Chef Maitreya Sen - The Indian chef who fell in love with Italian food

Chef Maitreya Sen, Chef de Cuisine at La Cucina, Hyatt Regency, Kolkata  

“Let me first say one thing,” says Chef Maitreya Sen when we meet him in La Cucina, Hyatt Regency’s authentic Italian restaurant: “I am not an Italian but I have a passion to cook Italian food.”

It may sound like a paradox – an Indian chef surrounded by influences of the great cuisine of Bengal who falls in love with the joyous tastes and flavours of Italy, but it’s evident that Italian food has become a part of Chef Sen’s heart and soul.

Maitreya gained his first experience of Italian gastronomy in hotels, including 16 years at the upmarket Taj, when he often found himself working alongside Italian colleagues.

“I gained almost all my knowledge from them and that was what gave me the passion for this type of cuisine,” he tells us. “From when I first started cooking at a junior level I always had a dream to, if possible, become an Italian chef and I’m happy to say I turned my dream into a reality. I feel that Italian cooking is in my blood.”

Chef Sen and his team at La Cucina

At the Hyatt Regency where Kolkata born Maitreya has worked since its opening in 2002, the management could have employed an Italian chef to oversee their flagship dining destination, La Cucina. Instead they recognised that they had a unique asset in their incandescent chef. They decided to send him for a month’s training in the country itself under Michelin-star chef Davide of Il Sole di Ranco, at his family-run relais in Milan. It turned out to be a wise investment La Cucina is now the most popular Italian restaurant in town.

“It was a very small property near to Lake Maggiore – a beautiful place,” remembers Chef Sen of Il Sole. “The restaurant had a 60 years’ heritage, starting as a hotel in 1957, and the kitchen had never changed since then with big hotplates and old stoves. But the experience was something I shall cherish all my life.

“Chef Davide was very welcoming and kind. The biggest problem is that he rarely speaks English and doesn’t understand that much and I have tried to learn Italian but I don’t have much time. As you can imagine we had a lot of fun – I used to ask him ‘Chef, what is this?’ He would look at me, say something in Italian and then I would look at him! Luckily the waiter, Fabio knew a lot of English and used to interpret for us. But I learned so much. After that experience I shifted to Milan where the hotel supplier moved me round speciality restaurants – Tuscan, Sicilian - all kinds. The chefs in each were really happy to show me around their kitchens and how they cooked various dishes. It was the first time anyone had travelled from this part of the world to learn about their cooking. I also visited all the markets in Milan: fish and vegetable markets and cheese and wine shops so I gained a complete picture of the Italian food.”

On his return to the Hyatt, Maitreya was able to make new changes to the menu to reflect the truly authentic north Italian cooking. The flavours and ingredients are simple yet the results are a revelation to the taste buds. One of the most important innovations was to introduce homemade pasta. “I learned from Chef Davide that pasta is the most important thing in Italian food,” says Maitreya. “You get pasta in all restaurants but it is the kind of commercialised readymade pasta that you could cook at home. I learned you should go deeper into the traditions of Italian food, to get to the ‘mama’s’ and grandmothers’ style of cooking; the ones who used to make the fettucinne, the gnocci, the pasta and the dumplings in the traditional kitchen. So I am still implementing this – I have a small machine to make all types of pasta: the capeli d’angelo, fusilli, fettucine, angelo, ravioli and so on, and it tastes completely different from the dried variety.”

 

With homemade pasta, a wood fired stove for fresh pizzas, risottos, dolcis, Italian aperitivos and wines, La Cucina has become a corner of Italy – Lombardy to be precise.  Working with a team of seven chefs, all trained in Italian cuisine, dishes use a few simple but fresh basic ingredients. Chef Sen recommended some of his favourites learned during his time spent in Italy. For pasta de cecco we had the Crema di asparagi con parmigiano e paprika: a creamy asparagus orzo with parmesan, breadcrumbs and paprika. The asparagus dish is a very simple recipe using just a few ingredients,” said Maitreya. “This is the kind of asparagus we get in the market, not like the European one. We just blanch it for around 80-90 seconds, make a simple sauce with unsalted butter, juice of the lemon, some herbs, parsley and basil and a little salt – you can also have white wine if you like - and add the sauce to the asparagus.” The result was fresh, light and refreshing. The Ravioli Carbonara we had for second course, he explained, was a recipe from chef Davide’s great grandfather. Made with a simple reduction of the cream, crushed peppers, onions and pancetta bacon, the hidden egg yolk bursts out in a golden pool across the plate when you cut into it. The Tiramisu dolce which completed our dining experience contained no egg however. Maitreya told us many of his customers are strict vegetarians, but the layered dessert soaked in coffee with sweet Mascarpone cheese was a credit to its Venetian origins.

The married father of one 12-year-old daughter, Maitreya now has another dream – to travel back to Italy at least two or three more times in his life. And when he does he hopes to take his family with him: “My daughter has also grown a palate for this type of food,” he says with a smile. It’s not surprising!