"World peace will be achieved at this restaurant," jokes Athanasios Kargatzidis, consultant chef at Rue Du Liban, the newest Mumbai restaurant to open this month. The Levantine cuisine restaurant, we're told, is housed in a building that was once a Jewish synagogue's school. "You never know," chef says, his eyes twinkling, "Great things can happen over a meal." We nod, as our eyes skim over the gorgeous Art Deco-inspired interiors. Plush burgundy couches, hand-painted olive tree murals, a gorgeous leaf glass installation, lamp fixtures sourced directly from Beirut, glamorous brassware and Middle Eastern motifs dot the space. With a meal in such a fine setting, it's impossible to not believe Kargatzidis.
After their hugely successful Italian cuisine venture Gustoso, the trio behind Indianapoli Hospitality—Arja Shridhar, Jay Mehta and Sam Malde—are back with a restaurant that is a nod to the flavours of the Levant—the geographical region that comprises Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Cyprus, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey. We glance through the menu and spot Lebanese influences peppered across it—think creamy hummus, tender meats and fresh, citrusy greens. Or rather, Hommos, Shish Taouk and Fatouch—deliberately spelt that way on the menu to facilitate correct pronunciation.
As we sit down to dinner with Shridhar, over the first course of cold meze, she talks to us about the unique challenges the restaurant dealt with while recreating the tastes and flavours of Beirut in Mumbai. We scoop up the Hommos with warm, fresh Lebanese bread that we'd like to snuggle with, while Shridhar tells us about her hunt for the right chickpeas, vital to their most essential dish—Hommos. The kitchen tried chickpeas from everywhere—including Dubai—before they settled on a vendor in India. "It is not sustainable to source ingredients from outside India, so we spent a while hunting down the produce that met our requirements. Did you know that Indian potatoes are sweet as compared to those in Beirut? Even the lime tastes different," rattles Sridhar as we chomp down on the leafy Fattouch, a green salad studded with baby tomatoes and topped a pomegranate molasses and lemon dressing. The salad features mounds of crispy-fried bread, that perfectly offsets the velvety, rich textures of the moutabal, smoky Baba Ghanouj and spicy, walnut-y Mouhamara that we wallop with spheres of bread. We wash down our first course with white wine, however a full bar menu overseen by none-other-than star mixologist Shatbhi Basu will be available to diners shortly.
As we move on to the hot meze, the kitchen sends out the Batata Harra—potato cubes sautéed in red chilli, coriander and garlic. The potatoes are fried, refrigerated and then fried again to achieve its particular consistency, Sridhar tells us. Following each other in quick succession are the falafel—chickpea croquettes, which despite being topped with radish and pickled chillies, are slightly bland and the Cheese Rokakat, addictive but greasy Lebanese cigars filled with feta, emmental and mozzarella. The meats make their way to our table in the form of the Lahme Meshwi, charcoal-grilled lamb cubes—that are a tad undercooked—with parsley and onion salad, served on a flat bread; along with the deliciously tender Shish Taouk, well marinated cubes of chicken served with the garlic-y toum sauce, on a flat Lebanese bread. We'd happily make a meal of just the chicken and toum, we think, scooping up the remnants of the sauce onto the last bits of bread.
We end our meal with the Ossmallieh, a homemade rose petal ice-cream dessert sandwiched by a baked vermicelli pastry; and a generous slice of the traditional Beklewa, a solid Lebanese phyllo with mixed nuts that is so sweet it makes our teeth tingle. When scooped with the Tahina ice cream served alongside though, it's significantly better. What we finally settle on is the homemade pistachio ice cream. Rich, nutty and creamy all at once, it has everyone at the table battling with dessert spoons to score the last bite. It's smooth, refreshing and wonderfully familiar all at once. With an ice cream as gratifying as this, surely world peace can't be too far off, we joke.
Rue Du Liban, Sasoon Building, near Keneseth Eliyahoo Synagogue, Kala Ghoda. A meal for two without alcohol is approximately Rs3,000. Open only for dinner.