The taste of paradise

Goa has added a new must-do to its list

- K. SUNIL THOMAS

Goa is no longer a vacation,” says restaurateur Tarun Sibal. “It is a plan.” That plan now features a new destination: Premium restaurants.

Chilled beer and shisha at a beach shack, partying at Tito’s in Baga, parasailing at Calangute, flea market shopping at Anjuna, and a whole lot of people-watching and bike riding. This was what a vacay in India’s favourite leisure destination meant to the one crore tourists who land up in Goa every year. Not any longer.

Going ‘beachless’ is the new trend, as a spate of new restaurants and activities that do not involve the beach pops up across the sunshine state. Rough estimates are that some 150 premium restaurants/ cafe bars have opened up in just the past two years or so. Their combination of world class menus, signature cocktails and craft spirits, all in the stunning backdrop, have spurred a veritable restaurant boom in Goa.

“Goa is the food capital of India now,” says Prashant Pallath, co-owner of Tanjore Tiffin Room, a popular Mumbai eatery that opened an outpost last year in Goa. “Even in Delhi (another claimant to the title), you do not get this combination of all kinds of foods and customers from around the world. Anybody who wants to make a name in the restaurant business has to open in Goa.”

And everybody is. Rohit Khattar, who runs Indian Accent as well as the culture and hospitality sections of the India Habitat Centre, chose Goa to open his first original restaurant outside of Delhi NCR. Hosa in Bardez serves a unique blend of traditional and modern south Indian food, and Fireback has a Thai menu. “We had been looking at Goa; it is slowly emerging as one of the major food destinations of the country,” says Nitin Mather, COO of Khattar's holding firm EHV International.