Banker turns restaurateur to bring Latin America cuisine in Mumbai

The arepa, which started it all, is a Colombian burger and is available at rates starting at Rs 349

Ujwala Bhat's transition from banker to chef to restaurateur began the same way most perfectionists start doing chores that would be easily done by others - the "I-can't-trust-anyone-else-to-do-it-right-so-I-will-do-it-myself" start plug. Fortunately for us, Bhat, 29, was craving an arepa inside a glass building in Mumbai.

Realising that the craving couldn't be satisfied in this city, which hasn't moved beyond burritos, at least where Latin American cuisine is concerned, Bhat in 2017, did the next best thing: quit her job and travelled across Latin America to learn their cuisine and bring it back to Mumbai. That's cutting the long story very short, but we will add some details.

The Humitas Empanada

Bhat, whose job was once to make money make more money, now sits happier in a small, but not uncomfortable, chair at the 15-seater Latin Mess in a lane off Pali Naka, Bandra West. Far from her home in Marol, this is where Bhat feels her cuisine will find more takers.

An arepa, she explains, is a Colombian burger made from a special corn flour called pan harina. Her first bite of the arepa - which at Latin Mess comes stuffed with black beans (this one gets our protein craving vote), sweet potato, spice marinated chicken or shredded slow roasted pork shoulder - was in Paris. But, in Mumbai when she tried to recreate it for herself, she found that the missing pan harina made all the difference. While she then started cooking Latin American cuisine for friends and family - in Paris too she'd either hold pop-ups or attend classes on weekends she didn't manage to get a chef to let her be a student - she realised the cuisine could work here.

Ujwala Bhat. Pics/Shadab Khan

So, she packed her bags and wove through Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Argentina and Cuba, attending classes. The enterprising woman also used all her contacts from her Paris alma mater to get entry into restaurant kitchens for more experience. She even stayed over at a complete stranger's home. "I met a lady in Mexico who invited me to her house in Colombia, had me stay over at her place for a week and taught me everything that she knew." In case you wondered how close Bhat's food is to the original, that should be an answer enough.

There are interesting details behind the dishes too. The empanadas, she says, are representative of the Argentinean pride in folding. The Chino Latino (which comes with mushrooms in fiery tomato sauce) is triangular, whereas the Humitas (with grated corn and cheese) is in a semi circular shape. Where Bhat has made 12 tiny design folds on the Chino Latino, back in Argentina, there would have been 24.

Latin Mess opens on April 4 and will operate from 4 pm to 12 am

The dips are a whole new story. With the sesame seeds, garlic, peanuts, mulato chillies, the Salsa de Mani is our top pick along with the Hogao, which has tomatoes, arbol chillies. Bhat talks of how it took 23 tries to get their own recipe right.

Having returned in November 2017, all of last year was spent in research, trying to understand how she could source the ingredients and from where, and then finding this little nook in Bandra.

By now, it's lunch time for corporate Mumbai and a bunch of office-goers wave to Bhat asking, it seems not for the first time, when the doors will open for orders. The magical date is a little less than a fortnight away. And, for all the stories that we have missed telling here, Bhat might just be willing to share more.

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