Sodhi, thattu vadai on the menu at Rashtrapati Bhavan banquet for Cyprus President

It is a meal he will likely never forget. Chef and holistic wellness expert KS Mahesh Ishwar curated a six-course Tamil meal for the state banquet for the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on May 22. The banquet, Mahesh, who has his roots in Gobichettipalayam near Coimbatore, explains, was attended by President Droupadi Murmu, Vice President CP Radhakrishnan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, among others. “A lot of them appreciated the meal,” says Mahesh, who is now based in Goa.

Mahesh, who specialises in functional nutrition and wellness gastronomy, planned the meal such that the dining experience was not more than 750 calories. The menu is Mahesh’s ode to his South Indian roots, a love for the kind of food he grew up eating, and flavours from the kitchen of his late mother Kunnathur Annapoorni.

“I worked with a team of 14 cooks, of which four were home cooks from places such as Thanjavur and Coimbatore,” says Mahesh, who was involved in setting up restaurants specialising in South Indian food in Europe, the United States, and Singapore.

The meal featured dishes from several districts of Tamil Nadu. There was brinji pulao from Chennai, sodhi from Tirunelveli, and kadala curry from the Nilgiris. The soup, for instance, was the Kunnathur vellai poosani mor kuzhambu, inspired by flavours of the Kongu village Mahesh would visit with his mother. “We cooked ash gourd in a mor kuzhambu, pureed it to make it a chowder,” he says.
Mahesh recreated the thattu vadai set from Gobichettipalayam as an air-fried version that won a lot of hearts. “We made a juice with naatu thakkali, with which we infused water from vadu manga,” he says, adding that the result was a sharp and pungent drink that had a balanced spice level.

There was panagam on the menu, that the team reimagined with blue-pea flowers. “We also made mocktails with vetiver,” explains Mahesh. A starter that was most-loved was the avocado gothsu. “The dish is usually made with brinjal, but we replaced it with avocado, with tadka on top and served it on adai like tacos,” he says. The idea, he says, was to take Tamil cuisine to the global stage. “We paid attention to the presentation,” he adds: “We did not want to compromise on anything, be it the technique or the plating.”

With the meal being under 750 calories, Mahesh says it broke the notion that South Indian food is heavy on carbs. He says that his experience as the brand chef with health and fitness platform Fittr, years in the hotel industry, work in quantified nutrition, and love for his mother’s food, came together in the meal. A lot of guests appreciated the meal, and for Mahesh, the icing on the cake was when Nikos Christodoulides said that it was one of the best meals he had ever had.