Resounding Flavors at Elettaria

First impressions and last impressions at Aktar Nawab’s Elettaria are what are most memorable although the entire dinner certainly gets a standing ovation for its theatre-spectacle like qualities that truly shaped our evening.

Running late for a 9:45 reservation on Friday night, our 10:10 arrival didn’t miff the hostess one bit. We were received with a warmth and friendliness that don’t surface too often, especially in a hot-off-the-presses restaurant owned by a locally famed, slightly presumptuous chef.

The dining room is set up in three rows of tables with the kitchen situated in the back of the restaurant, open for all to see as five or six chefs work the line with Aktar front and center. Aktar’s passion is clearly in pairing interesting flavor profiles that might seem bizarre until first bite.

On the menu, he lists the star components of each dish like the fried quail with pomegranate molasses, bacon, and a fried quail egg. This appetizer—wow; four chicken mcnuggets on crack. The flavor is outrageous in the best way—tangy, sweet, and meaty—and the texture follows suit with a moist, crispy, almost melt-y quality. The cured kanpachi is also an appetizer not to be missed. It is delicately presented with flecks of fried garlic, honshimeji mushrooms, and hearts of palm.

Our main courses were the weakest aspect of the meal, but they were satisfying nonetheless. Wild striped bass atop a heaping mound of fantastically flavored fried white rice with saffron, cippollini onions, and poppy seeds was expertly prepared. Mattar Paneer, traditionally an Indian dish of a sort-of farmer’s cheese and peas in a sweet, red sauce gets the royal treatment of ricotta cheese dumplings, baby carrots in addition to the peas, and a comforting red curry sauce.

The meal crescendo-ed with dessert: two golf ball sized fried milk doughnuts made (presumably) with sweetened condensed milk and served with rose water, ginger custard and chai gelato. Spectacular. Encore!

I am already planning my next visit, when I plan on drinking the 8th wonder (my favorite bourbon, Buffalo Trace, gets infused with cardamom and mixed with lemon and vermouth) and dining on the bavette with kohlrabi and king oyster mushrooms.