Bizarre choice leads the way

"WOT, no Gewrztraminer?" cried the Guild of Food Writers at Mayfair Indian restaurant Chor Bizarre last month.

The curry house, on Albemarle Street, had enlisted the help of wine celeb Charles Metcalfe to produce a new wine list, the results of which were put to the test on the venerable members of the guild. The absence of Gewrz - the chilli-friendly grape - was their only gripe in an otherwise challenging line-up that dared to pair a Puligny-Montrachet with dahl.

Owner Rhohit Khattar appreciates wine, though he doesn't really drink it himself. He knows his customers do, even though they will insist on drinking beer with their curry. Can you blame them, when the choice is invariably pitiful? But now there are 39 wines to choose from at Chor Bizarre, and most have a partner in mind on the menu.

Other Indian restaurants are making a similar effort - Zaika, on London's Fulham Road, makes a selection of wines to go with each course on the set "Jugalbandi" menu, and this is going down a storm, reports co-owner Raj Sharma.

Chor Bizarre's bar manager, Khaled, has got each wine down to a T, and runs off the best matches with a big grin. And it's selling. "We had a 10% swing to wine in the first week," says manager Vernon Menezes, proudly.

Metcalfe is no stranger to food and wine pairing. He's written two books on the subject with his wife Katherine. Over a two-month period, Chor Bizarre's chefs, Deepinder Sondhi and and Manpreet Ahuja, packed up their dishes for Metcalfe to take back on the train to his wife. They worked their way through 80 wines in all, he says, before arriving at the final list.

Of the white wines, the surprise top pairings were: the aforementioned Puligny-Montrachet (Maroslavac-Leger 1997) with dahl makhni (whole black urad lentil, tomato, butter, ginger and cream); Côtes de Gascogne, La Coudette 1998 with the delicate avial (broccoli, baby corn, cauliflower, courgette, coconut, yogurt, curry leaves and fresh coriander); and the gazab ka tikka (chicken, mild Cheddar cheese, cream aniseed and cardamom) with Sacred Hill Semillon Chardonnay 1998, from Australia - voted best overall wine by the guild.

And reds? Well, not that many actually. "Chilli and tannins are not happy partners," says Metcalfe. "Though you could go for a light Merlot, or a light Grenache."

"But if Charles had had it his way, there wouldn't have been any," laughs Menezes. That said, two reds got the thumbs-up from the guild: a 1996 Bourgogne Pinot Noir, Couvent des Jacobins from Louis Jadot with the kaleji tak-a-tak of chicken liver, onion, tomato and fresh coriander; and a Beaujolais Villages from Georges Duboeuf which was teamed with mirchi korma - spring lamb, onion, tomato, yogurt, Kashmiri chillies and cardamom. n

by Fiona Sims