“Every dish has a story behind it and every regional cuisine is built on such stories. As a chef, my job is to pass on these stories to people through the meal,” says chef Abinas Nayak, co-founder of Rroshashala, a cloud kitchen in Mumbai, which has recently launched Oddiyana, a restaurant serving traditional Odia food in a contemporary setting.
The idea, says Abinas, is to showcase Odia recipes in their authentic form. He has been showcasing and promoting Odia cuisine, which he says is built on a zero-waste, preservative-free system of cooking. “We believe in nose-to-tail eating. Even if you take something like the drumstick, for instance, the leaves, flowers and fruits are used to make dishes. Or the ridge gourd, where we even use the spiny outer cover to make a chutney,” says Abinas, who was also the winner of the sixth season of MasterChef India.
