Alexander the Great would be pleased with London-based Indian cuisine mogul Arjun Waney whose brand portfolio reads like the Debrett of fine dining—Zuma, Roka, La Petite Maison, The Arts Club, Il Baretto, Oblix at The Shard and Coya. One of his vast global holdings is Meraki, a salute to Greek cooking in Fitzrovia, in the heart of London, which opened in 2017 and is still going strong.
Unlike Indian food in England, Greek fine food took off only in the late nineties and early noughties. Until then it was mistaken for Greek-Cypriot food—somewhat like Bangladeshi restaurants posing as Indian restaurants. The fusion between Indian and Greek cultures started in the 4th century BC after Alexander invaded and conquered large parts of India. After his Army returned home in 325 BC, many Greeks had settled down in India, married local and in the process set in motion a cultural synthesis in Western and Indian food—there is no better way to understand history through food and its accoutrements.
Is there an Indo-Greek cuisine like the Mughal milieu? No. But a lot of ingredients used by Alexander’s multicultural Army that enrolled soldiers from lands he conquered such as Persia, Egypt and Bactra went into Indian pots. Most sophisticated Indian recipes contain saffron. Alexander travelled with a huge hoard of saffron, which found its way to the West, a reigning spice now used in Indian, South Asian and Western cooking. Greek saffron comes exclusively from Kozani in northern Greece. Alexander used it for hair care and to give his curls their bright golden dazzle.
Saffron became a central feature of the Indian gourmet tradition in the Indo-Greek kingdom. Greek-Italian chef Giorgio Pintzas Monzani says that India owes much to Alexander; in the way of being the world’s fourth largest saffron producer. A perfect Greek Rice Pilaf cannot be made without the yellow gold—for it was a barter currency used by Alexander’s soldiers—you add saffron threads to one part of chicken stock and allow the saffron to “bloom” for a few minutes. Then it is a question of adding saffron liquid to the remaining hot stock, and then mixing pepper, olive oil and peppers into the rice. The western and Mediterranean regions were familiar with rice traders, and the grain, now used in all global cuisine, was used by Greeks, not to eat but in powdered form for cosmetics purposes and a cure for a bad tummy.
Monzani points out several similarities between popular Indian and Greek dishes. A vegetable that is common to both Indian and Greek cooking is the brinjal. Take an eggplant, roast its pulp and add garlic, spices and coriander to get bharta. In Greece it becomes melitzanosalata and baba ghanoush in Middle Eastern cooking—once regions of Alexander’s influence. Then there is India’s love affair with curd, from which raita is made. A similar thick sauce is Greek sauce tzatziki, which was concocted in India during Greek occupation. Both have garlic, cucumber, mint and other herbs; only that tzatziki is prepared with yogurt, which is made with fermented milk and contains olive oil.
In fact, there is even a restaurant by that name in London, situated on New Cavendish Street. Souvlaki is highly rated—like kebab, souvlaki means meat on skewers. Greeks roll them in warm pita, topped with tzatziki sauce. Pita is baked, so is naan. Pita has transformed itself into local versions in all countries Alexander conquered. Keftedes Ami or Greek lamb meatballs could be called koftas by another name.
But Greek food hasn’t received the appreciation in India it deserves; an authentic Greek restaurant run by two well-meaning Greek ladies in Delhi’s Shahpur Jat closed down before you could say moussaka.
Before it vanished like Alexander, Greek To Me in Safdarjung Enclave reigned supreme in the early 2000s, with grilled meat and kolokithokeftedes (courgette balls) eaten with tzatziki sauce and ending the feast with a sublime baklava filled with nuts and honey—similar to halva. As Theodore Kyriakou, who owned The Real Greek in Hoxton in the East End, London, is believed to have said, “We spent 400 years under the Ottoman empire. It would be impossible to think Turkish men and Greek women didn’t occasionally mix.”
The new Greek culinary adventuress in London, the Thessaloniki-born Christina Mouratoglou, was quoted saying that every Michelin-starred restaurant in London has a Greek cook. India has no Michelin-starred restaurant. But, is having a Greek restaurant in at least one major hotel too much to ask? When asked by a journalist if he would invest in India, Waney firmly said no. But he is happy to make money elsewhere and give to Indians who need it. Just like good old Alex did.
Tzatziki
Chef Amit Singh, Ophelia, Delhi
Ingredients
● 2 cups grated cucumber
● 1 ½ cups plain Greek yogurt
● 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
● 2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
● 1 tbsp lemon juice
● 1 medium clove garlic, pressed or minced
● ½ tbsp fine sea salt
● Sumac
Instructions
● Take a bowl and mix all the ingredients. Keep aside for a few minutes.
● Relish it with salad, lavash, falafel etc.