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Bill Marchetti, the star Chef of yester year at Maurya Sheraton was a page-3
person, who had left them over a year ago to set his own pace. After trying
a hand at selective catering, he went underground to show his bearded face
in Goa. I was surprised when he called me from Mumbai
over 2-months back and said he was working with a Mumbai based restaurant
chain and would be shortly in Delhi to open their Spaghetti Kitchen Restaurant..
Blue Foods Pvt Ltd., his current employers are expanding on a fast track
with about 100 outlets of various sizes, dimensions and class. He is the
consulting Chef for all the new restaurants that are coming up, including
an SK in Bangalore during the next few weeks.
The restaurant has had had a soft opening only. But he
offered to organise a dinner for the members of the Delhi Wine Club, in
a bid to announce to his favourite clients that 'Bill is Back!' Slightly
apprehensive of the restaurant being new and the service a possible issue,
we decided to jump into the fire.
Going by the Menu, food quality, preparation and presentation
and surprisingly, even the service, he convinced the members that he is
back…with a bang.
The 130-cover restaurant in the Select Mall is already
doing a brisk business with up to 300 guests a day, and the only option
to conduct the evening's proceedings was to close it for the mall visitors
on this evening, making it a private dinner for the DWC members.
The antipasti reminded one of the spread at Hyatt lunches
at La Piazza. There were plenty to keep one busy for the whole evening.
But the pizzas- pepperoni and Margherita were too hot and tempting to
pass up. The thin crust is getting thinner and the new restaurant is keeping
up with times.
What really took the cake was the risotto. It is not
common to find such al-dente style in most restaurants, not because chefs
cannot prepare it. It is just that the Delhi-ites do not like it in the
original style and prefer the over-cooked variety. Perhaps, the complementing
multi- region, multi-country, multi- varietal wines made us appreciate
it even more. Of course Farfelle and Penne Marinara had Bill's signature
all over too.
The main course of duck, red snapper, black pepper chicken
or scallops would have been a great one- out of –four choice. But
Bill insisted we try all of them. Despite the 1000+ extra calories already
in the system due to all that extra food and wine, they were too irresistible
to pass up.
Due to the vast variety at hand, it was not easy to match
food with wine at this event which was a great New year celebratory party
anyway. But we had made attempts to generally match the food groups with
different wine categories grouped together. Generally, the combos went
very well.
But Scallops and red wine were an ideal example of mismatch and many did
not care as much for the dish, perhaps due to this reason. Of course,
Shiraz was the only recommended experimental red with it and it did justice
to the theory that food and wine do need some matching to get the synergy.
Desserts had many debating whether the cheese cake was
superb (taking unfair advantage of adding strawberries), or the crème
brulee with freshly whipped cream. Brownies with hot fudge and cold ice
cream were the hot favourites with some.
The kitchen staff at Spaghetti Kitchen is well trained
already and the exec Chef Das and his aides did a superb job in making
people want to come back soon. The newly appointed waiting staff needs
to polish up their act, but to their credit, were very cordial, cheerful
and willing to learn. A few lapses could be overlooked and Bill, who had
threatened to fire anyone not doing the job adequately, did not have to
take the drastic action.
The restaurant has clean and simple basic looks, but
is comfortable with two PDRs for private dining at no extra cost. Bill
promises a wine-friendly menu about to be released keeping the margins
to be as low as possible to encourage the customers order wine with the
food. The wine-by the glass for which and 8-station machine has been already
ordered will make it a welcome new Italian restaurant in town, at least
till the prices are jacked up during the next round.
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Subhash Arora
January 1, 2008
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