Sarah Todd's Antares Opens this October with Modern Aussie Cuisine

By Bikramjit Ray

SarahToddUSEWHAT IS modern Aussie (or Australian) cuisine? Ask away, because this is the second time I heard these words in association with Goa. First, it was-Grand Hyatt Goa's Executive Chef Mark Anthony Long who told me about his modern Australian pop up at the hotel and now, more famously, it is the statuesque, Masterchef participant Sarah Todd, who is all set to launch her new venture in Goa's Vagator area.

Todd-is in love with India. ’My first trip was just to experience India. I heard a lot about it and wanted to see for myself and taste Indian cuisine. It’s been eight months since then and I have already been four times,’ she says.

The interest in India began earlier still. ’When I was in Masterchef, I started getting a huge following from India. I think I got 40,000 followers (on Facebook) within 6 weeks. I thought I have to come here and see what I feel about India, whether I like it or not,’ she said.

Todd’s personal India connection which is splashed from time to time across the tabloids of the world keep hinting that she’s going to or already married at a ceremony in India, with her partner, Devinder Garcha. It isn’t true, according to Todd and no details were forthcoming, at least not while we were all drinking tea.

Which brings us to the other reason Todd arrives so frequently to Indian shores.

’ON my first trip to India, I was taken to a restaurant in DLF’s Cyber Hub called the Wine Company. I met Ashish (Kapur’ founder of Yo! China and Dimsumbros and Wine Company) and we really had a great time,’ began Todd. After her return to Australia, she received a sudden phone call, ’Ashish was standing in this property in Goa and told me ’Sarah I want to open a restaurant in Goa but I only want to open it with you’’.

Her interest piqued, she arrived to see the property and was absolutely blown away. The restaurant, which is located in Vagator, right on Vagator beach has been named Antares after the brightest star in the Scorpion constellation (Todd’s birth sign). It seats 250 and Todd is the executive chef of the whole complex which also has a beach club opening out to the sand, according to her.
’We have a charcoal grill upstairs and downstairs, there is a wood fire oven for pizzas,’ she says.

The beach club downstairs will get a tapas menu with finger food and smaller bites. Upstairs the aim is to get people to eat communal style. ’The whole menu has been designed to fit into each other and we will people to order and put the food on the table and share,’ Todd told me.

The restaurant opens on October 17 according to Todd. ’I have written the menu. I tried certain dishes with local ingredients, but I wrote a lot of the menu while I was in Australia so I just wanted to go here and put my head down and test all of the dishes,’ she explained when I asked how things were coming along.

’I think the biggest thing about how I am writing the menu is finding which ingredients are the best quality and writing around them. The seafood is so fresh, you can tell it’s straight off the boat,’ she continued.

The theme of the menu is Australian cuisine with a hint of Asian. Todd explained that she is taking marinades and flavours both Indian as well as South East Asian and applying Australian techniques to the dishes.

Meanwhile, before the restaurant opens, Todd let me into another secret, ’We have to recruit a staff of 80 and have got 30 on board, so this trip is also to speak to prospective candidates.’

And though she was kind enough to offer me a job, I thought better of it. After all, I would just eat into the bottomline!

Photo: Sarah Todd does a demo at her new kitchen at Antares, Goa.-

The author is Executive Editor of-BW Hotelier.-


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