A chef's global touch

Ranveer Brar mingles ingredients and flavors from across Indian, South Asia, and France to create something completely his own.

For a cuisine he calls “global” food rather than fusion, Chef Brar has gathered cooks, bakers, and dishwashers as diverse as his vision. (Richard Schultz )

Ranveer Brar landed in Boston last August, a self-described culinary nomad from India on a quest to fulfill his dreams. "I needed to feed the fire," he says, sitting in the dramatically designed BanQ restaurant, where he is chef.

BanQ, on Washington Street in the South End, opened in mid-February to rave reviews, bringing a particularly exotic world view to Boston's dinner plate. And Brar, with his stellar resume, is working his magic in the kitchen. When he was 25, Brar became the youngest ever executive chef of a five-star hotel in New Delhi. But he wanted greater challenges. "I was too young to start talking big and quit cooking," says the chef, intense and eloquent about his food. The lure of America's open culture, with its adventurous diners, drew him, as it does so many. That open-door attitude enriches Boston, where a young chef like Brar, now in his early 30s, can mingle ingredients and flavors from across Indian, South Asia, and France to create something completely his own.

Boston tutored the young chef as he wandered the city those first months, running along the Esplanade, exploring the Boston Common at dawn. The city's contrasts fascinated him: the Hancock Tower across from 18th century Trinity Church; "the most expensive dogs" on one side of a South End park while on the other a homeless man huddled in the freezing cold.

The menu Brar created for BanQ reflects his musings about these contrasts. His appetizer menu celebrates yin and yang, "elegance and earthiness." On one plate, veal breast and rice are shaped into croquettes, the earthy element, and matched with a refined French mimolette cheese and a quince jam. His subtle spicing is evident in a date and tea-smoked quail, or in shortribs braised with lemongrass and cumin.

A major part of any chef's job is to build his cooking team. For a cuisine he calls "global" food rather than fusion, Brar has gathered cooks, bakers, and dishwashers as diverse as his vision. Channi Sidhu, an Indian, works the tandoor, turning out delicious herbed naan that are served to arriving diners minutes out of the oven. There are Asian cooks, a baker from Hawaii, several Latinos; some of the food team is even from New England. BanQ's diversity runs deep: one owner, Hemant Chowdhry, is from India; the other, Mark Raab, is from Milan. Even the architects who designed the restaurant's signature undulating canopy of Baltic birch, have far-flung backgrounds. Monica Ponce de Leon is a native of Venezuela, and her partner Nader Tehrani, of Persian descent, was born in England.

Brar's own culinary education occurred on two levels. Born into a landowning family in Lucknow in northern India, he was expected to manage the family's farms. Instead, he found himself drawn to street food vendors, especially one in particular. "This kebab guy was a big part of my life," says Brar. "He had only one eye, he was very rude, but he had the best food." Not yet 18, Brar signed on as his apprentice, carrying sacks of charcoal up and down three floors each day before he was allowed to even touch the food.

Brar went on to culinary school, but still felt drawn to this kebab cook, who would use 50 spices "balanced so perfectly that you tasted what he wanted you to taste." After years of working with the old man, Brar finally felt confident that he had perfected the spicing. Now Brar has brought his knowledge of spices to Boston, where he continues to experiment with his menu. The future holds dishes that are neither more Asian nor more French; they're not tied to any one place.

"Just more experimental," says the young chef, whose journey to discovery promises to deepen and broaden Boston's culinary scene, as well.