Good food is often the key to a successful bar

What do you eat when you are having a drink?

It’s not a question with an easy answer. I find that it changes from city to city and generation to generation.

 

My earliest childhood memories of watching grown-ups drink had two components. One: the men always drank whisky (Scotch if they could afford it) and possibly beer at lunchtime. And two: they would eat papad with their drinks.

 

   It’s possible that the papad accompaniment was a Bombay thing (lots of Gujaratis and Sindhis in the city) but all over India bars would only serve peanuts with liquor. At more upmarket establishments there would be cashew nuts. And if they really wanted to roll out the red carpet then they would serve green olives.

 

   Those were simpler days and though I never believed that cashews or olives went with whisky most people seemed content with those accompaniments. (I am a Gujarati so I believe that papad goes with everything.)

 

   Peanuts went particularly well with beer and during the 1970s, bars in Bombay would serve peanuts covered in a masala batter which was especially suited to beer.

 

   In that era Prohibition-type restrictions were enforced so there were not that many bars. The few that existed were called Permit Rooms because you were required (in theory at least) to carry a government-issued permit to be allowed to order hard liquor.

 

   I often think back to those days when I see the bar scene explode all over India. It sometimes seems as though more bars than restaurants are opening in this era and when so-called ‘restaurants’ do open they are often just excuses to run bars.

 

   This is, in many ways, part of a larger global phenomenon and many explanations have been offered for it. One popular theory is that people crave the excitement that a high energy bar provides. Another is that because most new bars are no longer the kinds of places that allow you to make intelligent conversation while you sip at your drink and play music at volumes that make conversation difficult if not impossible, people love them. In the age of social media, all conversation is dying anyway and alienation and loneliness are increasing.

 

   Relationships are collapsing faster than ever. In America 50 per cent of men under 35 are single (and the trend is clearly anti-relationship). According to The Economist “the amount of time 15-to-24-year-olds spend hanging out face-to-face has fallen by more than a quarter over the past decade.”

 

   In contrast, the amount of time spent gaming has increased by about half (and nearly doubled for young men). People are happier with social media relationships than with those that involve personal contact.

 

   In such a situation a bar is perfect because it obviates the need for personal interaction. You can drink while saying very little and still claim that you had a great time ‘partying.’

 

   I am not sure how valid these theories are or how much they apply to India. And anyway, they don’t answer my question. If people now prefer going to bars over restaurants then what do they do about dinner? In the old days even if people drank themselves silly they always looked for a stomach-filler afterwards to soak up the alcohol. But now they just go home once the bars shut.

 

"What I liked about Adithya’s food is that he went in a different direction: he conjured up the ghost of Bangalore’s pub food and then reinvented it."

   The answer seems to be that they eat something while they are drinking. It doesn’t have to be particularly well-made or tasty. They look for ‘creativity’ in the cocktails the bars offer. The food is almost an afterthought and, let’s be honest, it’s often not very good.

 

   Last week in Bangalore I went to the recently-opened Middle Room in the hip Courtyard complex which also includes the red-hot Naru Noodle Bar and the trendy Wine In Progress wine bar. The Middle Room is a Listening Bar which means that you go for the music (usually vinyl but sometimes live) rather than cocktails: it does not serve hard liquor. They don’t turn the volume up till later in the night and even when they do it is done in a way that emphasises the quality of the music because each night has a different musical theme.

 

   It’s a good idea and it’s not the sort of place you go to if you want to get wasted with relative strangers.

 

   What this also means is that the food matters. I spoke to Adithya Kidambi, an engineer turned Kombucha entrepreneur, whose heart is in the kitchen and who has devised an extraordinary food menu for Middle Room.

 

   Adithya has happy memories of Bangalore’s flourishing pub scene which began in the 1990s and died out a decade or so later thanks to government restrictions. I knew that scene well too though unlike Adithya I am not nostalgic about the food that the pubs served. Yes, it was a step up from nuts and papad but very few dishes linger in my memory.

 

   But Adithya not only remembered them all he has lovingly created refined versions of some of them. These range from cheese balls (which I do remember but without any real affection) to Bangalore’s famous Birria Dosa which out-of-towners may call a keema dosa served with a bowl of spicy gravy. Adithya’s version is super refined with a slow cooked goat leg making up the filling.

 

   Most bar food all over the world is finger food so you get kababs, sausages, small masala prawns (a Bombay favourite from decades ago) and the like. Now junk sushi rolls are the finger food of choice along with things like Korean-style fried chicken nuggets.

 

   What I liked about Adithya’s food is that he went in a different direction: he conjured up the ghost of Bangalore’s pub food and then reinvented it. The mutton vada and the garlic prawns are much advanced descendants of the old pub classics and so, apparently, is the corn custard which I have no recollection of.

 

   But lots of the food is very different. Adithya makes his own pastrami for his Reuben Sandwich something I can’t imagine any Bangalore pub doing and his fried chicken would shame most restaurants. It’s chicken marinated till it is meltingly tender and then fried in a butter milk batter with Parmigiano.

 

   The star of the show is his cheeseburger on a perfect house-baked bun with a nicely crusted patty made according to his own recipe. It’s the kind of burger that launches specialty restaurants.

 

   You could argue that The Courtyard is not the best place to look for bar food. The snacks at Wine In Progress come from the Naru kitchen where the food is of the same quality as Adithya’s. And on Sundays Wine In Progress focuses on oysters and champagne.

 

   Other bars will not do anything like that.

 

   But here’s my point: why don’t they? If they can ask their bartenders to expend so much energy inventing improbable cocktails then surely they can also hire imaginative chefs?

 

   it’s happened elsewhere in the world starting with England where the Hind’s Head serves pub food that is so exceptional that Michelin keeps giving it a star. In the US bars are known for their food and in Paris chefs create food for wine bars that is the equal of the fine wines being served.

 

   It hasn’t happened here because bars encourage punters to drink to the sounds of loud music and prevent them from enjoying good imaginative food.

 

   But that won’t always be the case. As so many of India’s restaurant moguls switch to bars for their income streams they will work out that good food is often the key to success.