Food Highlights At The Kalaghoda Arts Festival, 2017

Every year the Kalaghoda Association puts together an elaborate nine-day festival that celebrates, embraces and encourages the arts. From literature, music, dance, theatre, heritage walks to children's literature; it is all eagerly celebrated at the annual Kalaghoda Arts Festival. While each section has an exciting line up, our focus this year is on the food! This section has been rapidly expanding and has its allocated space at the Cross Maidan, near Churchgate station this year.

The lineup this year includes master class sessions with celebrity chefs such as Ranveer Brar and Ajay Chopra. These two chefs are well-known names thanks to their respective stints on TV and their legacy at the hotels they worked at. Celebrity Chef Rakhee Vaswani also has a demonstration this year and what better authority than someone who runs a culinary studio and just launched a new one with internationally certified courses. Smita Deo who launched a cook book called 'Karwar To Kohlapur Via Mumbai' takes center stage to demonstrate regional recipes. 

Known to many as the prince of chocolate, Chef Varun Inamdar has organised a workshop demonstrating recipes that are purely chocolate based. Who better than a skilled master who has launched his own signature brand of Artisanal Indian Chocolates. 

For the first time, there is a session on food and Ayurveda by Amrita Rana as well, who has a youtube channel and conducts classes emphasising how essential and easy it is to incorporate the principles of Ayurveda in your daily cooking. Along with regular demonstrations, you can also attend panel discussions and special guided food walks in and around Kalaghoda. 

While you catch some of these food events, be sure not to miss out on the stalls serving all sorts of tasty treats. Do not miss the showstopper from last year, a lady fondly known as Sadhana Tai and her troop that serve some incredible Konkan style seafood. Plenty of crab curry, prawns and fried fish. Scheherazad serving Persian delights and East India-China that are serving East Indian food and masalas.

Making its debut is a stall dedicated to Japanese food with the 425 Omakase Kitchen and a lot of healthy organic food thanks to the tremendously popular restaurant 212 All Good that has a stall this year. If you are in the mood for local junk food, there is a stall serving Mumbai's favourite rasta sandwich and maggi.  

There are plenty more stalls and workshops at the festival, but these are our highlights. The festival is from the 4th - 12th of February 2017 and the entire schedule can be checked online on their website.