As grilled as it gets

With promises to take care of your health and your taste buds, Aioli comes with a near grilled-to-perfection Mediterranean treat

Named after the French sauce aioli, made out of olive oil and garlic, this recently opened restaurant at Kalyan Nagar promises to bring to your table, fresh, smoked and grilled seafood, meat and veggies. A common passion for experimental food and a wish to serve a healthy meal, made two friends Anoop Verma and Raghavendra, both from hospitality background, open an eatery that promises to take care of not only your taste buds, but health too.

Aioli
Food: good
Service: efficient
Ambience: average

Grilled Prawns with Rosemary and Olive Oil

Serving mainly a fusion of Mediterranean and European food, Aioli at first glance looks like a space created to give maximum pleasure to diverse diners with chess set, wall hangings with smart lines and background music that ranges from Johnny Cash to Boyzone. Caricatures line the wall along with the usual road signs, posters and other paraphernalia associated with American style diners. However, despite being named after aioli, the restaurant serves it only on order.

We realised that health is a major concern for this restaurant as we were welcomed with complimentary Shikanji, a salty North Indian health drink made of beetroot and carrot juice and the pungency of mustard. Even the booklet sized menu has only one dish mentioned on each page accompanied by a small note on how safe and healthy it is for you.

Apart from mocktails, Aioli offers some interesting wine-based cocktails and we opted for a fruity Sangria (Rs 150) and Aioli's Little Pinky (Rs 115). While Sangria was the traditional Spanish red wine punch full of chopped fruits like pineapples, strawberries and sweet lime, Aioli's Little Pinky turned out to be a pinkish white wine-based cocktail that was a tad too sweet. The sangria, however was fresh, summery and just spiked enough with the goodness of red wine to make a perfect accompaniment to our meal.

Inspired by his father's life in the Indian Armed Forces, Verma has his restaurant logo designed to look like an armed force medal. We were advised to try the Spicy Chicken Wings (Rs 175) and Roasted Pepper Non Vegetarian Salad (Rs 190). The Chicken Wings were grilled and juicy portions of chicken that were marinated in Mediterranean spices and grilled to perfection.

We mopped them up with a combination of mint, yoghurt garlic sauce and salsa. The salad came loaded with grilled green, red and yellow bell peppers, bits of lamb kebabs, stir fried onions tossed up in olive oil. While the salad was crunchy and delicious, the chicken wings won this round as the use of Mediterranean spices perked up the taste of the chicken which would otherwise be just regular wings.

Being hard core carnivores, my friend and I decided to go for Grilled Prawns in Rosemary and Olive Oil (Rs 275) with pita bread stuffed with yoghurt garlic sauce and Lamb Chops (Rs 235). Both the dishes were clear winners. The prawns came tossed in loads of rosemary and oil and was best had mopped up with the stuffed pita bread.

There was a burst of flavours in our mouth with the juiciness of the prawns, the tanginess of the yoghurt garlic sauce and the chunkiness of the pita bread. The lamb chops had been grilled just right with the meat ready to come clean off the bone at a bite, though we didn't really care much about the basil and spinach rice served with the dish.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0

However, if your idea of dessert is either chilled or chocolate based, then Aioli might disappoint you. Most of the sweet dishes here are grilled and fruit based. We ordered a Pot of Happiness (Rs 105) and were lucky enough to get the day's special Chocolate Br ufffdl ufffde (Rs 105). Since we were not fruit lovers, the banana and panacotta Pot of Happiness did not make us too happy.

The saving grace was the br ufffdl ufffde that was sweet and sublime with nuts sprinkled on top and a melt-in-your-mouth-caramel crust. With a menu that strives to give you a varied taste comprising both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes for most dishes, we feel Aioli will satiate most foodies who love to experiment.

At: Aioli BBQ & Grill Smoke House, No 409, first floor, 5th Main, 2nd Cross, Kalyan Nagar, HRBR Layout
Call: 98458 00545
Meal for two: Rs 1000

Aioli offers five per cent discount to those who belong to the Defence Services.