Chef Himanshu Saini of Trèsind Studio masterfully blends Indian traditions with modern techniques, crafting an innovative dining experience that celebrates India’s culinary diversity. He highlights dishes from various regions of India, with a special focus on vegetarian creations, which he elevates to an art form.
The Best Chef: What is the story behind Trèsind Studio?
Himanshu Saini: Trèsind Studio is about serving Indian food from different parts of India. Usually, Indian food is all about North Indian food, and other parts of our country are not really highlighted and the cuisine is so vast. That has become our challenge to promote Indian food in every sense touching the key areas of our cuisine and culture. So, you would find dishes that are all about spices or flavors and techniques native to that region along with the story of the landscape. Trèsind Studio was born in 2018 and it was like an experimental project inside Trèsind restaurant. It was a 20-seater experience and we never knew that it would be accepted in Dubai because back in the day 5-6 years ago Dubai was not about fine dining experiences and Indian food is very popular among locals, but it is not as popular as Japanese or Italian cuisine and I think that has become our agenda that we want to highlight our cuisine in a sense where it is no less or more than any cuisine in the world. For me, it is one of the tastiest cuisines in the world and I think the vegetarian food out of India is perhaps the highlight, even in our menu experience 50% of the menu is vegetarian, it is plant-based and we support it as much as can from our rooftop garden outside which we reset twice in a year. So whatever fresh products we can grow ourselves like the cactus, the flowers, the bananas it is all something we grow outside and I think the pairing program of the restaurant is so unique I think it offers a complete experience where we showcase a synergy between the restaurant and the bar program and everything from an ingredient perspective is utilized in the bar kitchen where we try to support the spices ingredients in a sense where it balances out the strong nature of our cuisine and at the same time makes every following course more palatable.
The Best Chef: What inspired you to become a chef?
Himanshu Saini: I am from old Delhi and it was quite common back in the day that the extended family used to live together. In my maternal grandparent’s house, there were almost 50 people who lived under one roof and you can imagine the kitchen of this house which was like a professional kitchen. Each of my aunts in the kitchen has a designated job. Somebody’s job was to do the dough for the bread and then one aunt’s job was to do the sourcing of vegetables, cleaning, washing, and cutting. My grandmother would be the one who would come in the end to do the final tempering of the dish. So I have grown up within those surroundings and being the mama’s boy I always followed my mom in the kitchen. It was quite astonishing to see how everyone worked in tandem like a team. As I said it was like a professional kitchen and I think many of those memories stuck with me when I was growing older.
The Best Chef: Which plays a greater role in success: hard work or talent?
Himanshu Saini: I always say that for me hard work beats talent every time, so you may not be very talented, I was not very talented but I think it was the hard work, it was the vigor with which I wanted to represent my country. I think I am the ambassador of my country in terms of cooking with many other chefs because I have taken it personally that in my cooking cycle if I give importance to Indian cuisine, make it more popular in the world I think my agenda of being a chef will be accomplished and at the same time as I said you must evolve with your cuisine then look into somebody else’s cuisine. Of course, you go ahead, you make a start, and you train in many other kitchens but you always remember your foundations where you were born, your culture and you should always look forward to pushing that because Indian food is still not very popular and I think it has all the strength to go big in the world. It is a very bright moment for Indian food and you would see down the line in the next five years you would see many other Indian chefs doing justice to our cuisine.
The Best Chef: How Indian cuisine is influencing the culinary scene in Dubai?
Himanshu Saini: I think Dubai is such a sweet spot, it is just in the center of the world and now everyone passes through Dubai. The population here is so cosmopolitan but at the same time, we have a strong Indian presence in Dubai, almost 30-40% of the population and India has shared so much mutual respect with UAE as a partnership. The way how the countrymen from India are accepted in this part of the world is so heartening. I came to Dubai 10 years ago and I think this is my first home I would say, it is like a home away from home and it is a city that is of course continuously on the path of evolution, you come every year and you would see a different city altogether and I think the culinary scene has also evolved in the last five years. I think much more after Covid the city realized that it must thrive on the home-grown restaurants and you can see now so many chefs who were not even pursuing this profession but have certainly found interest in the cuisine in the gastronomic world and there are so many unique restaurants who are run by people who are not chefs but they are doing amazingly well and now you see the global attraction, what Dubai has made it possible, so many chefs have moved to the country, has opened up amazing restaurants and I think it is a city which has a great balance of the fine-line restaurants now and of course with the home-grown local restaurants promoting local cuisines in terms of spices, in terms of the best produced from the world, in terms of so many organic farming which has started with new developments in this part of the country and I think it is ticking all the boxes which is required to become the global destination in the world.
The Best Chef: What would you like to change in the gastronomic industry, and in what direction do you hope the culinary scene evolves?
Himanshu Saini: I think it is about moving towards originality. When you are doing a cuisine, for me it is always very important to bring out the aspects which are not seen. It happened 20 years ago, 25 years ago when new dishes were born. What I see now is almost about reinventing classics, it is if a chef can do one dish that becomes a new classic, the new trend. It happened 20 years ago with ElBulli, with Alinea with Thomas Keller. They made those dishes that eventually became classic and they came from nowhere. It is all a combination of their juices from the head with the tempering of the spices. I mean to say originality that you make new classics now so that the younger generation can reinvent those classics in their time. Every chef should make one at least. This is my agenda. If I give one classic to my country I think it is another tick from the checklist. You see everyone reinventing what has already been invented. You see a trend being repetitive in many other restaurants now. In my restaurant we have a simple philosophy where I would not use caviar, I would not use truffle, and there is no foie gras. So when you limit yourself with ingredients that are easily accessible in the first place and can easily form a base of any dish, you challenge yourself and when you challenge yourself like that then you come up with ideas which have not really been seen.
The Best Chef: Can you provide an example of a new classic that you anticipate becoming a staple in the culinary world?
Himanshu Saini: Like crystal bread, you know. Can somebody make something like that? You know it is now crystal bread, is something that you would see 20 restaurants making. Spherification for example happened with so much knowledge and scientific research but then what do you say is the new classic in the last five years? For me the five volumes of El Bulli or modernist cooking still hold value because some of those ideas, like Andoni from Mugaritz, is the one that can define what is a new classic. Because the dishes, the experiment, and the technique sometimes have been born in that kitchen. So for example a basic spherification is what was the reference point before nothing. Who would know a sodium alginate can mixed with a calcic and you make a thin spare with the liquid inside. Who would know that would happen one day?
Instagram: @chefhimanshusaini @tresindstudio
Restaurant: https://tresindstudio.com/
Restaurant address: Rooftop East, Nakheel Mall, The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, UAE
Artykuł #FOODMISSION 2024 – Himanshu Saini – Trèsind Studio, Dubai, UAE pochodzi z serwisu The Best Chef.
