Just 10 months after opening its doors, Kol is awarded two hats in the ‘Cuisine Good Food’ Awards and is going from strength to strength.
We catch up with owners Sid and Chand Sahrawat, the formidable duo behind not only Kol, but Sid at The French Café and Cassia.
Congratulations on your recent success in the Cuisine Good Food Awards and achieving 2 hats for KOL. What do you think the recipe for success is for any new restaurant?
We think the recipe is a great team who are in love with what they are delivering to customers and take it seriously. You may have a great concept and great food, but without the backing of a great team you won’t be able to deliver the experience you want consistently to your guests.
KOL is just 10 months old this month and there’s nothing really like it in Auckland. Tell us about the concept and why it works in Ponsonby?
We always believed that there was more to Indian cuisine than what is stereotypically presented to the customers. There is this tenet that lets us give the consumer what they are familiar with and like to ensure they come through our doors. We find challenging that belief as restaurateurs gives us that point of difference in the market. So, at Kol we use charcoal in a tandoor (Indian clay oven) and wood fire to cook most of our dishes. Kol is the Icelandic word for charcoal. We also have a big emphasis on cocktails. Mangesh Shah, our bar manager, has a rotary evaporator in the bar to distil flavours to create eclectic cocktails.
KOL has a real emphasis on drinks and cocktails. This is different from your other restaurants – have you had to do things differently?
Yes, it has been a real change having to think of happy hours, something we have never encountered in our previous business models. We also have one of the few rotary evaporators being used outside a science lab.
The evaporator helps extract the flavour out of anything and turns it into a clear liquid that can then be infused into a cocktail. The easiest example is, think of a Bloody Mary but one that is clear.
We also have a flavour blaster that we use to create smoke bubbles and we just love watching people have that childlike surprise with that cocktail and it is probably our most instagrammed drink. So, we are really pushing the boundaries with our cocktail and drinks programme.
What are the must try dishes on the September menu? And drinks?
We have just added some new dishes to the menu at Kol like our venison tartare, juniper and Jerusalem artichoke, for the vegetarians we have carrots with parmesan and cumin, and we have a dessert with parsnip – yes, parsnip! It has parsnip chips with elderflower and chocolate. The signature dishes like our goat’s cheese, porcini and truffle kulcha (stuffed bread) and vindaloo fries remain crowd favourites. Mangesh has created a new whisky sour with marmite and croissant and the ‘Agurk' is a new vodka-based cocktail with cucumber, lime and fenugreek.
Sid, you have a collective seven hats this year in the Cuisine Good Food Guide – that’s more than any other chef in New Zealand. How do you keep your feet on the ground?
We don’t take it for granted that we will keep our hats each year. In fact, getting the hats adds extra pressure to live up to them, consistently to prove that we deserve them, not only to the judges but also to the diners who come through the doors expecting that level of experience. We say a massive congratulations to our teams when we win the hats and we celebrate but we remind them that it now means consistently living up to that level each day, as they say you are only as good as your last dish.
What are your favourite places to visit in Ponsonby – eat, drink and shop?
Oh, so many. We end up doing Monday lunches at Prego, Silky Otter is great with the kids or for a date night, Deadshot for drinks, Mekong Baby for something Asian and tasty, Duck Island is the perfect treat to bribe the kids with. Chand loves to pop into Mecca and Karen Walker. I like Huffer, browsing in Milly’s Kitchen and Chambers in Three Lamps.
KOL, 23 Ponsonby Road, T: 021 379 700, www.kolauckland.co.nz
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #ponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay #kolponsonby #cuisinegoodfoodawards #twohats #sidsahrawat
Published: August 2023