Chef's Table (2015) s02e06 Episode Script

In India, food is our religion.
There are deep roots in food.
Food changes every 50 kilometers.
We die for food.
We had riots.
There are riots because the Muslims won't eat pork and the Hindus won't eat beef.
There's a beef ban in the country, so those who like beef, they're protesting.
And those who hate beef are saying, "Wow, finally we don't have beef.
" And if that country, which has such deep knowledge about food, is not represented in the world at the right levels it's a disgrace to me.
I met Gaggan about ten years ago when he moved here from India.
We heard about this young 20-something Indian kid who'd arrived in Bangkok and was doing something different with Indian food.
So we were all quite excited to check it out.
First heard about it from an Italian friend, who called me and said, "You're not gonna believe this.
There's an Indian guy across the road doing pasta.
" I said, "Pasta?" He said, "Yeah, he's actually doing pastas.
" I said, "And?" expecting him to, kind of, criticize and whatever.
And he said, "They're fantastic.
" Guys? Come on! Come on, guys! Can I get a bowl please? A bowl to collect the meat.
When you arrive at Gaggan, the staff are all very international.
I'm going to teach you how to make crab meat.
There's kids from Spain, from Indonesia, from Pakistan, from India, from all over the world.
Crack it open.
In the kitchen, it's a virtual United Nations.
You get quite a good feeling.
It's a very energetic vibe.
Not too formal, not too rigid.
A typical meal at Gaggan is a journey.
It's an adventure.
Everything that Gaggan's doing has roots in different regions of India.
Almost all of it is street-food rooted.
You can trace back the courses.
No matter how sophisticated and crazy they are, they're all rooted in something very local, something indigenous.
Gaggan completely changed what we think we know as being traditional or classical Indian food.
He takes it completely in another direction.
It's very polar.
I don't think I've ever met anyone "Oh, you ate at Gaggan.
How was it?" "It was okay.
It was pretty good.
" You never hear that.
It was either, like, "Oh, my God.
It was amazing.
It was the best meal of my life.
" Or it was, "It's overrated.
He's bastardizing Indian cuisine.
" He's very passionate, especially as it relates to food and to music.
But one thing I want you all to be, is serious with food.
Because that is our religion.
He was bred on progressive rock, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin.
And he wanted to take that and put it on a plate.
He's a joker.
He's a comedian.
He's a really fun, playful person.
It's very tongue-in-cheek.
He's got a dish called Viagra, Yogurt Explosion, Who Killed The Goat? It's not too serious.
It's quite fun and playful.
He's done something completely different.
I don't think anyone did anything close to what he's done with Indian food.
It's totally revolutionary.
Okay, what is What is, Garima, your memory of taste? What is your memory? Chatpata! Is there an English word for chatpata? - Yeah, that's it.
- You know? That's it.
It's our Indian umami.
Chatpata is umami for India.
Yeah, which is actually a balance of four things.
You know, chatpata is a four "S.
" Sweet salty Is it a permanent marker? Oh, fuck.
- Oh, shit.
- Shit.
Okay.
Dude, that's your problem.
Sweet, salty sour and spicy.
This is the This is chatpata.
This is umami for us.
When I was young, I was told that Indian food cannot be fine dining.
And that would piss me off.
Completely piss me off.
Indian cuisine is very good at comfort level.
Our chicken tikka masala, in the end, tastes fantastic with the naan bread.
When the comfort food is so good it's very difficult to change people's perception.
And that's why Indian chefs have not excelled.
They never served proper, good Indian food.
Because there was no finesse.
They never served how a French chef would serve a ratatouille.
The curry is fresh.
Made to order.
That's it.
I felt if Pink Floyd can make a 20-minute song and make it sound good, then I can make Indian food, 23 courses, without serving more than one curry.
That's a challenge.
That's the challenge I take.
Bangkok is one of the capitals of street food.
The space where you need to walk is taken over by the street food.
We don't have any pavement space left.
You can find almost everything on the street at every hour of the day.
A ramen, a noodle, a wonton, a duck, a fried rice, a pad thai, a nacho, a sandwich, a burger Anything in Bangkok, 24 hours, you'll get it.
The food scene here is just booming.
There's some amazing markets.
The peak hours for these markets are after midnight.
It's just an amazing array of flowers and street food, spices, everything under the sun.
What is the spiciest chili? This one.
- Go ahead, taste them.
- They don't look that spicy.
Spicy.
Yes, spicy.
You know, first, you go back and think, like, were you a foodie? Or you just become a foodie because you're a chef? But then I realize my memories about food.
Do you have sweet betel like this? In India, we have a sweet one.
It's very delicious.
No, we don't have that here.
Okay, this one.
At a very young age, I realized that I couldn't understand studying.
And I would always flunk school, like, from a very young age.
There was a school where the teacher used to be very abusive, used to beat people with a cane.
And I would always go down to the memory that, "Oh, you'll be caned.
You'll be caned.
You'll be caned.
" And I was so scared.
I didn't want to see that abusive teacher.
I was extremely naughty, extremely adventurous.
So I would actually go to school, and I'd pretend I'm going inside, and I would run away.
The school was behind the zoo, so I would always go back to the zoo.
And then, there was this guy who used to sell samosas from a hole in the wall.
He was not a vendor legally inside the zoo.
But my memory is that his hand would come out, I would give him the money and I would get my samosas.
I never saw him.
So I don't even know his face.
They say that you grow as a kid, your character develops then.
That's how I became a foodie, actually.
There are two lives in India.
One, you're born with a golden spoon.
If you are born somewhere below that, there's a struggle.
The sudden moment you're out of the womb of your mom, in the hospital, your father must have fought for the hospital bed.
And my background is a similar one.
There were times that were difficult because I was poor.
My father was poor.
My mom was poor.
When I was young, my dad had these waves.
One year he would do amazing, good business, and then, suddenly, there were downfalls.
I remember, the second year of my university, my parents were living in a rented house.
I get a letter from my family.
My mom literally wrote that, "I am not staying in the house because there's no electricity.
" Electricity was 175 Indian rupees, which is four dollars.
If they didn't have four dollars, I don't know what they were going through.
I was away.
Far away.
My parents made sure that I had a proper education.
And, at the same time, my family literally was on the streets.
When I saw that, I I just Tears came out of my eyes.
I couldn't control.
That was very shameful.
In India, because the society is not very educated, they look at what you are, and they accept you when you become something.
That day, I thought that, "I have to be the best chef in India.
I want to be the best.
I have to really do well and make sure my parents don't go through it.
" Okay, look.
Now, this is - Select, no? - Yes.
Select.
Okay, so you see It's like, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.
Shit, out.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect.
Perfect, perfect.
Shit, out.
- Is that okay? - Yeah.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect, shit.
This is shit because this side is not fried.
This side is fried, but this is not.
You see? Try.
In the third year when I was cooking, I became the best among the students.
I got a job at this really famous restaurant in India.
I was only training, but I was given a very good salary.
I thought I had the best job.
The six months was all about cooking and teaching and understanding.
That was my passion.
There was this guy who used to make biryani.
Biryani is rice and chicken together.
But it was incredible.
I wanted to learn biryani from him.
I used to come 8:00 in the morning.
My shift starts at 12:00 in the afternoon.
I would come 8:00 in the morning, iron his chef coats, bring his chef coats from the laundry, take his stinking chef coat every night polish his shoes, bring a bottle of rum on a weekly basis.
Seventy-five grams of onion seeds.
After one month, he says, "Okay.
I'll teach you how to make it completely, from the start to end.
" Four hundred grams of onions.
He taught me.
He taught me.
"This is how you boil the rice.
This is how you do the chicken.
This is every detail.
" Then, in a split second, just "Can you bring the milk for me?" I went, brought the milk.
He took the, uh, powder out of his pocket.
It was a special spice blend.
It was his family's blend, and he put it on the stock.
And the whole flavor changed.
I asked him, "What is that?" His answer was, "This will go to my grave.
" I hated him.
I told him, "You're a disgrace to the chef.
" He took my head.
He took me to my boss.
He said, "These guys, who you train as educated chefs, they don't know how to respect.
" And I was crying.
I was embarrassed.
I was physically manhandled in front of 100 people.
There were so many stories in that hotel.
We would hear stories that some trainee chef has been kicked, somebody has been slapped, somebody has been pushed.
It was a disaster.
That was the end.
That day, actually, I quit it.
And I never went back.
There was so much hate in that environment.
There was so much frustration in those guys.
They took out all their frustration on us.
I just hated it.
I couldn't I couldn't accept it.
I have what I wanted.
This is what I dreamed at that time of life.
But I don't think this is what I want.
I couldn't accept what was reality of cooking and what I was thinking as cooking.
They were two different worlds.
Yeah, they're three different fishes.
- Oh, wow! - This is pabda fish.
Pabda is a fish.
It's a river fish.
So it's got one little bone in the center, lot of fat.
Okay, and then they cook with this black cumin, with literally no turmeric.
They don't like putting turmeric to dal.
That's why it's so light yellow.
When you think of Indian food, you think chicken tikka masala, you think the naan bread.
That's what's known world over.
That's about it.
But there's so much more.
Look at the fat.
There are 28 different states.
Within each of those states, you have 100 different kinds of cooking.
It is so varied.
When you look at India, our cuisine has 30 to 36 cuisines itself, completely different to the geography.
But then they all become a curry.
Curry came from British, the word.
They named anything that was saucy or soupy a curry.
In our own language, there's no word called "curry.
" My mom doesn't know what is a curry.
So what we have done is taken any invasion that has happened the British, before the British was the Mughals they have actually changed the cuisine of the country.
This is amazing.
Chicken tikka masala symbolizes Indian food, no? I love my chicken tikka masala.
It was not even Indian.
This is a British invention.
British brought us tea.
Two hundred years back, we didn't have anything called tea.
All we did was drinking yogurt as lassi.
Even the naans, the breads, were not Indian.
They are actually Persian.
We have portrayed a wrong picture of India.
It's our own fault.
We've kept Indian food as comfort food, and that's why Indian chefs have not excelled.
This is the fat.
There is a mentality that Indian cuisine doesn't produce serious chefs.
But that's what Gaggan is changing.
And whatever water the milk had, the yogurt had He's pushing past those best sellers.
He wants to show the world what Indian food really is.
That's not fair.
- Don't even think about it! - He'll eat it! No! - Yeah.
- Coriander? - A little bit of salt.
- No coriander.
People don't normally associate Indian food with tasting menus.
I'd never been to a tasting.
It's always been à la carte.
And we've learned with Gaggan, Indian food is surprisingly well-suited to tasting menus.
Order! You know how many orders coming.
I want two people, five people, seven people.
Don't make 15 together.
You just give two, ready.
Five, ready.
- Is that okay? - Yes.
- Am I okay to order with that? - Yep.
And that's the quality I expect from you guys.
Are we okay? Are we saying "yes" together? Yes? - Yes.
- Ah, thank you.
I love you all.
The first part of the menu is a rapid-fire.
I want people to be shot with food at a point-blank range.
You kill them before they even realize it.
That moment you arrive, the moment your orders are placed, your first order comes with three plates.
Again, three more plates.
Again, three more plates.
These are bites like the Bird Nest, which looks like a bird nest but is completely vegetarian.
The Nut Bag, which most people tear.
"Ah, let me eat the nut.
" No.
Edible plastic bag.
Just put it in the mouth, and it gives you a little explosion.
I want my first ten dishes to be finished in the first 25 minutes.
And then you take the pace slow.
He just takes people on this incredible journey to all regions of India.
Lamb! Lamb! Lamb, lamb, lamb.
There's a few standard things that stay on the menu, but there's constantly new things coming that are really surprising.
You get what he calls Indian foie gras, which is goat brain, which is a delicacy in India.
He often introduces it as Indian foie gras, without telling people what they're eating until they've had it.
Then it's a big surprise.
You've just had some lovely goat brain.
Eventually, knowing that everybody, somewhere in the back of their head, has that desire to have a good curry and some good freshly-baked naan bread, he delivers that.
He does the curries, but he does them at the end of the meal.
They come out much, much later.
He does things to be provocative, and will continue to surprise people and satisfy people.
It's very difficult to make your guests think about what you have done.
If you take my menu of 23 courses, you are getting to think.
And once you make them think, they'll understand that Indian food can be incredible.
- May I stir it a little? - It is not allowed.
Come on, what are you so afraid of? Fine, okay.
Take a look.
It is better if you make a figure eight.
See how I make an eight this way? It will not burn if you do it this way.
It will never burn.
You just have to make a figure eight.
When I left that job, I came back home and I thought, "This is it.
I'm losing my passion.
What do I do? Should I quit cooking?" And then, I met a guy and he said, "Let's do industrial catering.
You are a good chef.
Let's do industrial catering.
" So I started working.
We opened this factory, food factory kind of a thing.
The man who gave us the dreams, he was my partner and he ran away.
It was a disaster.
I was a fool.
So I was without any business for one year.
My loans became double.
And then it became triple for two years.
There was a day that I had got an order for 15 rupees.
I had to deliver chicken curry and rice to employees of Pizza Hut.
A chef, who was once the best among the new breed of young chefs, was delivering to Pizza Hut to sustain life.
I was suffering.
But my brother helped me to conquer those bad times in my life.
He was working with a very famous company.
He gave me the first break.
And I suddenly took over the cafeteria.
His brother was actually the guy who was pushing Gaggan, you know, all the time.
At that point of time, he actually changed all his negativity into courage to motivate him to pursue his dreams.
It took me three years to have about 150 employees and doing meals for about 5,000 people a day.
I had this team of 200 people with me, so they would cook.
All I was doing was negotiating contracts.
That was my job.
I became from a from a cook to a businessman.
I was making a lot of money, but I was not cooking at all.
I thought I had lost touch with good food.
And then, I got a call to do consultancy.
Through the consultancy, I became a consultant to the whole northeast of India.
I would go and I would open people's restaurants.
Some people recognized my talents and then offered me a restaurant in Bangkok.
The restaurant's called Red.
On my first trip to Thailand, I was so excited.
I came here, saw raspberries, strawberries fresh in the market.
Foie gras in the market! Caviar in the market! It's like, "Wow! These, we don't get in the best restaurants in India.
" I was a kid in the park.
The world of dreams just opened up.
And I thought, "This is it.
" And I left India forever.
Within a year, the restaurant here became very successful.
And I gave all my sweat and everything for it.
And Red became famous.
One day, this food critic came to review my restaurant, and he was talking about restaurants and how food was changing.
He talked about El Bulli.
World's best restaurant, El Bulli.
I said, "What?" My world was India, and then it became Bangkok.
I didn't know about the world.
I was totally disconnected.
He says, "Look for El Bulli.
Google it.
" Okay, there's something called Olives that are spheric.
There's liquid nitrogen.
There's these flowers.
These are edible.
This? This is edible.
This is edible.
I was out of space and time.
I was hallucinating food.
I said, "I want to do this with Indian food.
" I wanted to change my cuisine.
I wanted to change the country where I come from.
And I thought, "How do I replicate it if I don't understand it?" So I used to buy El Bulli books.
I had set up a small kitchen in my home, practicing things.
First foam I made was in Red.
I served somebody a foam and he thought, "What is this? What's this? Why are the foods like this? Why is the food like French food?" People thought I was mad.
They hated it.
They said, "This is not Indian food.
Don't change our food.
" I couldn't do fine food.
I was fed up.
So one day, I got drunk.
I had a bad day with my boss that morning, and my executive chef.
I went to a party.
Drunk, drunk, drunk.
Totally drunk.
And then my friends, they all ganged me up and said, "You should have a restaurant.
Like, we go to Gianni's.
We go to Giovanni's.
We go to Angela's.
You should have a restaurant called Gaggan.
" So at one o'clock at night, I called my partner, Rajesh.
I said, "I wanna do this restaurant.
I want you to be the partner.
" He said, "No, let's talk about this tomorrow morning when you're sober.
You're drunk.
" I told him, "No, I'm not.
You say 'yes' or say 'no.
' Now.
Now you say 'yes' or you say 'no.
' Don't say tomorrow.
Don't don't drag it on.
" He said, "Yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
" Within seven days, we sat, the restaurant was already in the paper.
Seven days.
In the meantime, I had six months of free time.
Rajesh told me, "What is your dream?" I told him, exactly.
"I would love to go and be an apprentice in El Bulli.
I want to learn from the lion how to hunt.
" Gaggan rang me one day and he said, "Hey, do you know Ferran Adrià?" I said, "I don't know him.
I've met him.
" At this time, El Bulli was number one in the world.
Gaggan, he said, "I want to go do an internship there.
Do you think you could introduce me?" It would take probably a year to get a table, just to pay money to eat the food.
But to sort of parachute in and expect to get an internship would be nearly impossible.
I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news.
Instead of going through the process of making an introduction and probably having him turned down, or not hearing back, I just said, "Look, Gaggan, I think it might be better and more heartfelt if you just fire off an email, tell them who you are and what you want to do, and, you never know, see what happens," just trying to wash my hands of the responsibility for the disappointment.
And, um, he did.
And a few days later, he called me up and he said, "I got it!" I said, "Got what?" He said, "I got the internship!" And he read it to me and it was like, "Dear Mr.
Anand, we look forward to welcoming you in Spain.
P.
S.
Bring spices.
" He went off, knew what he was looking for, found it Yeah, this is the color I want.
came back completely inspired, and decided to open up his own place.
- Pincers? - Yes.
When I was coming back to Bangkok, I knew that I wanted to be the El Bulli of India.
And I thought, "How do we do that?" And then I saw the answers were in the history.
What was that one dish that changed El Bulli? It was when they created the spherified olive.
I thought that if they could conquer a dish, which was very Spanish, and every Spanish would accept it, I need to conquer the same thing in India.
Olive, for a Spanish, is very equivalent to what is yogurt to Indian.
Try this.
Yogurt is our mother sauce.
It's like a dashi.
It's like a fish sauce to Thai.
It's it's something that we use in our desserts, to our courses, to our curries, to our rice, and we even offer to the gods.
It's a very important, symbolic thing in India.
Very good, man.
When I saw the spherified olive, I thought, "Why don't I do the spherification of a yogurt?" I went to 7-Eleven.
I took the yogurt.
I made an alginate bath in my home, mixed a little bit of salt, just whipped it, and started trying to do the spherification.
The calcium from the yogurt immediately reacted with the alginate.
It started cooking and they form a gel.
It encapsulates the whole flavor inside it.
And all you got to do, in five minutes, is take it out, like a bubble, and then wash it in clean water to clear the flavors.
And put it on a spoon and chill it.
This was the seduction of the dish.
And I knew that I had my symbol of progressive Indian cuisine.
I was so excited.
I came here.
I loved the place.
I planned the whole restaurant.
Everything was perfect.
We were supposed to open in April.
Then Bangkok had its own troubled times.
All Bangkok was under a political protest.
The ones who were in power and the ones who were not in power, the opposition, had taken all this whole area.
The laborers in our restaurant were part of the protest.
One day, I came back here, saw people making rockets from hardware that I bought for the construction.
The pipes were from my restaurant.
And I could smell rubber being burned.
My house was completely broken down.
My dreams were just crushed.
I was on the brink of losing everything.
We waited for the negativity to go away, and September we entered the restaurant.
We were supposed to open in April.
We lost four months.
So, initially, I didn't cook what I wanted to cook.
I had my menu.
Chicken tikka, curry, naan breads.
I cooked everything because I had not break even.
The first challenge I had was to get our money back.
I wanted to sleep peacefully every night, that I don't owe anyone.
And then there was a disaster.
On the 21st of February, I lost my brother.
I was shocked.
Those are tough days of your life where you your commitment is being proved.
He passes away and you can't attend his funeral.
You're back here because your restaurant is suffering.
My brother, he wrote messages for everyone before he goes.
It says, "My celebrity brother don't feel sad.
Time spent in Bangkok was so close.
I have done everything I wanted in life.
So let me go and be happy.
Be famous.
Show the world that Gaggan is the only one.
" And that letter gave me the strength to come back in four days and cook.
Cook and cook every day.
You know, when you're pushed to a corner to the extreme corner, like a cocoon, then you explode out of your shell.
Five minutes! Five minutes! You have five minutes to wind down.
By that time, I became fearless.
Pack up, pack up.
Fearless because I could do what I wanted to do.
Fearless because I wanted to cook what I wanted.
It's an incredible feeling.
Like, out of your cocoon, and you're a butterfly.
With your wings, you're flying wherever you want.
I was cooking what I wanted to cook.
And the restaurant here became very successful.
People were really excited.
I mean, it was something totally new in an environment where we have hundreds of Indian restaurants and all of them more or less the same.
Gaggan nailed it.
In Asia's 50 Best, he was ranked every year.
He climbed to number ten, and then to number three.
So in two years we broke even.
I start sending money home.
My mom was like, "Okay, finally, I have some money.
" I got a house for her.
She was proud of me.
That was a period when I realized I was happy.
But there was an ambition to be the best chef in India which I'm not yet.
The Asia 50 Best.
The award night is the most exciting thing in your life, as a chef, because they don't tell you where you are, what is your ranking.
Am I among the best restaurants in Asia? I go to the awards.
I was entering this hall, and somebody came and told me, "You! Look, this year, you'll go down.
You'll go down.
You'll go down.
You'll see.
You're number three last year.
This year you'll be out.
You'll be no more.
" I said, "I have done nothing wrong to you.
Why are you so angry at me?" I said, "Enjoy the awards.
" Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Asia's 50 Best Restaurants, 2015.
And right beside us was this Filipino couple.
The Filipino lady comes and asks me, "So you do Indian food?" I said, "Yeah.
" "I love curries.
" I said, "I love, too.
" Okay.
So the awards started.
The countdown begins.
Number 50.
at number 50 on the list, the Best Restaurant in Cambodia is Cuisine Wat Damnak from Siem Reap.
So they stand up in the center and everybody claps for him.
The guy brings the award.
He goes back.
Move on.
It's a very fast, rapid-fire award.
And at number 48 Number 45 And number 40 Finished the 40s.
I'm relaxed.
Finished the 30s.
I'm relaxed.
Goes to 20s.
And our first from India I have a faster heartbeat.
It is the legendary Bukhara.
That Filipino lady, she looks back to me.
"You're not in top 20? Top 10? What's your ranking last year?" I said, "Number three.
" "What's your name?" "Gaggan.
" She was just googling.
"Oh! Let's take a selfie.
" I said, "Can I focus there?" "No, no, please take a selfie.
" I said, "No, they might announce my name.
" And at number eight Number seven, number six, number five And I thought, "I'm in top five at least.
We've not done that bad.
" Number four.
Number three.
When number two comes, Narisawa was on the other side.
He's a legend.
Either it's him or it's me.
And then, there were two.
All the people who I know are watching for me.
And I'm perspiring here.
It is Narisawa.
And then I saw this guy with the camera like this, looking at me.
And then I cried.
I knew it was me.
The San Pellegrino Best Restaurant in Asia 2015 is Gaggan! I stood up.
I ran.
And we're crying, crying, crying.
I couldn't control the emotion that day.
And I became the best restaurant in Asia.
I called my mom, first thing.
I was crying.
I said, "I miss my brother.
" If he was here, he would have been happier.
I have lived a dream that if you're even born in poverty, you can still go where you want to go.
I had my struggle, and I don't want to go back there.
I don't want to go back.
I want to go ahead.
Success came to me very easy.
I lived 27 years of cursed life, and suddenly success came to me.
But everybody comes in fashion, and goes away.
Hey, 7:40, suppertime! If that happens, I'll come back with something stronger.
Gaggan will become more aggressive.
It will have a bigger appetite for destruction.
Okay? Everybody? Very important Yeah.
Yeah, destroying the Indian food.
That's the only way I know.
Okay, menu changing.
Everything changing.
This week is the last week of many dishes.
No more curries.
No more chicken tikka masala.
No more naan breads.
No more naan breads! For those traditionalists who don't want to eat progressive cuisine, we had chicken tikka masala as a comfort pillow.
And now, I won't cook chicken tikka masala.
It's about having the confidence of doing what you want to do from what a guest wants you to do.
I am the lion of my jungle in Thailand.
I want to be the lion in the country where I come from.
So I want to go back to India, do a restaurant and challenge India.
Because now I know that Indian food can conquer the world.