You’re making a name reinventing classic Indian cuisine with Australian produce. How do you arrive at some of your wilder pairings like Idly, trout and kohlrabi?
Chef Saavni Krishnan: We start off with a quite traditional idea – for example, idly with gunpowder (spicy powder) – then we’re like, how can we ‘Saadi’ it? In Goa you eat poi (bread) with fish curry, so we thought, what if we do idly with a flaked fish that’s local to Victoria, like Goulburn River trout. We mixed the trout with the gunpowder and then when we tasted it, we felt it needs something – kohlrabi was in season, and the dish needed some acid, so we pickled the kohlrabi, and that’s how we formed the dish. So, it starts with a basic idea that’s quite traditional, and then we build on it and see what happens.
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We don’t want to box food into a category. We want to see what else we can do with traditional food without changing the core of the dish.
As someone who makes food for work, how do you then view the food you have to make outside of work?
Saavni Krishnan: At home it’s pretty basic – we just see whatever we have in the fridge and make a quick dinner. Usually, we don’t eat dinners after we finish work, so that’s a weekend affair and [even then] we eat simple dishes like daal or rice or what you’d usually eat in India. Because we work in the kitchen throughout the week, we want to hang out with friends [when we eat at home] and we make it into an occasion, like a potluck.
I think the focus [at Saadi] is to educate people that there’s more to Indian food, whereas what we eat at home is the usual stuff you get at restaurants. [At home] we eat for nourishment but [at Saadi] we want to nourish people in another way.
You once had an interest in botany before pursuing culinary arts. Does this interest still influence your dishes?
Saavni Krishnan: I wanted to be a botanist and then I realised that I don’t have green thumbs, and I kill all my plants! Maybe it’s because I was interested in botany that I want to do seasonal food and more vegetarian forward [dishes]. I think that’s subconsciously why most of the food on the menu is predominantly vegetarian and seasonal. I’ve never thought about it.
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What’s something you’re currently listening to/reading/playing/watching?
Saavni Krishnan: Because I’m so busy with the [Saadi] residency, I’m just rewatching Brooklyn Nine Nine on Netflix. After work, I just switch off and watch something funny. I’ve also been going through books to get ideas for the next menu. There’s this book that has all the menus that were served to the Mughals and the emperors. I can’t remember the name of the book, but it’s a book full of menus. It’s quite interesting to see how they ate in those times.
What’s a word that you like in a South Asian language, and what does it mean?
Saavni Krishnan: Related to food, I like the word ‘swaad’ [‘taste’ in Hindi]. It’s like, just go with the flow, do it how you feel, instinctive, you know?
And finally: Soan Papdi or Papdi Chaat?
Saavni Krishnan: You know those big Haldiram’s Soan Papdi boxes? I’m not joking, I can sit down and eat the whole box. Soan Papdi is my weakness! Papdi Chaat is fine, but I can’t eat more than eight or ten of those.
I saw a video on how Soan Papdi is made, it’s so labour intensive! Even though machines make it now, the original art is so interesting. Chef Saavni Krishnan
Learn more about Saavni’s pop-up here
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