Don't travel, just dine on the legends here

Heard of the khomcha, the sigri or the mahi tawa? Revitalised traditions come together at Jiggs Kalra's "dream" restaurant.

You may not agree with everything Jiggs Kalra, grand daddy of food writing and consultancy in India, does but you have to agree with at least some of the things!

Jay Inder Kalra, who began his career with Khushwant Singh's Illustrated Weekly and went on to become the country's best-known authority on regional cuisines, "discovering" hawkers and kebabchis, dhabas and one-degh places for wider audiences, rescuing endangered recipes, recording them in his many books, and above all, standardising into scientific grams and measures the creative flair of chefs, also managed to irk a lot of people en route.

Hoteliers and chefs still remember (and crib about) his ways but in the last few years, Kalra, now past his prime and battling illnesses, has been but a pale self of himself. Yet, even his worst critics have to admit the spirit of the man who continues to give new shape to his prodigious research.

While you may have encountered some of it before by way of food festivals and five-star restaurants like the fabulous Singh Sahib (whose original concept as brought forth by Kalra and then partner Marut Sikka was food of the undivided Punjab) at the Park Royal Intercontinental, New Delhi, for the first time now, a standalone restaurant attempts to encapsulate much of it inside a single space.

Legends of India is a biggish restaurant "" it can accommodate almost 250 people. But located, as it is, in Connaught Place, overcrowded with real estate more expensive than Manhattan, it would be easy to miss it.

Kalra says he wanted a place where Chandni Chowk or Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar could be recreated in all its medieval splendour to house his treats, essentially street-food from much of northern India, but this one isn't a bad location either: CP is heritage enough, "Rajiv Chowk" or not.

Once you enter the space, you realise it would be possible to go through two types of meals here: You could either make a meal of chaat, spiced-up bits, first created during the Mughal times, as Kalra reminds us, in the old city of Delhi from where it travelled to other places with Muslim courts. Or, indulge in a fuller main course of (essentially Lucknawi) kebabs and curries and delights from the Punjabi tandoor.

An open kitchen/service station is divided into several subcategories, hallmarks of Kalra's long research: There's the khomcha, originally the cart (later stalls) set up within palaces for royal women who could consequently enjoy an evening of snacking in privacy. This is where our own chaat (served to us in plates, quite fashionably) comes from.

By far the best in the restaurant, the section also serves fare that you'll otherwise find only in traditional homes (fermented kanji-vadas, for example; this being the correct season for it).

Next comes the section devoted to the mahi tawa, a huge flat pan with upturned sides, first designed by the dexterous kebabchis of Lucknow, fastidious about the right alloy from which it could be fashioned, and on which tender galoutis could be done to perfection. The restaurant has got hold of one from a particularly exclusive address in Lucknow.

Both the expertise (cooks) as well as the masala for the galoutis come from the famous Tunde kebabi (one of the "legends of India" Kalra takes credit for discovering and bringing to mainstream consciousness) in Lucknow and the restaurant staff tells us that they, in fact, had tried very hard to make the (relatively expensive) masala in-house at first instead of buying it from the kebabchi "" but they just couldn't get the taste right.

There are Kakori kebabs too, attributed to Lucknow's neighbourhood, off the sigri, or open grill, in this case. This is yet another traditional Muslim method of cooking that has been revitalised and is showcased here.

Then, there's the ulta tava for your paranthas and two types of traditional ovens, including one made entirely of metal where temperatures reach very high and from where, thus, emerge our perfect taftans and sheermals.

Scan the rest of the menu and you'll find it is a mix of populism and old-time favourites; regulars on Kalra-consulted menus "" a surprisingly efficient Nihari, Dilli speciality, stuffed quail and bhatti ka murgh from Amritsar.

But the question that I really want to ask is this: Is Legends of India really the "dream restaurant" Kalra has been talking about for a couple of years now? Yes and no. While this is a first as far as standalone concepts go, Kalra is emphatic that many things he'd have personally liked to see incorporated have been left outside its ambit.

"Take Tara, for instance," he tells me,a dhabawala from Amritsar, who makes mince (bhurji) out of everything. "Now, that would have been a unique concept." Or, Surjit, "the best tandoori chicken-maker" even in our overladen land. Or, food from Benares, "that I have had to leave out completely", its malai ki pudi, a sweet found only there, Lucknow's "real" shahi tukdas and malai paans, but above all, an Irani chai shop ""Bombay style.

All those pistachio-flavoured green and bright pink sweets and scones served with hot tea. "Now, wouldn't you have enjoyed that?" he asks me.

To be fair, the restaurant does have a tea lounge on the top floor. It's wi-fi enabled, a Raj look in place, and will serve brews for the more cosmopolitan ""the white teas and horribly expensive Darjeeling silver needles of modern connoisseurs. The promoters are keen to develop Legends of India into a full-fledged nationwide chain. For Kalra, perhaps, there will be another one.