Gajar halwa 2.0 on the menu at Hyderabad’s newest restaurant
Summary
At MOAI, chef Mohib Farooqui showcases a minimalistic, technique-driven culinary approach distilled from his varied experiences of two decades
At MOAI in Hyderabad’s financial district, Gachibowli, a deep, white plate holds a grilled spatchcock chicken cured in shio koji (a Japanese condiment), and served on a bed of flowing tahini dotted with barberries. The idea of the restaurant, which opened on 28 March, is to offer an elevated dining experience, where the ingredient is the hero.
“For me, there has to be one prominent flavour and if necessary, two more things underlying it," explains consultant chef Mohib Farooqui, who has designed the signature menu with 28 items. A succession of dishes bear testimony to this approach. The focaccia with a black garlic glaze comes with a generous blob of whipped ricotta, chewy tomatoes, olive crumble and fresh basil. The chargrilled chicken—Buffalo wings stuffed with prawn mousse—is served with a toasted rice dipping sauce. The khichdi khatta and kheema 2.0 is served like an arancini with a tamarind gel.
Specialising in French, Mediterranean and modern European cuisines, Farooqui, 42, is a consultant chef and the founder of Accentuate Food Lab, a tasting menus only restaurant, in Aurangabad. He wears multiple hats as a consultant, business owner and was a culinary trainer. As a culinary trainer, he has taught at Taj Group, Le Cordon Bleu Gurugram and was the Associate Director of Culinary at the Indian School of Hospitality. As a consultant, he has contributed to menu development at the Michelin-starred Inddee in Bangkok and Primitive in Jaipur. The signature menu at MOAI is his latest offering.
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Farooqui was born and brought up in Saudi Arabia and moved to India in 1995 when he was 13. He says that from the age of six, he could cook different egg preparations like the Lebanese awarma, with preserved lamb and its fat. Or a scramble to go with the ful mudammas (an Egyptian fava beans stew) that the family would order. “I was comfortable in the kitchen because my mother and elder sister had a love for cooking, and both had confidence in my abilities," Farooqui says. As a child, he dreamt of being a shawarma cook. In Jeddah, he recalls visiting a vegetable market near his home with his mother in the evenings. “As soon as the Lebanese cook at the shawarma stall there saw me, he would begin preparing one and have it ready by the time my mother was done and we reached him. If the world comes to an end, I will be at peace with one good chicken shawarma and an opera gateau."
Farooqui’s family has roots in Hyderabad, however, on their return to India, they settled in Aurangabad to be closer to relatives and for the quieter, small city life. Farooqui wanted to study to be an architect but didn’t have the aptitude for it. Instead, he cracked the entrance exam at the Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad. Graduating in 2004, he worked at The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai for a year, following which he enrolled for a two-year culinary programme at Le Cordon Bleu Sydney in 2005. While studying, he worked at La Grande Bouffe with celebrity TV Chef Colin Fassnidge.
After graduating, Farooqui continued in Australia working with other fine dining establishments, notably Chez Rene:“It was a suburban, classical French restaurant with a Swiss-German Chef Izzy who trained me in old school approaches, giving me a strong grounding," Farooqui says, adding he also worked at the 3-hatted (the Australian Good Food Guide Chef Hat Awards) Brisbane restaurant Urbane. He then moved back to Aurangabad in 2010 to look after his mother. “That's when the Taj Group approached me to become a trainer, which I did for the next five years, with them and others. I was happy, but felt the void of not meeting real-time guests," he shares.
“In 2014, I bought Relae: A Book of Ideas (by Christian F. Puglisi, the chef behind Relæ), and became a fan of this Copenhagen restaurant. I then wrote to several restaurants in Denmark for an internship... I got a yes from everybody, but Relae was my first choice for its minimalist, technique-driven approach," he says, adding he was the only intern as old as the head chef.
Farooqui completed his three-month internship at Relae in 2020. Covid hit and while stuck in Aurangabad, he contemplated opening something of his own. “I enjoy doing a la carte menus with small portions infused with a strong storytelling component. Aurangabad is a two-tier industrial city with globe-trotting business folk; I was aware my market share would be tight. I wanted to do more than seven courses and a tasting menu was the way to go," he explains. He started Accentuate Food Lab in 2020, but it largely remained shut because of lockdowns, and reopened again in January 2021. It is an eight-seater initimate place, with nine and 13-course menus.
At Accentuate, Farooqui's current menu is impressions of Indian food reimagined. Menu descriptions are minimal and the storytelling happens at the table. For example, the fish of the day is mentioned alongside the Mexican Guero pepper. The story goes that as a child Farooqui never liked mirchi ka salan paired with biryani. “I preferred it chilled on a slice of white bread or with plain steamed rice. At Accentuate, the Guero is charred and stuffed with a salan made of the same pepper and dipped in a squid ink gel and served with fish cooked on coal," he explains.
He is now keen on showcasing food cooked on charcoal and wood. Besides the fried chicken, the gajar halwa 2.0 at MOAI has grated carrots smoked on fire before they are used in the dessert. In the future, he hopes to open a restaurant with a salad bar that serves faham (coal-grilled Arabic-style chicken) with flatbread. “I also wish to showcase my mother’s Hyderabadi cuisine in a modern way and dive deeper into the food I grew up on."
Ruth Dsouza Prabhu is a features journalist based in Bengaluru.
