The Wine Company goes a Todd Australian

Photos By:: Adil Arora

Wine credentials The Wine Company were never seriously challenged and were the foundation of the business started by Ashish Kapur (Yo Ashish!) who entered the food space in 2003 with Yo China and went on to open Dim Sum & Co in 2010 and Antares in Goa with Sarah in 2016 and Whisky Samba last year. He shook the wine foundations of Gurgaon’s 5-star hotel Restaurants with his excellent list and incredibly low wine prices coupled with unprecedented choose-your-own-bottle wine service in the Company. He could in fact be credited with inculcating wine culture amongst the Gurgaon/Delhi youth with clinking of wine glasses becoming more and more frequent and fashionable at tables, despite his subsequently increasing the prices by 15-30%, reported by delWine.

It might have caused a few heartburns when The Wine Company picked up four awards at the first delWine Excellence Award in the stand alone restaurant category — two each in the Jury Awards (Wine Destination of the Year-NCR and Best Indian Wine Selection-NCR) and Popular Perception Awards (Wine List of the Year-NCR and Best Wine Service-NCR) last year. He was keen to bring up the level of food to match his customers’ evolving palates for wine.

Sarah Todd is not new to foodies of Delhi, Mumbai or Goa-she has been in and out of these cities for the last 5 years. A former model, she was a favourite to win the Master Chef Australia 2014 (Series 6) but as she admits, she made a fatal error in one episode and was ejected out of the competition. But she had impressed the TV viewers enough to be recalled to the Show. ‘I had left Australia for London for 4 months to be with my son when I got a call from the organisers to return. I told them I could not as I planned to stay in London.’ She had to be reminded of the contractual terms to make her return to the Show.

So what is with this title Master Chef that Indian chefs love to be addressed as, I ask her innocuously. ‘I really don’t know. I never call myself a Master Chef. I am entitled as a Master Chef contestant. I believe they have had the term registered in Australia. I am sure it is so in India as well but maybe the people are not so strict about using it,’ she says nonchalantly.

She is passionately in love with Indian food, thanks to a failed marriage with an Indian clean shaven Sikh living in Australia and London. ‘I breather, think and live in the cooking space and am always thinking up of new dishes and recipes, even walking on the streets. To me, the freshness of ingredients and their uniqueness is very important.’ No wonder she procures Robiola cheese from Mumbai for her Cheese Platter as the artisanal producer refuses to have a distribution network that can bring it to Delhi; so it is air-freighted regularly by Kapoor’s company in Mumbai where Oberoi is the only one using it.

Lunching with wines

We start the afternoon with ‘Frose’ made in a slush machine from an Indian Rose and a bit of vodka and Monin syrup- it’s like slush for adults, says Ashish. The fun, frozen drink in Provence pink is served to all guests as they sit down as complimentary refreshment to help them relax. After the artisanal cheese platter which I feel, has less cheese and more grapes and dried fruit (unlike serious cheese platters served with wine overseas), come the Indian savoury version of that sweet Spanish dish- Goat Cheese Churros with truffle cream and chilli dip- a delectable dish I could kill  in less than a minute. The combo is really matchless, thanks to the sauce combination.

Kalari Cheese was another interesting item - a beautiful spread of Kalari Cheese sourced from Kashmir (she continually sources interesting ingredients from pan India), that is flambéed with Old Monk rum right at your table to caramelise it and is perhaps the most dramatic item on the menu. Pity, I was so mesmerized by Sarah and her magical trick that lit fire to the inside of the pan all around to give it an attractive finish, that I forgot to do the needful for Instagram; most of her dishes are extremely Insta-friendly!

Shitake and Wombok Momos is another specialty crafted by Chef Sarah and from the taste of it, this dish is a sure winner-I love dishes made with shitake mushrooms anyway. Red Wine Duck Kulcha was my other favourite dish. A combination of tender duck cooked in red wine sauce with sweet caramelized onions and stuffed inside a soft and hot tandoori kulcha with its sweet and salty flavours balanced very nicely-an excellent option for duck lovers. I didn’t ask her if there was a vegetarian option!

Quinoa Biryani is exactly what it says- Biryani, but made with the super-food quinoa-with a dash of avocado raita and the broken karari roti remains-all in one plate. While I found the avocado raita not really raita-reminded me more of rolled wasabi, quinoa tasted similar to the morning savoury daliya I have frequently in the house for a healthy breakfast. Karari tastes exactly the same as it did 4 years when I tasted it the first time. This Biryani is an interesting dish that won’t pull me back to the restaurant, though quite tasty.

Ravioli with lamb stuffing, South Indian style was another winner for the lamb lovers. A hand tarhka with coconutsauce transformed the dish into a delectable dish and I could not resist helping myself to the second portion, as the dessert- Moscato poached pears, was being laid on the table, an ideal way to end the afternoon with a cup of macchiato. Ideally a Late Harvest Chenin or a Moscato would be an ideal mate.

Wines in Carafe

All throughout, I kept on sipping a Chablis from P. Ferraud & Fils and a Chateauneuf-du Pape from the same winery-a full bodied red wine that matched many of the later dishes at Lunch very well though I liked them it even when there was no meat dish on the table.

What really impressed me was their introduction of carafes-both a Quarter (187 mL) and a Half (375 mL) for 23 of their entry level wines and 21 in the premier range. Priced about 7-10% higher (industry norm is to keep exactly the same fraction- a fifth (150 mL) would cost exactly a fifth of the bottle, they encourage a couple to try a quarter or a half carafe. The remaining wines in the bottle are stored by pumping Nitrogen and thus increasing the life of wine by 2-3 weeks, sufficient to handle the consumption rate.

Wine has a big share of the business at The Wine Company. ‘Our sales are equally divided between food and liquor. 80% of liquor sales is in the wine segment.

Pricing and Ambience

The ambience of the restaurant now gives the feeling of an upmarket fine dining restaurant with elegant food, wine and service and of course priced accordingly. It’s like serving to the clients 5 years ago, who have now grown that much older and are making that much more money in their jobs and are willing to pay the extra price. As Ashish Kapur puts it, they like to give the client a break from their routine for a couple of hours, and the clients are willing to pay that extra price for being pampered.

Undoubtedly, Sarah and Ashish have added a couple of notches to the gastronomy experience in Delhi NCR and the place is definitely worth visiting. My interest has certainly been piqued to organise a wine dinner in the restaurant soon!

For earlier Articles, click:

The Wine Company inches towards 5-star Prices

Le Wine Company C'est Arrivé

Subhash Arora

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