Blog: Mark Poynton in India

This is the first of three blogs by Michelin starred chef Mark Poynton while he is in India for the Taste of Britain Curry Festival 2015.

Well what can I say about being asked and given the opportunity to fly over to India for 2 weeks to be the resident chef of the Taste of Britain Curry Festival 2015 in Chennai (formerly Madras), as well as create a dinner for the British high commission and 600 guests to celebrate the Queen’s birthday?

I was overwhelmed and hugely flattered, but after I got over the initial excitement the size and scale of the event made me quite nervous. I would be leaving the comfort of my own state of the art kitchen with a brigade of chefs to fly 5111 miles with only my fiancé, which both scared and excited me.

Onwards and upwards! As I started to write my menus and put order lists together, I wasn’t sure how this would be received as I realised I don’t actually know what Indians eat or what produce is available. I therefore sent my produce lists to the Executive Chef of the Hyatt Regency in Chennai to check and luckily he said all ingredients could be sourced – famous last words!

We set off on the long journey leaving Cambridge, and in celebration we opened a bottle of Champagne on the train down to Gatwick, before meeting with the event organisers, Curry Life Magazine, at Gatwick.

After a long flight to Dubai and a quick change over to the connecting flight, we landed at Chennai International airport 18 hours later - this is where the reality of being in India started. At 8am we exited the airport and were hit with a wall of heat. We had been transported from the 6 ?C of the UK to the overwhelming Indian humidity at 32?C – it almost made it unbearable.

However as we started to travel to our hotel we got to see some of the sites of Chennai, which helped us quickly forget about the heat. We noticed the contrasting architecture from the British built buildings to the shanti towns along the river. Beauty and the beast is the only way to describe this bustling city. Everything about India is fast paced; the hurried traffic to the people walking and working barefoot in the streets. The children and their mothers begging on the roads knocking on the window of the cars asking for money and food really took me by surprise.

As we arrived at the hotel the gap between the rich and the poor and the turmoil that still happens today became clear. However, once inside the hotel – wow, what a place! Complete with three restaurants, a bar, spa and swimming pools it was like being as far away as possible from the poverty outside the hotel grounds.

After settling into our room and having a short shower and change, we decided to get a driver to show us the sights of Chennai, and what a tour it was. We first visited the Southern India Railway Station, as the heart of travel in southern India and beyond it certainly is very impressive and makes rush hour at Kings Cross look like the most laid back, tranquil place in the world!

Next stop: Marina Beach, the second longest beach in the world, past the fishing and cargo ports where we pulled up for a walk. We then stumbled across a Hindu ritual, or blessing, which started with loud banging of drums and hordes of people, mainly women, chanting in Tamil (the local dialect) carrying what looked like the best dressed Buddha you will ever lay your eyes on. They started running towards the water at a pace which would have been easily a mile chanting louder and louder and dancing at the Buddha then all of a sudden they all ran into the water with the Buddha and started blessing themselves and everyone around them, what an experience to see. The locals were so friendly, talking to us about the blessing and they were so happy that we took part and stayed to see what happened.

In my next blog we get down to the cooking and the famous last words of the executive chef that “everything will be ok.” Watch this space!

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Mark Poynton is the Chef patron of Michelin starred restaurant Alimentum in Cambridge. Mark started his career at the age of 15 at the Queen Hotel in Chester, before moving on to work at Juniper in Altrincham. After seven years with Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House in Cambridge, Mark became Head Chef at Restaurant Alimentum and took over the Michelin starred restaurant in early 2010.