LIFE IS SWEET

A HANDFUL OF CHEFS AND F&B PROFESSIONALS IS TRYING TO MAKE SWEETMEATS, OR MITHAI, FASHIONABLE

- SMITA TRIPATHI

QUICK, HOW DO YOU MAKE MITHAI EXCITING? HOW ABOUT INFUSING A DASH OF CHAMPAGNE IN YOUR LADDOO, OR COATING YOUR PATISSA WITH COCONUT AND CARAMEL, OR ENCASING DARK Belgian chocolate truffle in a grandma-style traditional besan laddoo? A small but significant number of food and beverage (F&B) professionals are doing this and a lot more to make mithai fashionable.

“We wanted to take what is traditional and then reimagine it,” says Sameer Seth, Co-founder of Hunger Inc, the company behind Mumbai-based restaurants, The Bombay Canteen and O Pedro. Seth and fellow Cofounder Yash Bhanage set up Bombay Sweet Shop in March last year. “We imagined it as Willy Wonka’s mithai factory,” says Seth. So, the store has flooring with bees hovering around flowers with kaju katli-shaped petals, and spot-lit glass cases with mithai displayed. The mithai itself uses a lot of chocolate. Take, for example, the best-selling kaju marzipan which gives a chocolatey twist to the classic kaju katli. It sandwiches two layers of kaju katli with a thick layer of decadent chocolate ganache. Each square is then dipped in chocolate and then sprayed with a chocolate spray. A box of nine pieces costs ₹600.

Chef Girish Nayak, who is referred to as Chief Mithaiwala, loves to reinterpret traditional mithai in his own way. So, you have the lal peda but filled with dulce de leche caramel and chunks of peanut honeycomb, or the besan laddoo coated in sugar syrup and toasted hazelnuts.