There is a tendency, particularly outside of India, to speak about Indian food as though it were a single cuisine. A country of over a billion people is conveniently reduced to a familiar collection of curries, tandoori grills, and naan breads. It is a shortcut that undermines the centuries of history and regional diversity that define a place’s culinary traditions; instead, we have somehow settled into a single, mistakenly simplified narrative. Fortunately, Kanishka has little interest in retelling a familiar story. On 3 July, Atul Kochhar and Executive Chef Ashok Kumar turned their attention to Goa for an evening.
A Cuisine Built on Contradiction
Perched on India’s western coast, Goa spent more than four centuries under Portuguese rule – long enough for languages to borrow from one another and cultures to become irreversibly entangled. Fortunately for us, the same was true of its food.
At first glance, Goa’s cuisine seems nearly rebellious in the context of what most people might imagine Indian food to be; pork takes centre stage in many dishes, vinegar penetrates sauces where one might anticipate the smoothness of dairy. At some point, these foreign ingredients stopped being foreign. They became dinner.
This harmonious blend of borrowed traditions and local identities is precisely what makes Goan cuisine unlike any other regional cuisine in India. It is this layered culinary identity that Kanishka chose to explore with their recent “Taste of Goa” dinner, where Michelin-starred chef Atul Kochhar reinterpreted the region’s most defining dishes through the restaurant’s contemporary fine-dining lens.
What Vinegar Is Doing in an Indian Curry
The five-course menu began with nashta: rawa prawn balchao paired with vindaloo pork sausage and crab xec xec, immediately introducing diners to the sharp acidity, seafood and pork that have come to define Goan cooking.
Kochhar’s fish recheado offers the clearest introduction to Goa’s Portuguese inheritance. Palm vinegar and chilli-marinated red snapper arrives alongside sanna, grilled baby gem and kokum. Its Portuguese name, directly translating to “stuffed”, describes not merely a culinary technique but a vinegar-forward masala, often used to fill fish before frying. Challenging the conception that Indian cuisine relies on tamarind or yogurt to ignite acidity, recheado announces itself with vinegar.
Kochhar’s chicken cafreal makes it clear that Goa’s story doesn’t begin or end with Portugal. Served as a vibrant green chicken dish, its herbaceous paste traces a route through Portuguese East Africa before arriving on India’s western coast. Coriander, mint and spring onions formed its original foundation, while black pepper, cinnamon and local spices gradually transformed it into the fiery, aromatic dish that has become a cornerstone of Goan cooking. By the time it finally made its way to Goa, it had already crossed continents; Goa simply gave it a permanent home.
On the other hand, not every Goan dish is rooted in foreign imports; we cannot forget the culinary identity of the region itself – Kochhar’s lamb xacuti shifts the conversation back to Goa itself. Cooked with coriander seed, poppy seed, cinnamon and coconut milk before being served with red rice and pav, Kochhar’s lamb xacuti reminds diners that the region’s culinary identity was created just as much by the local produce as by the trading networks that permeated its ports.
Beyond Butter Chicken
Dedicating an evening to these Goan dishes feels thoroughly consistent with Kanishka’s general philosophy. Although the restaurant spends most of its evenings deep in the flavours of India’s lesser-known northeastern regions, its menus have long rejected the stereotype that Indian cuisine can be understood through a handful of dishes. Rather, Atul Kochhar celebrates the extraordinary regional diversity of India, prompting diners to discover what is too often forgotten in Britain’s understanding of Indian food.
The Final Layer
Bebinca is perhaps the most appropriate conclusion. Not only because it is the dessert that brought this intricate evening to a close, but because its myriad layers reflect the history of Goa itself. Kochhar’s interpretation paired the traditional layered coconut cake with coconut jelly, passion fruit caramel and coconut-jaggery sorbet, preserving the dessert’s construction while giving it a contemporary finish. Like the dessert itself, it demands more than a simple list of ingredients; it requires patience: each layer is cooked and set before the next, until centuries of history become as inseparable as the cake itself.
Goa in a Glass
Maya Pistola Agavepura, produced from agave grown in India, became an unexpected companion to the menu. Agave is not an ingredient one instinctively associates with India, which is perhaps precisely why it belonged there. If Goa’s cuisine demonstrates anything, it is that ingredients and culinary styles have crossed borders long before the concept of ‘fusion’ entered our culinary lexicon.
A Richer Picture of India
The greatest achievement of Kanishka’s evening was not introducing diners to new dishes, but urging a receptive audience to update their perception of a cuisine that tends to be treated as a single, monolithic tradition. Goa has never fitted comfortably inside that narrative. Its food carries too many stories, too many influences and too much history for that.
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All images courtesy of Kanishka by Atul Kochhar.