Chutneys at the Cinnamon Grand introduces two new star chefs at the restaurant, from Chennai. The restaurant held a special promotion from October 16-18, serving tantalising South Indian specialities prepared by Chefs Venu and Krishna.

South Indian cuisine features an incredible variety of dishes, originating from places such as Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Not just focusing on vegetarian dishes, South Indian cuisine highlights selected non-vegetarian dishes most often chicken, mutton or seafood so there is a balance. 

Kicking off my culinary experience for the night, I went straight for the salads and starters. The variety of salads and starters featured paneer, chick peas, a prawn salad, chicken, papadoms in addition to ulundu vadai, crispy batter fried yellow capsicums alongside coconut chutney and tomato chutney.

 Main dishes featured tamarind rice, chicken biryani, Chettinaad chicken, lentil curries, brinjal curry, crispy fried fish and mutton. Key spices and ingredients in South Indian cuisine are coconut, curry leaves, pepper, coriander, red chillies, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom. 

Moving on to dessert, there were usual favourites such as gulab jamun and sago pudding known as sagu pal payasam. Other items on the dessert menu were barfee (made with condensed milk and cashew nuts), rasa berry, cashew halwa, kola kattai, laddoos and adhrushan (a traditional village dessert). 

Chef Venu and Chef Krishna are on the Chutneys culinary team so do head there to get your taste buds tickled with flavoursome South Indian delicacies. 

By Sarah Kellapatha 

Photos by Kithsiri de Mel