Sea Bass and Ishi Yaki Vegetable Bop (vegetables on rice prepared at your table in hot river stone bowls). The main dish is labelled “Fire”—which means “quick”—and, as new customers arrive and the orders keep coming, the kitchen swings into action. At the hot counter, Chef Lok Thapa gets busy with the sticky rice, at the cold counter Chef Padam Thapa makes a beautiful dessert, topped with an orchid. “Everything in this kitchen is edible,” he tells me. Waiters run in and out, reminding the chefs of new orders, or orders that are taking too long. One waiter is so busy flirting with one of the waitresses that an order reaches the table late. The Maitre D’ gives him a good ticking off. “We’re all friends really,” says Asst. Chef Vikramjit. “We have to be—we spend over 12 hours a day together! We come around 9 a.m., the work goes on in two shifts, and by the time we leave, it’s past midnight.”

For today, shift one is over. It’s 3 p.m. and the last of the patrons are finishing their lunch. “We’ve got quite a few groups coming tonight. So, we will probably start our preparations a little earlier,” says Chef Achal with a smile. He loves to be busy. He was never as happy as the previous week when the Kapoor family—Kareena et al—were guests at the Taj and they had both lunch and dinner at Wasabi for a week. “Oh, they love to eat and drink to their hearts’ content,” says Chef Achal.

If the Kapoors like eating, the guys at Wasabi love cooking.