The New Fall/Winter Menu At Olive Bar & Kitchen Is An Experimental Epicure's Delight

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The New Fall/Winter Menu at Olive Bar & Kitchen is for people with an openness to new flavours and a penchant for the ‘acquired taste’ category of food.

Olive Bar & Kitchen For Fall/Winter 2017

As an Olive Bar & Kitchen veteran, I have a go-to {and I’ll sheepishly admit it’s not an extremely novel one}; the pizza. Whether it’s peppered with prosciutto, or even doused liberally with olive oil and {my nemesis} arugula, I can’t not eat a pizza when I’m there.

Which is why, when the Chef In Charge {Dhruv Oberoi} made his intentions to not serve me any as part of the Fall/Winter menu preview perfectly clear, I was devastated. I was cheating, and my cheese-laden baked Mortadella pie in the darker dregs of the kitchen would find out and hate me forever. It would think I had replaced it with younger, fresher dishes with their big, perky new ingredients, and it felt so wrong.

But when the courses started to appear, it became evident that pizza was too passé for this particular menu {not Olive in general; just saying}.

Subsuming a series of rarer-than-usual techniques, like salt curing and the lacto-fermentation of vegetables, the selection on their Fall/Winter menu is not for those that favour the classic and unadulterated. If, however, you’re open to new experiences {consider this a pint-sized personality test}, it’s quite the spread; and some things {be prepared} are the very definition of ‘an acquired taste’ .

For instance, the Mushroom Duxelles; mushroom roulade and asparagus with a split truffle emulsion, and the Andaman Oysters with Salmon Mi-cuit; spice-cured blue chip salmon with golden-friend oysters are the first two things that sprung to my mind when I realised a seasoned palette would be delighted tucking into either, but an untrained one… perhaps not so much.

However, certain things are worth parting with your preferences for; I found, in particular, the Hokkaido Scallops with Glazed Ham Hock exquisite, because pairing pork crackling with scallops may seem daring, but it worked well. The other thing that stood out for me was the Peking Duck Leg Pithivier, which featured a pulled, confit duck leg baked in crispy, puff pastry, served with spice-crusted, rendered duck breast and was definitely an amalgam of strong flavours, with almost muscular textures. But, again, it’s unlike anything you’re likely to eat this Fall/Winter {in a refreshing, unique fashion}.

But, to me, the true danseuse of this ballet was the Tiramisu 8.0. Served in a perfect, cocoa-dusted ring with a kitschy box-of-cigars style cluster of cannoli, this Tiramisu is one of the most distinct I’ve ever tasted. Liquor-laced with the skilled precision that makes it almost ambrosial {and not overpowering, as  the alcohol-levels in Tiramisu often can be}, it was hands down one the of best, most incomparable desserts that have emerged in Delhi this year.

I’d recommend anyone with a proclivity to welcoming new flavours, please go {also, make sure if you’re not wildly hungry; the courses tend to take their time and bait your breath}. If you’re a true-blue lover of all things avant-garde, the new Fall/Winter menu will surprise you, and pleasantly so.