Goan festival at Chutney, The Metropolitan

It’s 2 degrees, people. You’re longing for sun, sand, and swinging. But the carnival festivities are only next month, on the beaches of faraway Goa.

In Delhi, let your hair down already. Settle for some serious spicy fun at Chutney. Let the musicians from the sunny state serenade you with guitar and ghumat, the Goan ‘drum’ (a terracotta pot topped with monitor lizard skin). Under a beaded lamp beside looped fishing nets, languidly summon the waiter. Get a feni cocktail and the set meal. Or opt for a single masaledar main.

Start with Verdu cutlax or chicken pao, with Chutney’s signature tomato jam and papaya relish. Sip spicy soup — meatballs in coconut milk broth or comforting macaroni-vegetable.

Gorge on this Portuguese-influenced cuisine, all vinegar and chilli. The chicken cafreal, mutton vindaloo, fish recheado are all just as they ought to be. Veggies need not despair, because there’s a first rate array of greens. Crunchy cabbage foogath, tangy bhindi cavil, stunning red spinach (tambli) — you’ll scrape up every last leaf.

Finish up with burnt-sugar-sticky dodol, and many-layered bebinca.

You’ll feel the sunshine as you sway out. Go slow.

The Goan Food Festival, at Chutney, The Metropolitan, Bangla Sahib Road, New Delhi; ph: 42500200. Price: Rs 1600 for four-course set meal plus beverages. On till February 3.

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