What looks like an ornate set of doors to an indulgent girl's wardrobe, is really the entrance to the kitchen at Nido, Bandra's brand new European restaurant from the guys behind Aurus. Looks about right, considering all the produce that goes in, comes out dressed in shiny colours, luxe fruit salsa and bright edible flowers.
We visited on soft launch night yesterday, to hear the word "finally" thrown around a lot, considering Nido has been ready to start for a while now and to avoid being the boy who cried 'wolf', we stopped trying to sound you off about its opening. But now readers, it has opened, with a beautiful space populated with lots of foliage, fake stag heads and frou frou cushions, and long glass panes with white ink-splotched curtains that kept the street outside from knowing that Sonam Kapoor was dining there last night. Barring a few seen-befores like defunct TV sets that serve as plant holders (see Bombay Electric, Colaba) and exposed wire bulbs, Nido is definitely a display for your retina. The forest-like outside section will start only in mid-June and will be air conditioned.
Produce By
It's clear when you look at the menu that announces itself by ingredients, that the kitchen here at Nido focuses on produce and for this you must pay a price. Chef Vicky Ratnani improvises and sets specials depending on what is available in the market that day, and makes frequent trips to a Pune farm to get his micro greens. We settled on a corner table (we only got a reservation for 7.30 pm, so we suggest you book in advance) and started with the drinks. A peanut butter and jam smoothie, a spiced raisin mojito, cucumber and fennel tini and Campari spritzer were the first to come out of the "closet".
While the smoothie could have been a whole lot thicker and sweeter, the cocktails were marvelously mixed and perfect for summer. Accompanying this was a yum duck flat bread, sweetened further with figs and spring onion that went well with our spiced mojito, but vegetarians at the table made no yummy sounds for their chickpea flat bread, perhaps because the menu promised a hummus version which isn't really part of the dish. Also in our first round of food was a French onion soup with a lovely cheese crown and a hearty broth cooked with beef stock; and squid carpaccio, its exquisitely thin slices made with red wine jelly and bits of squid, topped with fried squid, salad leaves and orange segments.
