What Makes It Awesome
The few times we have dined at Falak, the fine dining Indian restaurant at The Leela Bhartiya City Bengaluru, Hotel Conventions Residences, the highlight has always been Masterchef Farman Ali and the pre-partition era and lesser-known dishes from Awadh, Old Delhi, Amritsar, and Multan (in Punjab, Pakistan).

Masterchef Farman is known for his Awadhi and North-West Frontier dishes. He tells us how the menu is inspired by the culinary classics of Mughlai cuisine during pre-partition. It’s essentially a royal Mughlai menu that features slow-cooked preparations.

The Food
Since we were here for a preview, we got a platter of the tandoor items, which featured Murgh-e-Firdause, Gosht Dil Pasand Seekh Kebab, Macchli Tikka, Sunehri Jheenga, and Gosht Barrah Kebab. The vegetarians at the table had a selection of Tikki Laziz, Zaitooni Paneer Tikka, and Tandoor Ke Phool. The chef walked us through each of the meat dishes and how they have sourced only the best cuts because they want to do justice to the original dish. For instance, the Murgh-e-Firdause is a dish that’s been inspired by the Murgh Chutney Tikka of Delhi and Lucknow, cities known for their tikkas. We quite enjoyed the Gosht Dil Pasand Seekh Kebab that had your melt-in-your-mouth lamb.

“Everything’s slow-cooked,” said Chef Farman as the table was laden with a selection of Murgh Kashmiri, Saag Gosht, Macchi Masaledaar, Dal-e-Falak, and Dal Tadka for the mains. The chef is serious about the slow-cooking process — the Dal-E-Falak is 24-hour slow-cooked. We are not particularly sure as to if we were full or had space to have second helpings of the slow-cooked dal.

Final Thoughts
Between conversations and the chef trying to feed us more, we knew this was the kind of menu that needed more visits to pay full justice to the spread.

Cost For Two: INR 4,000

Timings: 12:30 PM to 3:30 PM and 7 PM to 11:30 PM

Ratings: 4.4/5 on Google