Chez Nini is a No-No!

I’d been reading glowing reviews about Chez Nini for a while now, and was quite curious about just how well one of New Delhi’s first non-Five Star experiments with French food had turned out? So a bunch of us trooped in on a Saturday night eager to have our taste buds tickled with some va-va-voom cooking. Blah blah boom would be a more accurate summation of our dining experience, with dish after dish upping the disappointment quotient.

The only redeeming feature of this small (less than 10 tables), cosy restaurant in Meher Chand Market, Lodhi Road was the ambience. The simple wooden tables were offset by the bright red chairs and the interesting roof with an artificial tree spreading out its branches twinkling with small fairy lights added a touch of drama. However the ambience and the efficient if uninspired service was let down by the dull as dishwater food and unimaginative wine list. The evening started on a happy enough note with the complimentary bread (their take on focaccia with a much stronger dollop of caramelized onions) which was très good , even when eaten sans the usual accompaniments of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The drinks menu is quite limited (wine and beer only) and the selection of wines consisted primarily of bland plonk which should not feature on the menu of a restaurant with pretensions of being a fine dining establishment. To give him, his due, our server was quite patient as we tasted and rejected wine after wine (revolting bouquet, insipid taste) till we finally settled for the only sparkling wine available (drinkable but just about).

The appetizers included a ‘New Delhi’ French Onion Soup (house made melba toast and grilled cheese) which any self-respecting Dilli ka foodie would disown without a moment’s hesitation. It was unexciting and tasteless without any of the depth of texture and flavour which, from the right kitchen, makes French Onion Soup an amazing culinary experience. The crispy soft poached egg (nugget potato salad, green and white asparagus) whose merits a certain newspaper critic had waxed eloquently about, was okay but not exceptional. The potato salad was nothing more than lashings of mayo and dill mixed in potatoes and the white asparagus was conspicuous by its absence! However the green asparagus was done just right and sadly this simple accompaniment was the star of an otherwise unexceptional dish! Nini’s Poutine was equally disappointing, with French fries covered over with a bland, brown sewage consistency, caramelized onion gravy with small dollops of what the menu stated and the server insisted was homemade cheese curd. However one bite was enough to convince us that it was nothing more than good old paneer! This dish was exceptionally disappointing since the chef-owner Nira Singh was born and raised in Montreal, the capital of Quebec (French speaking Canada) where poutine originated.

The main of Vegetarian chilli and house made cheese curd (roasted pine nuts, toasted bread cream and rye melba toast) was nothing more than ‘rajma’(minus our delicious masalas) cooked with minced soya nuggets, with the occasional piece of carrot or zucchini and the pine nuts completely absent. The accompanying toasted bread cream looked like baby puke and had all the taste and flavour of a dish of liquid concrete. (For more about how even fast food chili can taster sooo good read the previous review of Chili's)  One thing you can say about this establishment is that they are 'equal opportunity  horrific food creators! My non-vegetarian dining companions were as luckless as me in this evening of culinary misadventures! The only saving grace of this lack lustre dinner was the dessert of lemon meringue which had a lovely sharp tangy taste and the pistachio churros (dark chocolate, coffee and vanilla ganache) which were pleasant but not great and which again left me wondering what was yet another Mexican dish doing on the menu of a French restaurant?!

Overall a visit to Chez Nini is to be avoided, the food is insipid, the prices are steep and the experience on the whole is profoundly unsatisfactory.

Ambience: 3/5

Food: 2/5

Service 3/5

Value for Money: 1/5

Cost of Meal for Two (With Alcohol): Rs. 4000-4500