Avartana — Restaurant in Zone 13 Adyar

This beautiful restaurant in the ITC Grand Cholla is simply stunning. From food, to drinks, to service, the complete experience was spot on.

You choose from small (8 courses) to large (13 courses) menus and the dishes just start coming.

The food is Indian like none other, and will spoil you for future restaurants.

I enjoyed sparkle, the fish and seafood menu interspersed with some vegetarian options. In total, 13 courses plus an amuse bouche and soup.

The amuse bush immediately puts your palate on guard. You know from the first bite that this is going to be a pure culinary delight.

The Soup, which takes 6 hours to prepare is uniquely served from coffee carafe. Fresh soup is poured over herbs, spices, and tomatoes before being presented in a martini glass

The first of the seafood dishes, the cuttlefish was juicy perfectly offset by a crisp rice cracker.

A vegetarian interlude, the beetroot and curd cheese was dusted with dehydrated, ground, curry leaf powder for that amazing zing and beautiful finish. They dehydrate the leaves and grind them fresh in a coffee grinder.

Next up was my favorite of the meal, and a dish that was worth the whole meal. Pan seared lobster with a spring onion emulsion. Those flavours were heightened by the addition of Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) chilis

A fresh, not fried, shrimp and coriander dumpling was mouthwatering.

Another interlude, this time for the crispy chili potato that you have to eat in one bite. The taste starts crunchy and flavours of potatoes but then those flavors just burst inside your mouth with a hidden juiciness of pineapple and mint. You didn't see that coming!

The palate cleanser of a cucumber and apple sorbet was floating on a lime juice foam, and it arrived just in time to refresh your mouth, give you a pause, and allow you to settle in for the second half of the experience.

The crab claw was fried to perfection and the softness of the claw was perfectly offset by the red chili chutney

Pan seared cod was not your grandads fish and ships. Served on a dosa in a fermented tomato broth, the flavours blended and infused the fish. A perfect harmony.

The aubergine with a Byadgi chili was on point. Perfect presentation in an edible aubergine peel followed up with delicious flavours.

Mussels in coconut broth was surprisingly spicy but what you didn't expect were the string hoppers that sopped up the delicious broth. This was perhaps the only minor twinge (not a disappointment) in the meal. The mussels were a little dry but they were refreshed by the broth and well still full of flavour.

I don't know how they cooked the seafood fritter. It had fresh seafood in amongst perfectly cooked palm noodles and a sugary, treacle, base. It's beyond me how they made the treacle so sticky but kept the seafood so fresh. Served over sticky rice it was just amazing

Since I turned ten I've never eaten a candle (well, probably), until the mango pudding with ghee candle. Mangoes aren't in season at the moment, but they are still amazing. A mystery I can't solve!

When you see an egg in a nest, hopefully you feel empathy for the bird that might emerge, until they take a mallet to it and reveal the delicious panacotta inside. I have no idea how you can make such a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg from desert. But wow!

The experience was two to three hours, and I can't wait to do it again next time...

An experience, maybe once in a lifetime to a commoner like me. Being a Chennaite, visiting Avartana for dinner for the first time was surreal. Though we've all heard of great reviews about this place, I wasn't able to fathom what it was all about. So, I chose the right event for the dreamy dinner night. All the dishes were exquisite and beautifully presented!! 😍

We could choose from 4 choices - Maya, Bela, Jiaa, and Anika (All 4 available in both veg & NV courses - 7,9,11,13 course meals respectively) We went with Bela and the whole experience span over 2 hours for the 9-course meal.

As we sat across we were first served with Veen still water which was weird since hot water would have been better in retrospect. 😅

For a palate cleanser, it was yogurt-dipped cucumber and french pressed tomato rasam - Crunchy and sour cucumber while the rasam was fresh from the press, unique in the way he explained the process 🤭

Tomato and millet rice crisp - Crispy rice cake with crunchy veggies and sauce 😚 Crispy chili potato with buttermilk sphere - Surprised by the way the buttermilk was sphered; awesome Spiced potato 🤩 Cauliflower crunch with pomo & mint - Weird cause had the burnt taste from the cauliflower yet interesting 🤔 Pumpkin dumpling in butter emulsion and fried beans - THE BEST; flows smoothly along every bite 😘

For the intermission, we were served Cucumber & Apple sorbet - Sweet, frothy, and kicky ❤️

Asparagus & coconut stew with turmeric coconut & idiyappam - SO DAMN thick stew which lights up all the senses; sweet and perfect for a main course 👌 Spiced aubergine with Byadgi chili emulsion & sago - Unbelievable, the way they peeled the aubergine skin to form a basket with soft sago and creamy emulsion, PERFECT 😋 Veg fritter rice with sesame & palm nectar - Deep fried rice with native veggies, tastes heavenly 👌 Fennel panna cotta with angel hair caramel - All time best, presented very well and the formation of white chocolate as an egg - their thought process is beyond the ionosphere 😍

Owing to our special occasion, the team was courteous enough to serve a dessert to close the meal with. What looked like a cheesecake and white chocolate turned out to be Idly and coffee cake, VERY SURPRISED with the innovation, the presentation, the taste, and the impact.

For the final palate cleanser, it was Pan ice cream with betel leaf 🫠

What went wrong in the middle was that they missed serving the cauliflower in the first half and ended up serving it at the last which ruined the aftertaste of the meal Phewww!! That was some experience since we would have hardly had 20 bites of food yet it made us feel, OKAY THAT WAS GOOD!! 😇

The ambiance was rich with bright white lights and opulent seating. Their service is why they are where they are. It was well-coordinated, courteous, and pleasant. Valet parking at ITC is never a problem. I wouldn't comment on the rate since this place is extravagant and the prices are exorbitant, EOD!! 🤗

Avartana is not the place to go for a glutton like me. It is also not the place to go to have sumptuous quality food. It is the spot to experience luxurious fine dining; a place to find innovation in food, a place to understand why it is in the TOP 30 dining spots in Asia and what it takes for them to be there, AN...

It was my long-awaited dream to go and dine at Avartana, but it was a total disappointment with subpar food, service, and racist behaviour by the staff.

My take on it is if you are a foreigner, especially white, please go ahead; you will be treated like a king. If you are an Indian, avoid it, unless you want to be treated like a beggar in your own country.

Goods: Ambience was nice, nothing outstanding. Staff were welcoming and explained every dish carefully. Some of the food was really outstanding, very creatively presented. Drinks menu is very nice. Very creatively done.

Racist behaviour: We went for our anniversary, and we are from Singapore.

When we sat initially at 7 p.m. it was only us, and the crowd started to come in. There were a lot of white people (almost 70%), and the rest of us were Indian origin people like me.

The first welcome drink they offered is called Rasam (which they will overcomplicate when explaining it, and pretty much you can get good rasam in any average South Indian restaurant). Anyway, this is where the racist behaviour starts.

Initially, we didn’t know that the Rasam could be refilled. We only got to know because they topped up to one of the foreigners sitting next to us. So we politely requested a top-up too.

2 courses went by, no top-up yet, but free-flowing for most of the foreigners. Now we got pissed and asked why we aren’t getting the refill, but for others. We asked the staff who was taking care of us. She went inside the kitchen and came outside. Believe me, she just didn’t want to make any eye contact or come to our table for the rest of our course after. We asked.

Now comes the interesting part. We were already fed up with service, and our course ended at 11:00 p.m. So it’s already past our bedtime, and we requested the check, and so did the foreigners. Guess who gets the check first? WHITE PEOPLE, not just one or two, all the white people, and they literally forgot that we too asked first. After asking it for several times, only after the 3rd request, they came with the bill. We managed to leave around 11:40 p.m.

Service and food:

Service went from great to horrible. The first 6 courses came within 10 mins after finishing it.

After that, it took between 20 mins to 1 hour. We literally lost our appetite.

Food was really great for the first 6, after that it was just horrible, no flavour. Everything has too much salt, and it was out of balance.

Pan-Fried seabass: Too much salt, no balance. Just bland.

Uthukulli Butter chicken curry: Had expectations. But the parotta was very bitter, due to being cooked overly in the oil. The chicken curry was so bland, and after I cracked open the toffee butter, it was too overwhelming, which I couldn’t finish.

Slow-roast pork: Was okay, nothing extraordinary. Had way better pork in Singapore.

Desserts: All were okay. Not a dessert fan. So I won’t comment on it.

In the end, I was disappointed and felt that my anniversary was ruined. While going home, I was wondering how this restaurant managed to get so many awards, with the subpar level of food...