DWC Dinner: Celebrating 70 Years of Indo-Italian Diplomacy with Panache at Qla

Photos By:: Adil Arora

A couple of months ago, Ambassador Angeloni had been magnanimous enough to invite members of the Delhi Wine Club for  dinner at an event at his residence, celebrating 70 years of Indo-Italian Diplomatic relations. It was only natural for the Club to reciprocate and host an event where we could invite His Excellency and a few other senior diplomats. Coincidentally, Qla had hosted a dinner for the previous Italian Prime Minister Gentiloni earlier this year. It was thus a pleasure to choose Qla as a venue with the same Menu (of course adding a few pass-around snacks as a regular practice for our 5-course dinners with 4-5 wines).

Qla has established itself as a fine dining restaurant touching new heights in terms of culinary art ever since Chef Priyam Chatterjee has been on board from Kolkata. It is a part of Qla’s history that the first wine dinner he did in Delhi was the impending dinner of the Delhi Wine Club a couple of days after his arrival. The things were not so well- co-ordinated then but he shone brightly through the evening as an innovative Chef with a pleasing personality and I predicted a fabulous future for him in the Delhi Culinary scene-and we were not even talking about his prowess with the drums, that accompanied so well with the saxy notes of the owner , Ranjan Chopra who is a very good saxophone player but was missing today due to unavoidable circumstances.

Chef Priyam is truly a food artist and has been evolving extremely well iat Qla-I even named him ‘Pricasso’ for the artful dishes that he crafts.  The smoked ham croquettes with pecorino cheese, rillette of spot prawns, parmesan lavash and small , chopped breasts of charred chicken were very enticing pass-around snacks that went very well with the Prosecco from Mionetto- a delightful combination. Vegetarians relished vegetable frits, wild mushroom duxelles quiche pissaladiere of kalamata olive, roasted bell pepper (French ‘pizza’ but today’s version was delightfully Italian and was very popular amongst members). A true testimonial to the Prosecco for being an excellent downer for Italian snacks.

The melon ham served as Amouse Bouche deserved a standing ovation for the ingenuity of the Chef. Made from filets of water melon cooked sue vide at around 45 deg C for 7-8 hours was so well plated and delicious that one did not want to even slice into it and just look and appreciate it. If one did not know the ingredients, not everyone would have scored high marks for guessing-not from the look anyway-at the water melon. One hopes they make it a regular Amouse Bouche though the processing makes it rather cumbersome, presumably.

Collefrisio Trebbiano d’Abruzzio doc 2016 served at the same time, was not  meant to be a perfect match with it but was ready to impress when the salad was served. Smoked duck breast, truffle ricotta, pine nuts salad and the salad of asparagus, smoked eggs, ricotta, pine nuts were perfect with the easy drinking citrus wine which was fresh with balanced acidity- a quaffable wine at best.

During the welcome address in the meantime, The Ambassador praised the Delhi Wine Club and more particularly thanked Cav. Subhash Arora not only for promoting Italian wines but paring them with food as was done today as it was very important for people to enjoy wine with food as they do in Italy as a food product, he said. He was quite impressed that the Club was regular in hosting such events and it was 283rd event. He extended unconditional support once again to the Club for wine promotion as he narrated interesting stories about wine during his earlier diplomatic postings.

Neeraj Sachdeva, owner of Lake Forest Wines also presented the wines after Arora talked about the Mionetto Prosecco which is the highest selling Prosecco in the US but is the most under-rated Italian bubbly in Delhi. Luca Basio docg Gavi di Gavi 2016 is an excellent white wine from the town of Gavi in Piedmont that was dry, slightly flinty and elegant in flavour and quite long. Cutlet of braised and pulled lamb and spinach with porcini sauce made it a bit of tough preposition to match perfectly though there was no clash. But it was a heavenly match for the vegetarians who were served the charred courgette instead with porcini sauce as the condiment.

The red wine lovers were extremely happy with the Fondo Valpolicella Pagus Bisano Ripasso doc 2014. Although the views were divided about this wine, I loved it with the cutlet as it made a perfect match. medium bodied wine was full of concentration and pleasantly long. Brilliance of Chef ‘Pricasso’ was evident once again and the need for a proper wine to match was fulfilled by the two wines.

The Ripasso made with the second fermentation of Valpolicella with the used Must of Amarone makes it a nice ‘Baby Amarone’ and a good value for money, early approachable wine that supported  the Risotto too and Tagliatelle. The roasted lamb was otherwise a perfect partner for the star wine of the evening-Fondo di Sole Brunello de Montalcino docg 2012 which was ready to drink, smooth,  elegant and with good balance and could handle the Mains perfectly. It would be unfair to compare, but other wines did not have a leg to stand against the Brunello-even if it had psychological advantage, thanks to its universal branding.

Desserts were the Qla Signature Chocolate and Crème Brulée which perhaps did not win the accolades as much as they deserved, only because the members and the guests were still relishing discussing the main course with Brunello di Montalcino when they were served.

As Arora says, a wine dinner is successful when it becomes memorable-and that is a combination and a balance of great food, wine, ambience, service, mood and of course the company. Everything fell into place this evening. As Ranganathan Parthiban, one of the senior members said, ‘Everything fell in place for this event- Excellent Wines, Fabulous food by our “Pricasso” Chef, very nice location, meticulous service .... Gracious presence of H.E. Angeloni and his Colleagues from Italian Embassy, Imperial Presence Of Vijay Wanchoo, GM of Imperial, etc. You could not ask for anything more. Really wowed!”

Another member commented, ‘Just one of the best wine dinners I have attended. The food was superlative and the wines equally so. Congratulations to Subhash Arora and all the others involved in pulling this off including  Neeraj Sachdeva of Lakeforest Wines and Chef Priyam Chatterjee.’

The event was summed up well by a member, Arun Varma who said, ‘One of the finest Delhi Wine Club evenings Subhashji! Very well organised in terms of wine, food, & service and ambiance as well. Thanks to the super duo of Prateek Arora and Chef Priyam and of course Sherry Anne Sudane  from Lakeforest Wines. JAI HO!’

It is not easy to get all the factors in every dinner though we try to get them in play. This dinner with Qla and the Italian Embassy diplomats would certainly not be an easy one to match outside Qla in future. So let me just sign off by repeating,  ‘Jai Ho’ to a memorable evening and thanking Ambassador Angeloni and his colleagues to add to the event.’

Subhash Arora

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