What: Qaliya Qissa

Where: Dum Pukht, ITC Sonar

When: On till February 28, 7pm to 11.45pm

Pocket pinch per person: Rs 1,825-plus (veg mains + dessert), Rs 2,325-plus (non-veg mains + dessert)

If you take a trip to the ITC Sonar, you’ll find two of the best Indian cuisine restaurants in the city within throwing distance of one another. Just down the corridor from the rustic Peshawri is Dum Pukht, run by master chef Zubair Qureshi who tells us, with a grin: “They (team Peshawri) know we are #1. There is a lot of friendly competition.”

It is perhaps, then, in the spirit of friendly competition that Dum Pukht is offering a new menu throughout February — one which is built around the culinary delights of the qaliya curry. “Qaliya dishes are created from a simple base of yoghurt, coriander and assorted spices and involves a slow-cooking process,” explains chef Qureshi. It is a style of cooking that originated in Persia but has become a part of Indian and Pakistani cuisine.

The menu has a selection of vegetarian and non-vegetarian qaliyas, using ingredients ranging from lamb, fish, prawn to almond, lotus stem and potato.

From the moment we arrived, greeted by opulently-dressed staff and the huge white stone curves of the front entrance, through to the moment we left, dinner at Dum Pukht was certainly a remarkable experience.

Before the food, the decor of the room prepared us for the plates to arrive. Moody orange and white lights illuminate a marble floor, while onyx cladding along the walls completes the ambience. The kitchen at the back is surrounded entirely by windows, allowing diners to see (and hear) the food being created, offering a sense of spaciousness.

We began with Gosht Chaap Qaliya, lamb chops cooked to perfection in a wonderfully rich sauce. My personal favourite was Mahi Dum Sarso Qaliya, a whole baby bekti marinated with mustard, yellow chilli and yoghurt, finished on dum — creamy and salty, melting in the mouth like butter.

The Gosht Chandi Qaliya, which chef Qureshi says is his personal favourite, offers boneless lamb pieces slow-cooked for hours until it falls off the bone, with cardamom, saffron and turmeric adding to the flavour.

Qureshi is a chef with a lot of experience — he has been cooking at Calcutta’s Dum Pukht for over seven years now, and before that had spent another six at Dum Pukht, ITC Maurya, in Delhi. He grew up in Agra, surrounded by a family of chefs, and his grandfather was khansama to the Raja of Mahmudabad in Uttar Pradesh. To put it simply, he knows what he is doing.

Text: Stuart Wood

Pictures: B. Halder