A feast of a conversation, garnished with lucid declarations about fusion food, sparks one’s appetite for chef and entrepreneur Ritu Dalmia’s upcoming four-day pop-up menu in Delhi. She is bringing some of the choicest dishes from her Milan-based Indian restaurant Cittamani to her Italian restaurant Diva on September 18. The exclusive menu is as much a celebration of 25 years of Diva as it is of Ritu’s expansive culinary journey.
The exclusive menu is as much a celebration of 25 years of Diva
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Cittamani pop-up will be presented in a thali format — an Ayurvedic approach to eating that continues to be practised in Indian households today. The starters include club kachori, burrata with tomato and kairi launji, and basera me sayala, a Sindhi-style fish. For the main course, expect lamb chops served with adraki gravy; shyam savera featuring torai and apricot kofta with lehsuni palak and tamatar kaju; and Kayasth-style chicken pasande in badami sauce. Punctuated by a sweet ending, the fourth course has two desserts, baked boondi with rabdi and bhapa doi paired with berries.
Bhapa doi, berries
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To a naïve mind, this interactive culinary dialogue between India and Italy, East and West, national and international, is suggestive of an exchange or a fusion of sorts. But Ritu quells all queries with a terse reply that tickles one’s curiosity about the dishes on this special menu. She says, “I am actually quite a purist. Also, the word fusion has been misused. So, kachori with burrata is not fusion, for me, because I am not messing around with the taste and the flavour. I am just substituting some ingredients. Some people have done an amazing job with fusion food, but I am not that person. So, apart from a few jugalbandis between L Subramaniam and Stéphane Grappelli, I stick to purity, when it comes to cuisine and music.”
Ritu claims that a simplistic, community-driven approach towards Indian food sets her restaurant, Cittamani, apart from the rest
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Ritu claims that a simplistic, community-driven approach towards Indian food sets her restaurant, Cittamani, apart from the rest. “Cittamani’s food is all about community meals. It’s all about home food. When we opened in Italy, people thought Indian food was all about butter chicken and dal. Italians go out to eat their home food. So, my idea of Cittamani was really to show how home cooking is done in many different parts of India; no frills, nothing fancy, just honest food — whether it’s my Marwari home-cooked food or Kayasth menu,” she says.
Cittamani in Italy
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Ritu’s cooking prowess pivots on using traditional recipes with local ingredients. She elaborates her technique with examples of several dishes at her Italian restaurant, like a chaat made with Jerusalem artichoke. “This is basically a lauki chaat which my grandmother used to make, and it was the only way she could get us to have vegetables like lauki. So, instead of importing lauki there, we substitute it with Jerusalem artichoke,” she explains.
Celeriac chaat
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Another interesting dish that also figures on the pop-up menu is shyam savera. “During puja time in Kolkata, one made vegetarian food without onion and garlic. So, shyam savera was always a favourite. It is a lauki kofta dish and is called shyam savera because of the white and orange gravy reflective of morning and evening,” adds Ritu.
Lamb chops, adraki gravy
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The selection of dishes on this menu stands dictated by Ritu’s personal favourites at Cittamani. The silver jubilee celebrations of Diva, of course, will continue with more pop-ups (including the one with Michelin-starred chef Viviana Varese, who has partnered with Cittamani), menu revivals (Diva’s menu from 2005-2012) and the launch of a new menu early October.
Cittamani menu will be available from September 18 to 21, 12.30pm to 11.30pm, at Diva, M-8A, M Block Market, Greater Kailash II, New Delhi. A meal for two is priced upwards of ₹2,900. For reservations, call 011-41637858, +917827934131
Published – September 19, 2025 03:08 pm IST
Dining and Cooking