Ananda

Saturday night, Dundrum Shopping Centre, and Ananda is buzzing. It is one of the great socodo rooms, pulsing with energy as scores of diners catch the buzz of Karan Mittal’s superlative modern cooking. Karan is a visionary chef, and despite his youth – in the kitchen he looks like a young junior chef, except, of course, he’s actually the boss – he is firmly in command of every post-modernist trick in the culinary lexicon. These technical skills have allowed him to take Indian food far away from the sub-continent, to a place where the native signatures are used for colour and contrast – a samosa of venison shank; goat with coconut; the incredible black lime sorbet; tamarind with dark chocolate cremeux. The delicate swirl of the flavours is positively balletic, and the expert service of Asheesh Dewan’s team matches the extreme finesse of the food.