Manifeste
Cooking the Way Memory Tastes
Notes from the pass by our Chef de Cuisine.
The Chef
Trained in Lyon, raised on the Malabar coast.
Our chef spent ten years in the brigades of Lyon and Paris before returning to the spice markets of Kochi and the kitchens of Lucknow. Navya, Sanskrit for "the new", is the result: Indian cuisine cooked with French discipline.
Memory before novelty
Every plate starts from a taste someone remembers, like a grandmother's rasam or a Lucknow street at dusk.
Fire is an ingredient
Charcoal, clay and slow embers. The tandoor and dum pukht are where our cooking begins.
Spice, never noise
We grind and temper each spice for its dish and never use a premix. Cardamom should be noticed, not shouted.
French grammar, Indian poetry
Beurre blanc and demi-glace give structure, and saffron and curry leaf give the flavour.
The season decides
Alphonso in May, morels in spring, and Tellicherry pepper harvested at its peak.
Hospitality as ritual
Service follows the old Indian idea that a guest is to be treated as a god.
Precision, then soul
Sous-vide timings are exact to the minute, but the final seasoning is done by taste.