Drink and Dine
Laying the table.
Indian fine dining, on two levels, over the water
Sheesh Mahal
Restaurant · Dinner
The name is a description rather than a decoration.
Sheesh means mirror, and on a clear winter night the room's real mirror is the sky above its open terrace, a field of stars in place of glass.
Two different menus run through dinner, and each comes in a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian edition — a shorter tasting feast, and a longer thali that spreads into pickles, regional breads and a dessert course of its own. The recipes are the ones the royal kitchens kept to themselves, trained inside the family from one khansama to the next, generation after generation, and every course stays Mewar's own: black lentils simmered overnight, sun-dried beans and berries pounded into a kebab, a winter porridge of pearl millet slow-cooked in ghee.
One thing survives from those courts in the telling, if nothing else: food and drink were once served in vessels of gold and silver, gold believed to nourish the body, silver to sharpen the mind.
Kismet Recommends
- Jheenga Sultani
- Laal Maas
- Gucchi Matar Masala
- Govind Gatte ki Subzi
- Rajasthani Malai Ghewar
Sheesh means mirror, and on a clear winter night the room's real mirror is the sky above its open terrace, a field of stars in place of glass.
