ITP Indian Travel Places: Food, Travel, Tourism Business Events and Trade Shows
Phone: +91 9292923030, +91 9910050236
Address: Shangri -La’s, Eros Hotel, Ground Floor, Shopping Mall Arcade, 19, Ashoka Road, Janpath, New Delhi, India
Time: 12 Noon – 4 PM, 6 PM – 2 AM
Meals for two: Rs. 5,500
Cuisines: Asian, European, Ethiopian, Peruvian, Mediterranean
Facilities:Serves Non Veg, Full Bar Available, Table booking recommended, Nightlife, Serves Cocktails
Novele New Delhi, Janpath, New Delhi: Decor
Novelé is in the premises of Shangri-la, albeit with a separate entrance to which you can drive up. Once inside, you’re in plush, well-appointed settings. The service is top-notch, with excellently trained staff. Even the music is played at a comfortable decibel level. The bad news is that the prices are extortionately high, there does not seem to be a printed wine list and the food appears to be targeted at some mythical customer, who does not exist in our city. Many dishes that I tried were close approximations of tried-and-tested favorites: khinkali were dumplings; coxa de frango was roast chicken leg, and so on. A deliberate attempt to overawe the customer? If so, it is a ploy that appears to have backfired.
Novele New Delhi, Janpath, New Delhi: Food
The menu is full of dishes with names that many customers and staff members would have difficulty pronouncing. Hotate de Nippon costs an astonishing 3,600. Every deluxe hotel serves scallops (hotate), but at more realistic prices. Whoever made the menu appears to have intentionally chosen items with the most difficult-to-procure, expensive ingredients. Still, owing to the talent in the kitchen, much of the food that I tasted that evening was attractively presented, even though the flavors were unfamiliar. Chicken khinkali (Rs. 650) had five dumplings of pleasantly chewy dough with finely minced chicken. Why choose a Georgian name when the filling was never going to be the meat of choice in Central Europe, unless it was to overawe Delhi diners?
Wine-braised onion Khachapuri (Rs. 750) had more than a passing resemblance to miniature Turkish lahmacun, again with a chewy dough base. The portion was obviously for one person, but so filling was it that there was no question of ordering another dish, so why not make each khachapuri smaller, to be shared with a group? Xacuti coxa de frango (Rs. 1,050) featured succulent whole leg of chicken, with the skin on. Deliciously flavorful, without, however, a trace of salt! Cajun chicken pirozhki (Rs. 820) is a take on the most famous Polish / East European baked snack of all: potato pies.
What was cajun spices doing in a Polish dish?
Novele New Delhi, Janpath, New Delhi: Plus & Minus
A swanky place for a cocktail; but far too much carbs in the menu that seems to be designed for a Russian market.
