Hemant Oberoi and his team have been criss-crossing the globe, searching for inspiration for their new dishes

On November 26, 2008, Chef Hemant Oberoi was bustling about, racing between the kitchen of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel and his office next door when he heard the first muffled shots and explosions. It was the beginning of a long nightmare for Oberoi and his team.

For the next few hours, they were stuck in the kitchen and Oberoi, with amazing presence of mind, instructed his staff to make sandwiches and distribute them to the guests they could reach.

Blooming tea consists of tea leaves imported from China which are carefully hand-stitched and bound together

Wok boiled basa in Chinese spices and flavoured stock is a signature dish at Golden Dragon and comes in a special wooden stand

Today, he looks back on it all and reckons that it was just destiny that one of the many bullets flying in all directions missed him. “Now, we have moved on and don’t even want to think about what happened,” says Oberoi, the corporate chef and grand executive chef at The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower.

Hard work has been almost therapeutic for Oberoi and for the last few months, he has been criss-crossing the world and working overtime to ensure that the Taj Mahal’s restaurants would make a grand splash when they opened to the public once again.

Oberoi and a team of three sous chefs have scoured Asia for the best recipes and ideas possible. They’ve visited places like Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tokyo and Singapore. Their inspiration has come from Michelin starred restaurants in Tokyo, busy street vendors in Shanghai and even nondescript eateries in Chengdu. They’ve tried out about 300 different dishes. Says Oberoi: “We wanted something truly different.”

The three restaurants that opened earlier this week — Golden Dragon, Wasabi and Harbour Bar — sport a completely new look. To ensure they matched the best, the Taj Group roped in Rockwell Group Europe, a Madrid-based architecture firm, to restore the grandeur of Wasabi and Harbour Bar. For the Golden Dragon, they hired Kuala Lumpur-based LTW Design Works.

The menus too have been entirely overhauled and brought firmly into the 21st century. At the Golden Dragon, for instance, there are 20 different types of dimsums. What’s new in that? Well, there are fascinating new combinations on offer now. For instance, diners can now have dimsum with caviar. And then, there are dimsums with soup inside. “The menu is more artistic and contemporary,” says Oberoi.

At the Sea Lounge which opened in May, there’s a wide choice of new snacks and varieties of tea

The Golden Dragon has bright new interiors with a gold leaf ceiling and ivory on the walls. The focal point is the new live kitchen, which has a large oven for making the dimsum and Beijing duck. In all, 40 new dishes have been added like soft shell crab buried in a bed of sun-dried button chillies.

However, Oberoi has resisted the temptation to expand the restaurants. The Golden Dragon seats 92 and Wasabi and Harbour Bar too seat the same numbers as before.

Stir fried lobster tossed with asparagus and snow egg and tomato is a special offering at Golden Dragon

One of Oberoi’s special creations is Song of Dragon, which is crispy chicken buried in a bed of sun-dried red chillies

Crab samosa served on a bed of mashed potato with imli sauce is a new addition at the Harbour Bar

Black cod with miso and sweetened black bean is one of the new dishes at Wasabi

Wasabi also has a new look mostly in wood with a red carpet. A brand new semi-circular teppanyaki counter has replaced the earlier U-shaped one. There’s one eight-seater table where only sushi is served and which has its own chef.

There are 15 new dishes on the menu at Wasabi like the inoki mushroom tempura, which Oberoi feels will become popular. The ingredients are, of course, flown in fresh — fish will continue to be imported every five days and fresh stock of wasabi comes in every week.

Harbour Bar, the popular bar at the hotel’s lower level that first opened its door in 1933, will continue to be the place where the city’s well-heeled congregate. Overlooking the harbour, this is where old world charm has been beautifully blended with a chic and contemporary setting.

There are rare whiskys stacked in the bar. “This is purely for nostalgia,” says Oberoi who is hunting for the best wine and single malts for the bar. But the bar also reflects a global spirit. Even the tapas are called global tapas and aren’t restricted to Spain alone. So, there’s a vegetarian spring roll with pesto or even a crab samosa.

As for the Sea Lounge that bounced back to business in May, the look has been heightened by bright upholstery. The menu is intact with old favourites like Bombay Toasty and Bombay Chaat but the Taj has also introduced Asian High Tea, where you get more than 40 different types of tea and 16 types of coffee. And there’s one piece that has survived the mini-war of last year. The grand piano is still there and it’s belting out old familiar tunes.

Photographs by Gajanan Dudhalkar