One of the few modern European restaurants in the city
ATMOSPHERICS
This is where Qla hits it right out of the park. From the time you enter the main gate to the complex, you are transported to a Santushti Complex-like space, where style shops and high fashion boutiques sit prettily around a courtyard. The air of hard-nosed commerce seems remote. Qla occupies a whole side of the quadrangle. There are seats in the courtyard too. The interiors are spacious, the seats eminently comfortable and the music played at a comfortable decibel level. There is an open kitchen (the chefs really do have to keep their volume down, especially while discussing the guests!) and service is friendly, but falls far short of the excellence of the décor and the food. It is the food that is extraordinary here: most of the salad vegetables burst with flavour and all the micro-greens have been grown on the very rooftop of the restaurant. Whoever has made the menu and is executing it is a genius, but we don’t hear very much about him/her. In fact, there is a pizza section for when you just want some familiar food minus style and presentation.
TABLE TALK
The menu has been written by Tacitus himself. ‘Flavours’ refers to the starters, ‘Social’ refers to dishes that can be shared, and everything else is more or less comprehensible. The starters tomato tamarind, beer, garlic, spinach, curry – appears to list ingredients as well as flavours. I chose Hazelnut (Rs 365) and was given a dainty morsel of confit chicken with a ‘crumb’ of hazelnut. The main component was a pot of chicken liver pate with wine gelee, tiny points of Melba toasts and tomato crisps. The flavours were subtle, and though the portion size was tiny, it was the proportion between the Melba toast and the pate that needs to be re-worked. Stilton Meets The Waldorf Salad (Rs 395) was a clever recreation of the classic, where celery, apples and walnuts are mixed with mayonnaise. The Qla rendition features only fine strands of crisp celery, Tasmanian walnuts and apple tempura. For main course, Canadian Wild Scallop (Rs 1895) included four scallops, shredded apple, pear and fennel with toasted brioche.
PLUS AND MINUS
The breads served gratis and the accompaniments are unbelievably good, but the prices are very steep.
Must try: Salt baked beetroot salad; beets with blood orange; Singaporean black cod
Critic reviews are anonymous and all bills are paid by them.
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