Go With the Flow - Interview with Chef Sriram Aylur of Quilon

When you walk through the doors of a restaurant – especially one which carries a Michelin star – you come with certain expectations. These expectations may cover the décor, the price, the service – and certainly the food – but they rarely run to the philosophy behind the restaurant as a whole. I left Quilon delighted with everything, but it was the philosophy of Chef Sriram, and his approach to food, which has really left an impression.

Image, Courtesy of Quilon.

Opened in 1999, Quilon specialises in food from the West coast of Southern India. The restaurant won a Michelin star in 2008, which it has retained ever since, and its menu – which is filled with the impeccably light, fragrant, flavourful dishes of Kerala, Goa and Mangalore – is a mix of traditional regional specialities, and Chef’s own creations.

We begin the evening with mini poppadums and a selection of sauces before moving on to a trio of starters – the restaurant’s own scallops with chilli and mango, a mini masala dosa, and coconut cream chicken. Off to a good start. The scallops were tender and beautifully flavoured, the dosa perfectly spongy and rich with ghee and spices, the coconut chicken moist and sweet. This was followed by a small glass of Rasam - hot tomato soup - as a palate cleanser. I have never had anything like it. Spiced, warming and savoury, it tasted like exactly what you want on a cold day – but was oddly-refreshing at the same time. True to its name, it left my palate cleansed, and ready for the selection of main courses chosen by Chef.

The first was Quilon’s signature Black cod. Created in-house, this was the first dish which clearly represented Chef Sriram’s philosophy. The dish was created following a dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and an order of miso black cod. Inspired, chef and his team decided to create their own and they began by deconstructing the dish -  not by ingredient, but by flavour. Once they had figured out the various tastes, textures and balances, they recreated the dish with ingredients from South West India. The result is sublime.

This way of feeling out food, working on instinct, letting flavours and textures come together naturally, underpins every element at Quilon. Putting together a tasting menu working much like putting together a dish: “we logically put flavours, textures, spice levels, complexities in order, then we try various dishes and slot them in. It’s always the overall experience we’re thinking of, rather than the dishes themselves”.

Chef Sriram Aylur has been heading up the kitchen at Quilon since its inception, and it is his unique vision which has made the restaurant the success it is today. His team functions as a family, and comprises only those who totally understand his vision. “The only way that you can learn to cook a certain cuisine is when you train your palate and your mind to connect with it – because it’s an emotional thing. It’s not mechanised, robotic. You can learn any cuisine that you want, as long as you are prepared to live through it. Any art form is instinctive in a way, and I think it is an instinct you are born with.”

Chef Sriram’s instincts have led him to a style of cooking which marries the traditional with the “progressive”. This term describes a mode of cooking which once more fits in with this idea of instinct and flow. Unlike fusion cooking – where new dishes are created from mixing (sometimes forcibly) two cuisines together – progressive cooking is about creating and growing, while still keeping food relevant to the region, says Chef. “When we do ‘fusion’, we try to use ingredients which are from the West Coast of India, we don’t just pick up any ingredient. It’s very rooted in where it comes from.”

In Chef’s eyes, the goal is for all the dishes at Quilon to be part of one harmonious whole. “When you know our cuisine, you almost look at it and say ‘this is different and new’, but when you eat it you say ‘oh no, I recognise this, I can connect with it’”.

Connecting with food is the cardinal rule at Quilon. “I tell my guys – what I don’t like, will not go on the menu! And that is true. Because I always think you cannot second-guess people. If customers praise or complain about a dish, you do not know what do with that because you cannot connect.” Chef Sriram is, he says, passionate about every dish on the menu – and it’s not hard to see why. Following the Black Cod came Venison and Coconut Curry, traditional Malabar Lamb Biriyani, Duck in Green Pepper Sauce, and the intriguingly sweet-yet-savoury Mango Curry, which was wonderful. Each dish was deep and rich and perfectly-balanced, complementing each other and augmenting the experience as a whole.

These were followed by a selection of desserts. Pistachio cake, light and warm, served with melted black sesame fondant and pistachio ice cream, a tropical fruit salad unlike any fruit salad you’ve had before, decadent chocolate and hazelnut praline, and a trio of baked yoghurts – confit orange, mango and lychee – which were paradise on a plate with a sweet glass of Sauternes.

Talking to Chef, he comes across very relaxed and quietly passionate – not the demeanour one might expect of a Michelin-decorated cook. I asked him whether having the Michelin star had changed things for the restaurant - and am not surprised when he says it has not. “I always tell people that you get rewarded for what you have done, not for what you are going to do. In a way, rewards are of the past, not of the present or the future, so when things like this happen we find every reason to celebrate, but after that we quickly get back to work.”

This sums up the Quilon way perfectly. An evening at the restaurant means an evening in the capable hands of talented chefs cooking wonderful food on instinct. A team of chefs unconcerned with accolades or contrived food fads doing what they love. As we finish, Chef tells me “A lot of people have come back and said “How do you get a Michelin star” and we say “do you what you believe in and do what you love” and they don’t take us very seriously! Everyone thinks we are trying to be modest for the sake of it, but that’s what we do. That is the truth of how we got here.”