Private Dining – Poornima Aragma

Private Dining

The concept of an invitation only private dining restaurant was new to me. So when the Aragma invitation popped up for a midweek dinner, I cancelled whatever I had planned – and landed up at 1830 hrs at the Insignia complex, on Dhole Patil road. Poornima, the brains behind Aragma Food Studio, used to be an IT professional. The stay-at-home-lockdown days were quite depressing – and Poornima found solace then in food. Aragma was born during those depressing days. Poornima decided to spread this joy of eating through curated dining experiences. Aragma (άραγμα) is a Greek word that stands for chilling. (The dictionary meaning is the act of taking a boat ashore.)

It would be quite appropriate to call her setup – Aragma Food Labs, because every meal is researched and comes out differently. Pravin Bhagwat has been a mentor to Poornima, and we can see some of 14 Tree’s environmentalism seeping into the Aragma kitchen. Poornima uses veggies that are fresh, local and ordinary. A thumb rule is to not use a refrigerator. To make dal, kaddu and lavki look and taste awesome is Aragma’s secret sauce. The interesting part of the ingredients is that her customers are now part of her R and D team – so whenever they come across anything interesting they send it across to Poornima – who then dreams up dishes where these can be showcased.

Poornima handles only one guest group for every meal. Most of the guests come to know of Aragma after being referred by others who have visited. As part of her SOP, she will engage with guests before they visit – to find out more about the group and their culinary interests. Since the number of guests is limited and the food customized – there is zero chance of leftovers. And the corollary: zero chances of getting a second helping of any of the delicious dishes that she serves. The 3 hours of eating with mindfulness means that you leave the table satiated, but not full. I broke my no sugar vow to sample the amazing chikoo chocolate dessert. Whenever I break my no-refined sugar rule, I end up getting a heavy feeling. But I could cycle back home at 2230 hrs after an Aragma meal without dozing off!

Lest I forget, each of the 7 courses that we were served came with a story. About the ingredients, the preparation and how the dish came to be created. We ended the dinner with a tour of the kitchen, which is double the size of the dining area. Met with Amit over there – whose hands were conjuring up all that magic that we were experiencing on our table.

Aragma will be shifting in Jan 24 to a new home in Kalyaninagar, which incidentally also happens to be the place that Poornima calls home. Poornima feels that the Aragma experience is unique and difficult to template; she has no ambitions to scale and is content satisfying her local customers with local food. And in a way this disappoints me. It would have been great to have many more folks across many more cities sharing this lovely experience of eating fresh, mostly local commonplace food. One experiment she should do is to co-curate similar experiences in the guest’s homes. Her guests can then start creating Aragma experiences on their own dining tables. Let the slow food movement begin!

The website is https://arag.ma/

Mondays are off days at Aragma – and Fridays are reserved for take-aways.

A table for two will be @ 5 K.

Purnima can be reached @ 84848 04201.