In a city that prides itself on thinking big, Himanshu Saini is going against the grain.
As corporate chef for Passion F&B, owner of four of Dubai’s most significant Indian eateries, Saini’s food feeds hundreds of diners a night. Yet it is at Trèsind Studio, a tiny, six-table eatery on the roof of the Palm Jumeirah’s Nakheel Mall, that he is really seeking to make his mark.
Having secured two toques in the inaugural Gault&Millau UAE 2022 guide – as well as the Homegrown Restaurant of the Year award – Saini sat down with us to discuss the big ambitions behind his tiny destination dinner experience.
Trèsind Studio’s approach is quite unusual for Dubai. Tell us about it…
“I think the idea is to change perceptions about Indian food. My goal is to rewrite the stereotypical narrative where people think of Indian food as a takeaway curry, or a biryani and naan.
“As an Indian, I’ve not travelled to all parts of India. It is so diverse. Every 200 kilometres you travel, the language is different, the culture is different, the cooking styles are different. It has so much to offer, and yet there is not enough coming out of India.
“That’s why I think we opened Studio – because it’s just not about food here, it’s about the overall experience. We try to educate our diners to understand Indian food more. To learn that not all Indian dishes are supposed to be hot and spicy – in fact, eating chillies in India is a personal preference and even in our homes, we eat them on the side, never just thrown in the dishes.”
How would you describe your approach?
“As I said, India has so much to offer. So, every four months we change the menu and we try to bring in regional dishes, but at the same time, we don’t want to complicate the experience. So the idea of doing modern Indian food is not about using modern techniques or foreign ingredients, it’s just about simplifying Indian food.
“Indian food is so complex, so difficult to understand. The way we do it is actually about trying to simplify Indian food for a non-Indian audience, without losing the essence and taste profile of the dishes. For me, if I have to define my cuisine, I’d say it’s the evolution of Indian food.”
How important is seasonality to your cooking, particularly when you’re changing the menu so often?
“Of course, it is an important aspect and as we change the menu every four months, we are respecting the season in our cooking process. We have a small garden to support what we do here, and at the same time, we collaborate with quite a few farms locally.
“Our cuisine is also dominantly vegetarian. The philosophy here is actually the reverse of the European perspective where you would have a vegetable as a side to meat or fish. Instead, we use animal protein to support plant-based cooking. For me, a dish of lobster is not about the lobster, it’s about the curry that goes along with it. That’s the hero. You can get the best lobster in many places – and of course, we try to give the very best quality as well – but for us, it’s about the blend of spices, the combination of it, the flavours that are enhancing the flavours of the lobster.
“For us Indians, it’s very convenient to combine 18, 19 spices in one dish. Why can’t we talk about that? I get a bit sad when I travel out and I see the condition of Indian food and the perceptions of it. So, for me, talking about all these things, communicating more through our food and telling the whole world that Indian food is no less than French or Italian cuisine, is really important.”
Focusing on seasonal ingredients sounds like a very responsible approach. How important is sustainability to what you do?
“I don’t strive for sustainability specifically, I’m about cooking first – largely because I don’t think that I have gone to that level yet where I can talk about it. But organically, there are things we do automatically that contribute. For example, we know that Dubai is not a wine-growing country or a city. There is no wine culture here, or in India, where there are very few, limited regions which produce wine. So while we offer a drinks pairing, for us, it makes sense to do something more than a wine pairing.
“So, we have this synergy with the bar where all the by-products from the kitchen are being used in the preparation of our drinks, and I think it becomes very original. Everything we have, all of those by-products from the kitchen, are being preserved in some way in the form of pickles, wines or kombuchas.
“We have six tables in the restaurant and prepare food as per our reservations, so there’s no wastage except the by-products we use as part of the bar programme. The soil we use in our garden is also from the wastage, and we make organic compost from, for example, banana peels, the leftover tea.
“So for us, we don’t strive for sustainability or zero-waste specifically, we do it very organically as part of the process. It’s just so natural because it’s how we do it in our homes also. We try to reduce wastage, we don’t want to spend resources unnecessarily.”
How do you want people to feel when they finish their meal?
“I think they’ll feel that they’ve learned something new about India – though at the same time, we don’t want to make it a geography lesson or a lesson based on history. It’s just that we provide the information which we feel is required to understand the dishes on the menu.
“Our menu is divided into four regions, with four dishes representing each region, and we begin and finish each region on its own. We’re unfollowing the French style of serving food, where you have your snacks, then you have the starters, the main course, then desserts, because Indian food is not about that. When we eat food in our homes, we don’t mind eating a sweet in the middle or beginning the meal with something sweet also. And actually, if you think about it, there’s no restaurant that has done that. So it’s just that we try to bring in the cultures of our home as an original concept and, by doing this, it allows us to help people understand what Indian food is all about.”
What do you think are the biggest misunderstandings people have about Indian food?
“I think there are many misconceptions. The Indian food that was popularised around the world was dominantly north Indian food, but there’s so much more to it than that. Most Indian restaurants outside of India don’t feature dishes from the east or the northeast, for example, because these are tribal cuisines, they’re very rustic and have an acquired taste. So, there’s a risk with our menu, but we want to be involved in taking that risk. I feel that someone has to break the ice.
“The northeast part of India has so much of the Chinese and Mongolian influence, hence you will find bamboo shoots, you will find pork being used very heavily. You will find chillies, which are probably the hottest in the world. So it’s about having an understanding of that, respecting what’s there in our country. And if someone understands just one per cent of what we are doing, I think it’s a victory for us.”
How would you describe Dubai’s dining scene, and why do you think Trèsind Studio has found such an enthusiastic audience?
“When I came to Dubai eight years ago, the market was all about getting international brands to come. I would say people were coming to Dubai with an eye on making money. Now, I think now they come to fulfil their ambitions.
“Dubai is probably the most amazing culinary scene in the world at this moment – but there was still a gap for something like this, for something very boutique. Of course, getting two toques from Gault&Millau means there is a bigger responsibility. I think we were the only Indian restaurant to get the two toques, and so people come in with a lot of expectations.
“But at the same time, we want to communicate from our food that we are worthy of what we’ve achieved and we want to go even higher. We have greater aspirations. We want to see how far we can go.”