“THE MENU.”
NAINA
It’s morning day 2 in Milan. I couldn’t sleep well knowing that I had work to do. It reminded me of my old days when I was in London doing relentless work without a day off. I guess I don’t like unfinished business which would explain why I have been up since 5?
I sat down at table 4 with my laptop. Ghar accounts opened. Checked out what has been going on for the last few years. I had coffee by my side but I reheated it twice. While going on and on at my laptop with plans, accounts and what to do for the next thirty days. Oops, that’s 29 now.
I figured out the problem and was fully focused on which step the restaurant needed the most. The solution was the menu.
I opened up a new document and started creating.
The keema tacos are proof. One dish that lives at the intersection of what Ghar is and what it could be and people order it every single time.
The menu needs six more of those.
Papa needs to hear that without hearing that his menu is the problem.
These are not the same conversation.
I have thirty days.
I need to be very careful about which one I have first.
DEV
I came to the restaurant at 7:00 AM. the usual timing since 23 years. I saw Naina working on something. She looked tired but motivated, it was nice to see her back home. She had printed documents in her hand and the expression she used to get at fourteen when she’d decided something and was figuring out how to tell me.
I made two coffees.
I already knew this was going to be about the menu.
“What is this?”
NAINA
“A proposal.”
DEV
“For what.”
NAINA
“The menu.”
Silence.
The specific silence of a man who has just understood what kind of morning this is going to be.
DEV
“The menu is fine.”
NAINA
“The menu is eight years old.”
DEV
“Good things don’t expire.”
NAINA
“Papa. The dal makhani—”
DEV
“Don’t use the dal makhani against me.”
NAINA
“I’m not using it against you. I’m saying it’s a nine out of ten dish on a menu that has stopped growing around it.”
I feel he would be disappointed even if I achieved a global award for my ideas. His expression was very dull as if I was stealing everything from him.
DEV
“People love it.”
NAINA
“People love it and then they go somewhere else next month because somewhere else is doing something new.”
DEV
“My regulars don’t go anywhere else.”
NAINA
“Your regulars are getting older, Papa. New Milan is twenty-five and it wants to be surprised.”
Dev looks at his coffee.
Then at the document.
Then at Naina.
DEV
“Table four. 2009. The Rossi family. Three generations. The grandmother cried while eating the dal makhani.”
NAINA
“I know.”
DEV
“You want to change what made her cry.”
NAINA
“I want to keep the dal makhani and add six dishes that make the next generation cry.”
A pause.
DEV
“That sentence was designed very carefully.”
NAINA
“I’ve been awake since five.”
He looks at the document again.
Picks it up.
Reads it slowly.
Puts it down.
DEV
“The keema tacos are on here.”
NAINA
“They’re staying.”
DEV
“And the butter chicken.”
NAINA
“Staying.”
DEV
“The saag paneer.”
NAINA
“Going.”
DEV
“Absolutely not.”
NAINA
“Papa. The margin—”
DEV
“The margin is not the point.”
NAINA
“In thirty days the margin is entirely the point.”
DEV
“The saag paneer has been on this menu since we opened.”
NAINA
“I know.”
DEV
“Your mother’s recipe.”
The kitchen is very quiet.
NAINA (quietly)
“I know, Papa.”
Dev picks up his coffee.
Drinks it.
Puts it down.
DEV
“The saag paneer stays.”
It’s not a negotiation.
NAINA
“Okay.”
DEV
“Everything else—”
He pauses.
Looks at the document one more time.
DEV
“We discuss.”
NAINA
Not a yes.
Not a no.
From Dev Sharma — that’s practically a standing ovation.
It was mid- morning, papa was in the kitchen preparing the dishes. I started with the entire inventory of the restaurant – storage, equipment, supplier contracts and everything else. It is important to know everything before I start fixing things around here.
I went into the office and found everything I needed. While searching around in the office I noticed something. A folder stuck behind the cabinet. It was all dusty, so I gave it a puff of air, dusted it and opened it.
My eyes stared at the document for longer than I should have. Nostalgia hit like a big wave on the beach. It was the original Ghar’s menu. Handwritten. Twenty-three years old. The paper slightly yellowed the edges, the ink is still clear.
I recognised every dish. I started counting them. Twelve dishes on the opening menu and out of those 8 dishes were something I was close to. I developed these dishes in this kitchen as a teenager, refined over summers, the fusion ideas that made Ghar feel contemporary in its second decade.
I got overwhelmed, my eyes were a little moist. Papa didn’t only keep my dishes he opened with them. I never knew that. There were mixed feelings and I did not have the strength to untangle them now so I just sat down on the office floor and held the menu close to my chest.
It got me thinking about the version of my papa who I didn’t have the access to- he built a restaurant around his daughter’s cooking before she knew that’s what he was doing.
I put the menu back exactly where I found it.
I went back to inventory. Didn’t say anything. I guess some things need to be held before they can be spoken.
ARYAN — Table Seven — Evening
He comes back.
Table seven.
The keema tacos.
Marco doesn’t write it down.
ARYAN
Writes —
Day two of her being back. The kitchen energy is different. You can feel it from the dining room — something has shifted in the way the pass operates. More decisive. Slightly faster.
The specials board has two new items.
Both are hers. I can tell from the construction.
I paused for a second. Read the last line and put the pen down.
I can tell from the construction.
I ate in this restaurant eleven times in eighteen months. Good enough to know whose instincts produced this food. I caught her doing inventory, checking every single detail as though she was on a mission to terminate someone. Messed up bun, light pink shirt with beige pants, sleeves rolled. Her big brown eyes looking for a solution, soft pink lips muttering god knows what looking at the food.
She came through the floor during service.
checking everything — the way a chef checks a dining room, reading the tables, reading the energy, assessing what’s working and what isn’t.
NAINA
“You’re back.”
ARYAN
“The tacos.”
NAINA
“You said that yesterday.”
ARYAN
“It’s still true today.”
She looks at the specials board.
Then at him.
NAINA
“Did you try the specials?”
ARYAN
“I ordered them first.”
NAINA
“And.”
ARYAN
“The lamb one needs something acidic at the end. Something to cut through.”
She looks at him.
NAINA
“Preserved lemon.”
ARYAN
“Yes.”
NAINA
“That was my second instinct.”
ARYAN
“Trust your second instinct.”
NAINA
“Is that general advice or food specific?”
ARYAN
“Both.”
She almost smiles.
Catches herself.
Move on to the next table.
I watched her go.
Wrote one more line in the journal.
Preserved lemon. She already knew.
NAINA
Late. Service over. Papa went home.
I was at the pass alone. I couldn’t help it. I put on Papa’s spare apron before I’d made the decision consciously.
Not for the menu. Not for anyone.
Just — making something. The way I used to in this kitchen at seventeen, late at night after service, when the restaurant was empty and the kitchen was mine.
I started working on the dish from the notebook.
The one that needs to taste like leaving and coming back at the same time.
I had a base now- something that started as a memory and is now becoming reals. I guess that’s the magic of your home kitchen.
I tasted it. Went into my mind diary of flavours, felt every spice and just one comment came through my lips.
“Close. Not there yet.”
I wrote three words in the notebook.
Needs more time.
Closed it.
Looked at the kitchen.
At the pass where Papa stood this morning.
At the office where the original menu lives in a folder behind a cabinet.
At the specials board where two new dishes exist because I put them there.
NAINA (internal)
He built the menu around my cooking.
Before I knew that’s what he was doing.
Before I knew there was anything to build.
I spent six years thinking I left because he couldn’t hear me.
I’m starting to wonder if I left because I couldn’t hear him either.
Closing lines:
Day two.
The saag paneer is staying.
That’s fine.
It should stay.
Everything else — we discuss.
In Dev Sharma language that means yes.
I think.
I hope so.
Twenty-eight days.
END OF EPISODE 3.
Leave a Reply