French cooking with local ingredients, Nava’s upscale restaurant is for everyone
Started in December 2022, Nava gives a local take to French cooking, celebrating and elevating humble ingredients.
Bandra in Mumbai is a bustling suburb, home to crowded street markets, with a cafe or a restaurant at almost every nook and cranny.
While any new establishment in the area would face tough competition, Anushka Pathak also saw a gap in Bandra’s dining space.
“I am someone who would go and try the newest places in whichever city I live in. And for quite some time, I was not able to find a completely upscale dining place in Bandra, which is also accessible" Anushka tells YS Life.
Then the pandemic hit, and Anushka, like many of us, started thinking about what she really wanted to do. “Whenever I would travel to different countries and cities, I would come across these really amazing places with good food, and ambience. I always thought I would own a place like that someday, and over the years, that thought never left me,” she recalls.
Former public relations professional, Anushka Pathak, started Nava in December 2022
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The pandemic pushed her to take the plunge and switch from public relations to the food industry. She contacted Aakash Deshpande, who started his culinary journey at 17, washing dishes at restaurants. He has been a chef across establishments in Canada and Doha, Qatar, and Social brand of restaurant across India.
The result of their collaboration is Nava restaurant—one of the newest (literally) culinary offerings at Mumbai’s Linking Road.
Yin and yang
The first impression Nava offers is of self-assurance. The black and white decor with a dash of gold exudes a sense of royalty—and it's pretty Instagrammable too. “The white marble table was the only thing Akash really insisted on getting,” says Anushka.
The contrast of the two colours also reflects the yin and yang personalities of the two founders. Akash is responsible for coming up with the menu and using his artistic creativity to develop innovative dishes, for instance, a dessert inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night. But more on that later.
Anushka, on the other hand, is responsible for building the restaurant, marketing, and business expansion.
French cooking with humble ingredients
Nava’s menu offers a fusion of French cooking techniques using native and local ingredients. However, the restaurant insists it does not want to be labelled ‘farm-to-fork’. “We don’t want any labels because cooking with local ingredients is not a very new thing, nor do we believe that an ingredient-driven restaurant means going to highly niche locations just to find a fancy ingredient, it’s more about appreciating what’s around us,” Anushka explains.
While upgrading daily vegetables, such as cauliflower and lemons-- Nava also dabbles with high-end ingredients including Lobster Tail, Duck and Sea Bass
Both founders believe in using local fruits and vegetables instead of sourcing something exotic. “We focus more on creating dishes based on memories and what would be easily available in the domestic markets. It is more about how you can make a humble, everyday ingredient sing,” Akash illuminates.
And, the intent is completely reflected in Nava’s soufflé. The 18th-century French dessert, originally made with eggs, features cauliflower and is served as an appetizer.
Served in a white cup on top of a white plate, the first whiff you get is of the truffle oil used as an infusion to enhance the smooth cauliflower puree and bechamel sauce. Topped with a purple cauliflower ice cream, the souffle does a savoury and sweet dance in your mouth, with the sourdough bread, on the side, you also get the crunch element. The dish is completely vegan—the eggs replaced with Aquafaba, or chickpea water.
However, the absence of eggs also affects the souffle from getting a traditional rise, but the texture does not suffer.
Nava also has an experimental cocktail menu
Corn and Husk is inspired by one of Akash’s mother’s recipes. The ingredient—served in multiple forms—really changed my mind about corn. The panko bread crumbs, deep fried patties or cakes (as described on the menu), taste almost like sweet corn. There are some spicy notes in the patty but before it gets too boring, the lemongrass-infused sweet and spicy corn puree cuts through the sweetness, adding more spicy notes and creamy texture.
One could use the jalapeno salsa to up the spice quotient. "The idea behind the concept and presentation of this dish was to give nostalgia a new take. We took corn and put a spin on it. The dish tastes like something new but familiar enough to take you down memory lane," says Aakash.
But the show-stealer is the Fagotini.
A personal take on ravioli, in Fagotini, the pasta has a pink beetroot pasta layer, with an ice apple fruit and a goat cheese filling. The texture of the pasta is slightly on the thicker side, as two different kinds of pasta dough are layered on top of each other, but when you eat it, it would be very hard to tell the difference as it is cooked al dente.
The highlight of the dish is the jus. Its umami and slightly sweet taste complements the pasta and its earthy, slightly tarty filling. The dish is worth every bite.
“A jus is always non-vegetarian as it is made from beef broth. But I was experimenting in my kitchen one time, and created this vegetarian jus, which tastes exactly like any other meat-based jus. I had accidentally served this to a customer in Doha and they could not tell the difference,” the chef recalls.
But is any meal really complete without a dessert? This is where Nava has gone all out in the presentation.
Nava has gone all out on desserts. The restaurant's edible Vincent Van Gogh painting is one of the best selling dishes
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“Akash is also an artist. He paints quite a bit,” says Anushka. “One time, he made an edible version of Van Gogh's Starry Night as a tart in its first rendition. I told him why don't we find a way to produce it for the restaurant,” she adds.
And that’s how Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night was born. The dessert, created by pastry chef Freya Pinto, uses jasmine and vanilla custard to paint the white, blue and yellow stars on a canvas.
The light textured vanilla bean mousse’s flavour profile gets elevated with the Gondhoraj lemon sponge and a passion fruit curd center. The mousse sits atop a ginger shortbread and is replete with a passion fruit jelly topping, in shape of a crescent moon.
Nava's has a knack for experimental desserts. A Tadgola (Ice Apple) as Michelangelo's David's head sit on a white plate
Van Gough's full moon is also painted using the jasmine custard. The dessert might look dense but has a very fresh and light structure. And I like that it was not overly sweet.
However, the dessert is more about the presentation than the taste. But still leaves you with a very vivid and sensory experience.
The less than three month old restaurant comes as a David to the Goliath of Mumbai’s competitive and boastful culinary landscape. But the restaurant has successfully differentiated itself, and that is what wins battles—food wars, at least.
Edited by Kanishk Singh
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