Saffron

By EWAN McDONALD for viva

Next time you see the words "chicken tikka masala" and "authentic" in close proximity on a menu, you should start to smell something funny, and it ain't the rogan josh. The dish was invented in Glasgow, although the details are a boneless of contention.

Next time someone suggests you sip a beer, not a wine, with curry, don't be caught on the hops. That tradition goes all the way back to the late 1920s when the King of Denmark used to drop into Veeraswamy whenever he was in London. Frustrated at not being able to get a Carlsberg, he shipped a barrel to the West End curry house.

Is there such a thing as "Indian" cuisine? The subcontinent has coasts and deserts and marsh and mountains, and diet is also determined by religion or caste. So there are Goan, Keralan, Rajasthani and a dozen more cuisines. Some say much of what we think of as "Indian" food was created in Birmingham by the Bangladeshi proprietors who own two-thirds of England's curry houses. That's why, even in Auckland, you should look out a serious restaurant when you feel like a curry.

Such a place is Saffron, where the owner, Sada Kutty, will explain where his family comes from, where the cooks come from, where the food traditions are based - and will then serve a mouth-watering variety of samosas, pakoras, Indian breads, basmati rice specialties, curries and vegetarian dishes.

The menu features a section of "Saffron delicacies" - a tandoori whole snapper, in which red snapper is marinated with lime, coriander and fennel before being cooked in the clay oven; or raan, a meal for two comprising a leg of lamb marinated in rum and herbs and barbecued on the chargrill.

Kutty's restaurant has been open for about two years and in that time curries have shrugged off their quick, cheap takeaway image and got posh. Restaurants have gone all designer. Right across the road is black, hot pink and cool Bolliwood, just down the street is stainless steel, navy and style Masala. Well, this is Ponsonby.

Behind the less spectacular aluminium windows of Saffron, Kutty offers a friendly welcome, staff elegant in black Nehru, and a hot red wall against black lighting.

He and his head chef, Dhanapal Chinnakannan, draw most of the food and their chefs from their North Indian background, although the South is represented, and the coast, with a Goan fish curry. Yes, there is a chicken tikka masala, though it doesn't claim any authentic Indian origins.

The four of us selected our first courses by the time-honoured method of liking what we saw at the next table and telling the waiter, "We'll have that." It was dosa, the crisp savoury pancake about the size of a baguette, a choice of stuffings: potatoes, peas and cashew; lamb or chicken masala. Light, tasty, each is almost a meal in itself.

But we were determined to get a fair spread of flavours around the table. One couple chose raan. Someone else had mysore chicken: boneless, cooked in curry leaves, fennel and coconut sauce; and the fourth bowl was kadi chicken: boneless, again, cooked in cumin-flavoured tomato masala with peppercorns and red chillies. Was it good? It was just as tasty when we warmed the doggy-bag for lunch next day.

We drank a New Zealand cab-sav. Yes, curryholics prefer aromatics or ale but try this combination because you don't get the beer gas reacting with the spices, and the food can take the bolder wine.

To finish we were offered desserts. Even the most patriotic Indian would admit this is not the strong suit of any of the subcontinent's cuisines. So skip them: it just leaves a bit more room for Saffron's exotic and tantalising dishes.

Open: 7 days, 6pm-late Weekend brunch 11am-3pm

Food: Indian

Owner: Sada Kutty

Head chef: Dhanapal Chinnakannan

Smoking: Smokefree

Wine: Cheap'n'cheerful, NZ-oriented list

Noise: Not that we noticed

Cost: (mains for two) $30; $24 vegetarian

Vegetarian: Special vego menu at dinner; South Indian vego brunch on weekends, $9.90

Bottom line: Across the road and round the city, restaurant operators have spent more on designers and menu consultants, maitre d's are more canny about flogging cocktails and marking up the wine. Saffron puts its energy into a warm welcome and the food, mostly from the owners' and chefs' North Indian tradition, which offers interesting variations on the usual predictable curry-house fare.

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