Chef Garima Arora is in the house. Every now and then, a chef comes in and presents Arora with an ingredient or a dish. With a practiced sense of taste, she relays her own instructions in turn. She looks around the space, taking it all in once again and hums with quiet excitement as the launch date for Banng, her Thai restaurant in Mumbai, nears within sight.
Chef Garima Arora is the two Michelin-starred chef at Gaa, her Indian fine-dine at Bangkok, but she is currently consumed with ensuring Banng’s food is to the point with her own signature playful twist. “We like to be naughty with our food, just to the extent where the guest has a knowing smile when we serve,” she says.
The idea for Banng happened over a chat with Mumbai’s Riyaaz Amlani during dinner at Gaa last year. Arora says she liked the challenge of opening a Thai restaurant in India, especially after winning accolades, including the Michelin star, for her Indian restaurant Gaa in Bangkok.
“March 29, 2024,” Riyaaz Amlani, her co-founder and partner at Banng and the person behind Impresario Hospitality that powers the Social and Smokehouse Deli chains, Bandra Born, Mezcalita and Slink & Bardot, chimes in.
From that first fateful meeting to opening the first Banng at Gurugram late last year, it seems everything happened in fast motion. But opening a restaurant, especially one that someone of Arora’s stature can put her name behind, came with its own set of challenges. The biggest one being Arora’s pregnancy.
“Once she said yes, Garima was fully in and we could work really quickly to open Banng in Gurugram. It was also stressful because of her pregnancy but she powered through it like a champion. I would be more stressed in fact seeing her stand for eight hours every day when she was seven and a half months pregnant,” Amlani says. He recounts the anecdote of how Arora caught the last legal flight she could take because of her advanced pregnancy to go back to Thailand.
“I called her three months later and said we have the Mumbai property and she said yes again immediately,” Amlani adds. Arora, on her part, has her hands full running Gaa in Bangkok and now Banng in two cities in India, alongside taking care of her two children. While she’s excited about Banng’s opening in her hometown, she is equally keen on serving her guests at Gaa, more so now when Indian restaurateurs across the world - Vijaya Kumar from Semma in New York City, Himanshu Saini from Trensind Studio in Dubai and Gaggan Anand from Gaggan in Bangkok - are having a moment. Arora believes, “Globally, diners have moved away from the perception of Indian food being curry houses. Now, they’re keen on discovering the diversity on Indian cuisine. When we started Gaa seven years ago, people came in expecting curry and naan. That doesn’t happen anymore.”
The Mumbai chapter of Banng, invariably, comes with a bigger and better focus on offering Thai cuisine to Bandra’s discerning crowd. Located in the same complex that was previously occupied by Brewdog, Banng has two levels to cater to two distinct groups. The lower level comes with a full-sized island bar and is meant for casual catchups and enjoying bar bites while the upper level with more finesse and a refined setup encourages longer dinner conversations whilst getting the full Thai experience.
Mumbai was the original plan when the duo had discussed Banng as Arora studied and grew up in the city. Her first meal in the city is a dosa from Matunga and she reveals how she sneaked past college on a sports quota because she played football for Maharashtra during her college days. “This is a homecoming of sorts and while we wanted to open here first, I believe everything happens for a reason. Banng is my love letter from my adopted city to my hometown and I can’t wait for people to try the food and carry a little part of Bangkok with them,” Arora says.
Arora and Amlani are clear they don’t want to overbrand the authenticity factor even if they’re going to great lengths to make sure the dishes are true to Bangkok. “We had this discussion about Thai food being perceived as green curry primarily. We wanted to bring in more classic dishes without dumbing down the menu just to suit the Indian palate. We say we’re doing flavourful food without throwing the authenticity factor too much,” Amlani says.
Even so, Arora says that simple ingredients that make a lot of difference are being flown in daily and clear SOPs are in place to get the dishes right. For example, coconut milk has to be squeezed fresh every day and no cans are used at Banng as Arora believes that one single ingredient can make or break Thai curries.
Arora also says that the tamarinds in both countries are very different and while Indian tamarinds go to Gaa from India, Banng imports Thai tamarinds regularly. “Some people might think it’s overkill but the acidity is just not the same for both,” she says.
This writer had a meal at the Gurugram outlet last month and after sampling some of the dishes that are sent to us, it’s amply clear that the Mumbai outpost has done some serious work to get things right. While the team would like you to eat everything from the menu, the now-viral Tom Kha Pani Puri that features a special tom kha ‘pani’ with mixed Thai herbs is set to be a bestseller at Bandra outlet as well. The other favourite dish from the menu would be the crab omelette that, in a way, is now synonymous with Bangkok thanks to street food icon Jay Fai’s exploits.
Arora hopes diners will experiment with some of the other special dishes too. She cites the white curry as an example, saying people don’t even know it exists but that the team has added it to the Banng menu. Arora says to perfect their Thai cooking game, the team spent over a month with master Thai chefs everywhere in Thailand, from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in the North to down in Bangkok as well. “I also feel when we cook Thai food, we can have fun with it because we don’t take any cooking rules for granted and can bring in our own perspective to it as well,” she adds.
The bar menu, too, delivers serious chops with an elevated cocktail program by Attapon De Silva, popularly called B. Silva’s repertoire includes top Thai bars such as Asia Today, GOD, Teens of Thailand and more. At Banng, the cocktail program includes drinks with unique Thai ingredients such as rambutan, nam pla fish sauce, palm hearts and more.
We try the Sabai Sundowner with gin, rambutan, palm heart and betel leaf. The first sip delivers a burst of crisp fruitiness that pairs well with the betel’s slightly bitter and peppery finish. Other drinks that catch our eye include the Andaman that features squid ink, Yellow which comes with yellow curry and Raya that has fingerroot, which is used in Thai stir fry.
The program leans into more Southern Thai flavours and is completely different from the Gurgaon outpost that features three sections divided by boxing categories viz., Flyweight, Middleweight and Heavyweight. The Flyweight section features carbonated drinks and the remaining drinks are good but not exactly memorable. The Banng bar in Mumbai seems to be setting that record straight. As Arora says, “We want to get Mumbai right.”
With that in mind, we wonder where Banng will pop up next and Amlani lights up a mischievous smile and asks Arora, “Banng-alore sounds good, right?”