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Posted On: 20 Jun 2009 12:56 PM
I have always regarded it as slightly unfair that even though we
celebrate the great cooks of Lucknowi and Hyderabadi cooking, we do not
pay enough attention to the great chefs of the rest of India. By now,
most people with any interest in food have heard of Imtiaz and the
famous Quereshi chefs of Lucknow. Similarly, there are many Nawabs who
travel the country keeping alive the traditions of Hyderabad and Awadh.
But can you think of a single great Goan chef? Isnt it odd that at a
time when Goan dishes are familiar to people all over India
(vindaloo, sorpotel, xacuti, balchao and Goa fish curry are more or
less ubiquitous), we still look to north Indian (or Hyderabadi)
traditions to throw up our great cooks?
People in the food business will tell you that this is unfair. They
will also tell you that within the business there is a degree of
unanimity on who the greatest Goan chef is. But because he does not
seek publicity and is a mild-mannered distinctly unpushy sort of
chap, he has never acquired the national fame that is his due.
If youve been reading my columns for a while now, then you will know
who I am talking about. I have been eating Urbano de Regos food
since the early 80s and I have never once had a meal that is short of
spectacular. It has got to the stage where I now go to Goa only to
eat Regos food. To say that the man is a genius is to understate his
skills.
Unlike other great chefs (Imtiaz, for example) Rego did not grow up
in a family of cooks. He was brought up in an ordinary middle-class
home in a small Goan village and intended to become a professional
footballer.
He was good enough at the game to be asked to go to Bombay to try his
luck. But once he reached Bombay, disaster struck. He was injured on
the side of his head, had to have an operation and was told that it
was too risky for him to play football again.
So, Rego joined the Bombay Taj in 1970. He rose quickly through the
ranks because the senior chefs all realised that he was
extraordinarily gifted. He began as a Continental chef but soon
mastered Parsi food and was seconded to Tata headquarters in Bombay
House where he cooked for the directors of Tata Sons and of course,
for JRD Tata himself.
In 1974, the Taj opened the Fort Aguada beach resort in Goa, and in
the process, launched Goa as an international tourist destination.
(Of todays hotels, only the venerable Mandovi pre-dates the Aguada.)
Rego was sent to work in the kitchens.
Though it was intended that he would stick to Western cuisine, he
quickly realised that there was a demand for authentic Goan food
which, till then, had been little-known to non-Goans. With his chefs
memory and his extraordinary hand, he began to re-create the dishes
his mother used to make.
When these proved to be a success, Rego got more ambitious. Because
there were few good Goan restaurants, even in Goa, he began visiting
families and learning their traditional recipes. His own heritage was
from the Portuguese-influenced Catholic cuisine but he set out to
learn the secrets of the more complex Saraswat Hindu cuisine.
In those days, this was revolutionary. Many of the dishes he learnt
had never been served in restaurants before. The Catholic dishes had
travelled to Bombay, where it was possible to get rough-and-ready
vindaloos and sorpotels but the Saraswat dishes had never been served
outside of private homes.
The mark of a great chef is only partly his ability to learn and
reproduce good dishes. A master chef also needs to bring his
imagination to bear, mixing flavours, simplifying recipes, and
sophisticating existing ways of cooking. Because Rego had the skill
and the imagination required to bring Goan cuisine out of home
kitchens, he more or less invented the restaurant versions of many
now-popular Goan classics. Goa is full of chefs who trained under
Rego and his protégées run restaurants all over the world.
For instance, Cyrus Todiwalla, who now offers innovative versions of
Goan favourites at his London restaurant, Café Spice Namaste, learnt
Goan food in Regos kitchen when he was chef at the Aguada. Ananda
Solomon, one of the Taj Groups two culinary superstars, is open
about acknowledging his debt to Rego. I worked in Goa with Chef
Rego, he says, and that is where I picked up my knowledge of Goan
cuisine. Nobody makes Goan food the way Chef Rego does.
Many chefs with Regos skills and range would have wanted to rise up
the ladder and to go on to open new restaurants or hotel kitchens and
to take on corporate responsibilities. Rego is an exception. He loves
cooking, he loves Goa and is only truly happy when he is in front of
the stove. He has no interest in a corporate job and has consistently
turned down all offers that would take him away from his beloved Goa.
Fortunately for him, the Taj has recognized what a gem it has. In the
1990s, Ajit Kerkar, then chairman of the Taj Group and a Goan
himself, would come to the Aguada and would host cooking competitions
between the executive chef at the Aguada and Rego, who by then had
become chef at the Holiday Village next door. Both chefs would be
asked to make the same dish and Kerkar would give marks out of 10.
When it became clear that Rego would always win and that his scores
would be perfect, Kerkar moved to ensure that Rego never left the
Taj, finding him a house and guaranteeing his position in the Goa
hierarchy. Kerkars successor, R.K. Krishna Kumar, who understands
this kind of food (Ananda Solomons Konkan Café in Bombay is one of
his favourite restaurants) has done everything possible to keep Rego
happy, recognizing that he is the worlds greatest Goan chef.
Not that it takes much to keep Rego happy. He is a simple man with
few needs and a gentle, unassuming manner. He has no great love of
money and very little desire to join the rat race. When guests say
they like his food which of course they do meal after meal thats
more than enough for him.
Ive often wondered what makes Regos food so special. Ask him to
make a pork vindaloo and it will taste like no vindaloo you have ever
eaten. Even a simple Goa prawn curry will reveal hidden depths of
flavour that you never suspected could emerge from so simple a dish.
For a long time, I thought it was because, in the tradition of all
great Indian chefs, he never parted with his recipes at least not
entirely. But these days, Rego has become more philosophical and even
gentler.
Last year, his beloved son, Boris, who worked as a chef at the Bombay
Taj, was murdered by terrorists on 26/11. Though Rego does not like
dwelling on the tragedy and few of us know quite what to say to him,
I get the sense that it has mellowed him as a person.
I asked Arun, the executive chef at the Taj Exotica in Goa, if he had
access to Regos recipes. Arun said he did not know about the old
days but now Rego is more than willing to part with every recipe. I
think he gets his greatest joy from training young people and passing
on his secrets to them, Arun said.
What made Regos food so special? Speaking as a chef, said Arun, he
did not think it was the recipes. It was the things that always
distinguish great chefs: the hand and a sense of timing. But most of
all, said Arun, it was Regos passion. I tell my chefs, he said,
that if you want to understand how to get flavours out of
ingredients, you just need to watch Chef Rego at the range. He has so
much passion and it reflects in his food.
These days, Arun told me, Rego calls him and all the other young
chefs `beta and helps them master the subtleties of Goan cuisine.
We are all Chef Regos children in the kitchen, he said.
Its a somber but fitting thought. Rego lost Boris but wherever you
find a great Goan meal cooked by a young chef, the chances are you
will find one of Regos children.
