SpiceKlub comes to Town

We (Madhushree and I) need an additional motivation to go and check out a vegetarian place. Yes, like many times earlier in this blog, this is a shameless confession and by saying that we don’t wanna demean anyone; it is just a personal choice. We love vegetarian food and at times we go completely vegetarian over our meals at home (very rarely though).

Most often, like the Bengali vegetarian cuisine, the vegetarian restaurants also take a backseat in Kolkata.  To get an experience parallel to some of the top non veg restaurants in the city has been extremely tough.  Amongst the few vegetarian restaurants in Kolkata, there has been Casa Kitchen which is a part of the Casa Fortune, there has been the old timer’s favourite Teej in Park Street and there has been Rajdhani Thali, which wows the customer with the unending synchronised serving of their food. Add on to that Kaidi Kitchen which opened up few years back with a theme of prison inmates serving the food within the Jail themed restaurant. Few more have cropped up in the recent times; however, most of them lack the panache of drawing the non vegetarian clientele towards them, until now.

SpiceKlub Kolkata has opened up in Park Street a couple of months back and is already making its name amongst the food lovers of the city for the sheer brilliance of the taste of the food. After Mumbai, Kolkata was the second destination where this chain opened up, presenting the molecular gastronomy infused, deconstructed vegetarian food to the city. The menu fearlessly explores some of the common street food and popular vegetarian food across the country and presents in distinctive style with some theatre around it, making the eating experience worthwhile.

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Interiors once again

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Interiors

There is a myth which is slowly building up around SpiceKlub Kolkata – very rarely people stopover for a main course in their food journey and the most of the times, like a fast train they rush to the desserts after the starters. An impressive spread of starter is a testament to that. The surprise of the famous Maharashtrian Vada Pav deconstructed, where the Vada is served in the form of a mousse with the masala is tucked in an edible pouch. The first bite is burst of flavours inside the mouth transporting you to one of the numerous bylanes of Mumbai and Maharashtra. Juhu beach makes an appearance with the Pav Bhaji Fondue and again the taste has been kept intact as a replica of the original version. From our experience in more than 4 years stay in Pune and Mumbai – we had no option but to taste this at times and must say have had some good and not so good experience. This taste was replica and that made me shamelessly order for the repeat of a single bowl of mousse towards the end of the meal. Deconstructed Dhokla, Papri Chat with coriander chutney foam and yogurt spheres; (well this can be inspired from Gaggan, the now famous restaurant by Kolkata born Gaggan Anand) all are worth an experience.

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Papri chaat

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SpceKlub KOlkata Pav Bhaaji

Pav Bhaji

SpiceKlub Kolkata Peru Mousse

Peru Mousse

The much talked about desserts are not to be missed and before anything else, the show must start with the Bubbling Kulfi. This is served with dry ice bottom with frozen kulfi and assortment of toppings like blueberry compote, salted caramel sauce, chocolate ganache, rose caviars and so on. There is a Rabri pannacotta also with some blueberry compote as well as the ‘volcano’, which has chocolate mousse, with peru jelly and a kesar milk injected through syringe on top of the volcano giving it the necessary theatre and fun. Needless to say, the abundance of the syringes, beakers, test tubes and extra large vessels which are an integral part of any molecular gastronomy joint makes it further more interesting.

SpiceKlub kolkata Bubbling Koolfi

Bubbling Koolfi

Volcano dessert

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There is a lot of debate on whether molecular gastronomy is all about a lot of show and theatre and the taste misses the spot. Since the time in 1992 when the English teacher of cookery Elizabeth Cawdry Thomas invited chefs to understand the physics and chemistry of cooking and hence the term molecular gastronomy was invented, it has traveled a long way. In the process of this long journey, quite often people have misused it by deviating from the original taste. In fact, noted celebrity Food writer and critic Vir Sanghvi had once expressed that the chefs must pass a basic cooking test before they are seen near liquid nitrogen. However, in case of SpiceKlub, they have done a splendid job in keeping the taste of the food intact along with all the glamour. It has always been a big challenge for Kolkatans to make vegetarian guests check out some contemporary veg food joint with a wow experience. Guess that is going to change now.

This was originally published in Eazydiner

SpiceKlub Kolkata is located at

24 Park Street, Magma House, Annex Building, 1st Floor, Kolkata, West Bengal 700016
Phone –  033 4060 8374

P.S. Some of the images are shared by the restaurant and some are clicked by our mobile.