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Lifestyle: “What I’ve learned, over the years, in all the places I’ve worked, is, that people don’t remember the food. It’s the people that they remember,” Chef Andrea Terry says in the final episode of Season 3 of the FX hit, ‘The Bear’.
Good restaurants are always about the people. About the experience. About how you felt at the meal and whether you would go back to have another meal with them.
With a 25-foot ceiling and a stream running through the restaurant, Tansen is quite a showstopper in Hyderabad.
At the Tansen, that experience clubbed with some warm Hyderabadi hospitality and biryani will have you licking your fingers off when you have found a moment of respite from ooh-ing and aah-ing at the opulence on offer.
Tansen is the newest entrant in Hyderabad’s culinary scene. It’s a real showstopper too, what with its 25-foot ceiling and a clear stream of water enveloping the restaurant, as Sahil, the in-house Sufi singer, performs a number from Nusrat. Brass inlays of the Sargam adorn the walls here as they bend and blend with the curves. Sandstone and gold take you back to a Mughal courtyard. You might, for all you know, be sitting in Anup Talao, Fatehpur Sikri, where Miyan Tansen made the heavens rain with Megh Malhar and almost set himself on fire with Raag Deepak. Gold is subtle yet omnipresent in the restaurant.
Tansen, this restaurant in Hyderabad’s Financial District is a tribute to the eponymous musician. Why Tansen, we ask Amar Ohri, the man behind this mahal in the Deccan. “Music connects the North and the South. It was our endeavour to create a tribute to Miyan Tansen and imagine what his favourite food might have been like,” says Ohri.
True to his word, our sit-down menu on a Monday evening comes with starters, palate cleansers, main course, and desserts from North-West Frontier cuisine, with cocktails designed by Yangdup Lama. The star of the show is aptly named ‘Jewel of Tansen’. The cocktail billed as Hyderabad’s most expensive has accompanying 21 Years Royal Salute Whisky, dates from Al-Medina in Saudi Arabia, pine nuts from Italy and truffle. What’s Hyderabad’s most expensive? At Rs 9,999 a glass, a glass fit for royalty!
The prices are no dampener at Tansen, except for that cocktail, because it otherwise falls in the premium affordable bracket. A meal for two sans alcohol will set you back by about Rs 2,000. The greatest testimonial to the place’s popularity is that on a Monday evening, the 150-cover restaurant is packed to the brim. High ceilings and a lot of space within the restaurant ensure you are never ‘crowded’ even though all tables are full. Add to that the lullaby of water around you and Halka Halka Suroor from the stage, as a halka-halka suroor puts you in a trance.
Tansen’s signature cocktails are Rasam Heritage, on the spicy side; and Aaghaz-e-Shaam, which is a tribute to the bustle of Hyderabad at dusk.
The OG drink, water, is not your run-of-the-mill mineral water here. The restaurant has a special ‘water menu’ because ‘people hardly pay attention to the water they are drinking’. Gold is ubiquitous at the Tansen. Octagonal bottles of drinking water come with 24k flakes of the edible kind. And, of course, the whole shebang plays out on your plate too with golden sparkles atop a lush spread of Hyderabadi biryani. You simply can’t think of Hyderabad without biryani; and it’s a must-try here.
The other dishes that deserve mention are knafeh, halvaye zardak, paneer khurchan, Hyderabadi marag, dal Tansen, green chicken, korme kofta, lagan ka keema and their Uzbek garlic pulao. Brownie points for the avocado quinoa golgappa that we had mouthfuls of. The people are really the biggest part of the Tansen experience. The crew’s always prepared with a story if you’ve got an ear to listen. After all, it’s the stories you remember. And, as Chef Terry says, it’s all people.
