“Rise of the Indian Orient” An interview with Chef DK of Haoma Bangkok
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eginning with the goal to create a fully sustainable restaurant concept, Chef Deepanker Khosla (or Chef DK) built Haoma Bangkok from the ground up. Today, the restaurant has grown into a respectable fine dining destination serving creative menus in the city. Has Haoma’s restaurant concept changed? “The concept for the restaurant hasn’t changed but the food concept has gone through some kind of revolution, definitely. We used to focus on the urban farm, sustainability, using only local produce or whatever we grow in our garden here. Today, we are strictly serving Neo-Indian cuisine—the cuisine prior to the traditional precolonisation era of India. Why Neo-Indian cuisine? “First of all, no one has ever done this before, especially in fine dining setting. This is very new and I would love to be a bridge between the ‘real’ Indian food
and the Indian food that people have come to know today. India, as a country, has gone through numerous changes in terms of culture, daily life, religion, lifestyle and especially food and this range of flavours is what I really want to bring to the plates at Haoma.
What’s important to me, personally, is that every dish at Haoma must have four important elements: a mix of my childhood memory (about food, of course), the flavours that work with everyone, playfulness and a great story or legend behind it.
What is your process of designing a new menu? “The process of crafting new menu is done from the bottom up. We’d visit the farmers we’re working with in Chiang Mai and elsewhere. We discuss with them about what kind of crops they will have, say, from November to April. Once we have a list of the available crops, then we start designing the menu.
What else can we expect from Haoma in the near future? “As we start to explore the depth of Neo-Indian food, I believe we will be offering more unique and exciting dishes to our diners. We are also planning numerous events involving many great chefs who have similar visions to come and cook with us so keep watching this space for those.
Haoma Bangkok 231/3 Sukhumvit 31 Rd (Soi Sawasdee) | Tel: 02 038 5821 | Open: Tue-Fri 6-11pm; Sat-Sun 11:30am-3pm, 6-11pm www.haoma.dk | www.facebook.com/HaomaBKK
