Savour Thai and Naga flavours at this unique food pop-up

Travel plays an important role in a chef’s menu research by offering unique perspectives to cuisines and cultures. And the modern-day chef is always looking for newer ways to understand and reinterpret them for today's diners. Take chefs Aketoli Zhimomi and Gayatri Desai, who recently took a trip to Thailand to engage with home cooks and chefs, with an aim to explore the overlaps of the local cuisines with Naga food.

Desai, who runs the restaurant Ground Up in Pune, has extensively travelled across North-East India, and is particularly fascinated by the indigenous fermentation culture of the region. Zhimomi, on the other hand, runs Ethnic Table, a restaurant serving contemporary Naga food in Dimapur. “I have always been curious about the cuisines of the Thai people, especially the hill tribes of northern Thailand. Through my research, I have found out that many of their everyday ingredients such as bamboo shoots, mustard greens and axone, which is our fermented soybean delicacy, are common to us,” says 44-year-old Zhimomi. The duo is now teaming up for a nine-course tasting menu inspired by their travels in Thailand at their respective restaurants.

The itinerary spans cities like Chiang Mai, Udon Thani in Isan, and a few villages in Phrao district (about two hours from Chiang Mai), where the two visited the local markets and met home cooks and chefs. “The idea is to cook together, and also spotlight the parallels between the two cultures i.e. Naga and Thai. We want to showcase some familiar ingredients in a different light, but our interpretations are going to be unique,” says 36-year-old Desai.

This is not the first time the two have collaborated for a pop-up. In 2022, Zhimomi visited Desai’s Pune restaurant to create a dining experience featuring traditional delicacies from her home state — a hearty galho, a khichdi-like dish, Naga blood sausages, an axone plum sauce that was used as a garnish for one of the dishes, and several other experiments using housemade vinegars from Desai’s pantry.

For the current dinners, the menus will be tweaked depending on the city, and as per the availability of seasonal greens and vegetables. The duo plans to use ingredients such as insects, bamboo shoots, wild greens and mushrooms, fermented soybean and crab paste, indigenous rice, and different kinds of chillies. “But we are particularly kicked about using tua nao, which is fermented soybean much like the Naga axone,” says Zhimomi, who was blown away by the process of making it by a 65-year-old woman in Ban Pa Lan village, in Phrao district. “The most interesting thing about it is that they turn it into a chapati-like shape, which they fire roast it like papad, and eat it with sticky rice. It’s super umami and spicy,” informs Desai.

The tasting menu aptly called ‘Cultures in Transit’ will introduce diners in Dimapur with “something they’ve never experienced before,” says Zhimomi. Fermented pork sausage served with sticky rice, smoked beef larb, a salad made of minced meat and greens, Som Tam with black sesame crab paste are some of the ideas the two chefs are toying with.

The dinners are scheduled from 9 to 11 May, at Ethnic Table in Dimapur, and 16 to 21 May at Ground Up in Pune. Details on Instagram @groundup.in.