Rooftop restaurant are great place to get a good view of the city, enjoy some cool breeze while having some good food & drinks.  Most often than not these restaurants become hang-out place for party goers and very few people visit to have a dine-in experience.  Alchemy, the new restaurant setup on the 10^th floor of Chancery Pavilion plans to break the stereotype.  They have smartly setup the interiors that allows guests to have a fine-dine experience or casually hang-out.  The restaurant has roped in world renowned Chef Hari Nayak for curating the special menu.  I got an opportunity to visit the restaurant and enjoy some of the good food & drinks.

Ambiance

The restaurant has one of the most unique interiors that I have seen in long time. They have used Bamboo across the restaurant giving it a rustic feel.

• The roof panels have been made with flattened bamboo which gives the feel of Jungle Resort.  Bamboo sticks have been used to support the roof panel which have been load tested.  They can bare weight of up to 8-10 tonnes and currently it’s just carrying 4-5 tonnes.  With a shelf life of nearly 10-15 years, it’s a great idea to use the bamboo for interiors.
  

  
• Seating arrangement at the fine-dine area of the restaurant have been very well.  The lighting arrangement could have been a little brighter, but it still looks quite elegant. 
• The section of the restaurant to the left has the bar-counter overlooking the Bangalore city traffic. One can see the green cover of the trees surrounding the area and it is airy.
  

  
• They have made provision that enables people to place the drinks at the edge of terrace and while conversing with someone.
• An executive lounge is being setup at one side of restaurant which will be open for setting up private-parties soon.

There are many more aspects of the restaurant that will be hard to describe in words.  One needs to visit the place and experience it.

Microbrewery

The place also has a complete microbrewery setup that will be serving Australian Beer.  To give a little more technical info, the yeast are being brought from Australia and hops from New Zealand.

They plan to come up with 6 different beers by end of July 2018.  This will make the place very popular among beer lovers going forward.

Food

The food served inside the restaurant is Indian with modern twist.  World renowned Chef Hari Nayak has curated all the wonderful dishes in this restaurant.  To give a little history about Chef – originally belongs to Udupi, moved out of country in 1998, trained under multiple Michelin star Chef & worked in multiple restaurants.  Chef has also helped in setting up multiple restaurant across the globe and published nearly 12 books of cooking. 

Focus of Chef & Management has been to serve good food rather than worry about aesthetics. 

Small Plates

Artichoke Aloo Samosa was served in cones that had the stuffing of spicy artichoke and wasabi cream.  The dish has unique twist as one reaches the end of cone, due to presence of some wasabi.

Tikki Trio comes with 3 different stuffing – Quinoa beet, Kale & Spinach and Mushroom Galouti.  I specially loved the Mushroom Galouti as I personally love the mushroom flavour.  The other 2 other Tikk(s) were also pretty good but I enjoyed them only with the creamy-mayo.

Arbi Tostones was another unique dish that’s reflection of Chefs knowledge and desire to innovate.  The combination of arbi tuk, papaya salsa and chipotle aioli in the dish worked very well and tasted very good.

Bhel/Salad/Soups

Fire Roasted Corn Chowder came with buttered vegetables and corn soup poured around it.  The tasted was pretty good and presentation was amazing.

Mains

Kale Saag dish came with goat cheese dumpling and fox nut crumble.  It also had fried onions and salad on top it.  The saag/palak flavour was coming out very well and I specially loved the cheese dumplings.  Dish went along very well with the Indian breads.

Five Cheese Kofta another dish that came with green chilli olive stuffing, smoked makhni.  The fried kofta was soft and served with thick tomato-based gravy.  I enjoyed the soft Kofta very much but felt that tomato gravy needed a little thick & flavours of tomato to come out.

Sides

Honeycomb Masala Bread was one of the soft breads that had Aloo/Potato & some masala inside it.  It can be compared to the aloo-bun that we get at the local bakery but the one that I ate at Alchemy was far superior. The bread went along very well with the gravy dishes.

Jalapeno & Peas Kulcha had the most unique combination which I haven’t tried elsewhere.  The flavour of Jalapeno made the kulcha slightly spicy, but this tasty stuffed kulcha goes along well with gravy dishes.

Lemon Quinoa Chitranna looked very much like the traditional lemon rice made at home.  But it had the unique taste due to presence of Quinoa and it went along very well with the raita.

Sharing picture of non-vegetarians dishes that were served to my friends who came along.  I was not able to taste them but could take some pictures.

Desserts

Gondhoraj Lemon Mousse came with flash frozen mousse, lemon cream anglaise.  To flash freeze the mousse, liquid nitrogen was used, and the dessert tasted quite good.

Mysore Pak Cheesecake was another unique dessert that looked very similar to the traditional sweet.  Served along with fried corn, the combination along with cheese cake was amazing.

Drinks

Apart from great food, Alchemy has some wonderful cocktails that have been specially created by bartenders.

Some of the cocktails I tried including – Indian Whisky Sour, French Addiction, Melon Blush and The Ghazal.  Among the cocktails, I enjoyed the Whisky sour (scotch, masala & lime) and French Addition (cognac, almond flavour) the most as the alcohol flavors were very subtle and not overpowering.

The other 2 cocktails were also unique and part of the Signature collection at Alchemy.

Overall Experience

It was one of the best fine dining experience that I have had since long time.  I enjoyed conversing with Chef Hari Nayak who shared his journey in the culinary world.  Every dish created in the Alchemy truly reflects chefs experience over the years of cooking.  I enjoyed most of the dishes, desserts and cocktails.  While having food, I did share feedback on some of the dishes and Chef gracefully took the inputs.  I would like to wish Chef Hari Nayak and Alchemy Management all the very best in future. I am hoping to visit the place more often to enjoy some of the great food & drinks going forward.

My rating for the current dining experience would be 4.0/5.
Rating in other departments would be as follows.
Food – 4.0/5
Drinks – 4.0/5
Ambiance – 4.0/5
Service – 4.0/5

Food for 2 at the restaurant will come up to anywhere between INR 1500-2500.

Address
The Chancery Pavilion, 135, Residency Road, Bangalore

Phone
+91 8971186552