Holi: Cinnamon Club’s Vivek Singh on India’s favourite festival

Few celebrations capture India’s vibrancy so well as Holi. The so-called festival of colours features in countless tourism campaigns, and has been evoked by advertisers and artists the world over as an expression of exuberance and joy.

An ancient Hindu religious festival, Holi takes place on 20 and 21 March this year, and signifies not only the arrival of spring and end of winter but also the victory of good over evil.

For Vivek Singh, one of Britain’s most celebrated Indian chefs, the festival encapsulates all things fun - which is why he is bringing back the popular House of Holi event at his Cinnamon Kitchen restaurant in London’s Devonshire Square for a fifth consecutive year.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The Week Portfolio caught up with Singh to discuss how the changing of the seasons brings fresh flavours to his menus, and why Holi is his favourite holiday.

Holi traditionally marks the start of spring and symbolises light and renewal. What does the festival mean to you?

Holi is a festival unlike anything anywhere else in the world, and for that matter it’s pretty unique from an Indian perspective too – there are no sacrifices or fasting involved, no elaborate processes, instead it’s just straight fun, a festival where good food and good friends are celebrated. Holi festival is a breath of fresh air for a hierarchical society like India, where the day to day is dictated by traditions, rituals and rules about not doing things in certain ways.

This festival bridges social gaps and brings everyone together as people ‘play Holi’ by chasing each other through the streets with coloured powdered paints; young and old, men and women, teachers and students, it’s all about letting your hair down and having fun with no rules involved. As a child, this was probably my favourite festival, partly because it was a public holiday so everyone had the day off – the entire community, about 300 families, would play Holi together in this massive playground in front of the houses – it was just tons of fun.

With the arrival of spring come new ingredients. How will your menus be changing for spring and summer this year?

Our menus have evolved a lot over the years, I know see the seasonal changes as more of a cycle, with an emphasis on the ingredients which we’ll be able to get fresh for each particular season. I’m excited to introduce a couple of new cold chaats as summer creeps in, and also look forward to seeing ingredients like strawberries and asparagus come into season and grace our menus.

You often appear on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen. How has television changed the role of the chef in your view?

TV has been phenomenal in really drumming up public interest in food and creating an insatiable appetite for it. There is so much public demand now that we’re even seeing podcasts dedicated to food popping up, and there’s been quite the explosion on social media too.

I’d say especially in the last fifteen years or so, I’ve watched TV go so much beyond just pure entertainment, instead acting as a platform for established and emerging chefs, not just restricted to fine dining but documenting street food too.

We’ve gone from one or two cookery programmes a day to an almost constant flow – evidence of the demand for it. I do however want to note that there is a marked difference between the life of a chef as seen on TV, and that in reality – you get a snapshot of the lifestyle, there is a lot more hard work, failure and perseverance involved.

How has Indian cuisine in Britain changed in the time you have been working here?

I do think the perception of Indian cuisine has changed drastically in the UK in the past 20 years, in that it is viewed much more favourably nowadays. Of course, there was the demand before, but great quality ingredients have really elevated it to new levels, with real freshness, innovation and fusion coming to the fore. There are chefs doing exciting new things through refinement and fusion with other cuisines, without losing those core flavours.

You frequently collaborate with other chefs, including Mark Hix, Adam Handling and Jose Pizarro. How have they (and others) impacted the way you cook?

For me, impact has materialised in many more ways than one – no self-respecting chef simply copies others’ dishes. It is about bouncing ideas off others who inspire you and picking up techniques as you go along.

It’s always been a highly collaborative process with any of the chefs I’ve worked with in the past – the time I’ve spent with each of them has acted as a spring board for new ideas.

I’m continually surprised by the things I discover when working with other chefs. For example, I thought it was inspired what Peter Gordon did by pairing tapioca pearls with miso; they looked just like caviar. I tried something similar with the pearls and added lime syrup, following this. Then when I worked with Mark Hix, he created this sumptuous collar curry, something I wouldn’t have thought of, but it was truly divine!

Which young and emerging chefs do you find most inspiring today?

I don’t want to focus too much on the word ‘young’ in this instance, as it can mean various things, for example you could be making it at 24 and have started at 16, whilst others are just finding their passion at 60 but equally inspirational.

As for ‘emerging’, I’d definitely say Will Bowlby who I admire for his ethos and hard work building Kricket up, Ravinder Bhogal for the expression of her mixed heritage and culture at Jikoni, and the sheer power of Asma Khan. They’ve all done wonders for the Indian food scene.

And what have been some of your most memorable and exciting recent dining experiences?

I want to highlight two memorable meals I’ve had in the past couple of months – they sit at completely ends of the spectrum, which I feel is testament to the beauty of eating out in London!

First up, my meal at Core – I was completely mesmerised by the free-flowing energy in the room, the attention to detail, presentation, right down to the flavours on the plate. Clare Smyth does this beautiful dish with potatoes and trout roe; the potatoes must have been confited for hours, add to this a seaweedy, salty beurre blanc that tastes of the sea, and then the trout roe – truly stunning and a dish that ties nicely back in with her Northern Irish roots.

Then most recently, Richard Vines and I popped to CoCo Ichibanya in December as it opened its doors – I’d never come across curry like that, especially the cheese curry; really interesting what they are doing there.

The Cinnamon Collection has been an incredible success by any standard. What is next for the group and how far would you like to expand it?

For now, I’m focusing on the present – we’ve had three openings in three years with Cinnamon Bazaar in Covent Garden, Cinnamon Kitchen Oxford and most recently, Cinnamon Kitchen Battersea. The locations of the latter two in particular might not have seemed the obvious commercial choice – within Oxford’s Westgate, and out in Battersea Power Station when the development was first starting out, but they are iconic locations that we hope will stand the test of time. When the mist clears in 2019, we may have another opening on the horizon!

And finally, forgive this slightly grander more sweeping question, but looking ahead to the distant future - when many more Holi festivals have come and gone - what would you ultimately like your legacy to be?

I’d just really love to see the friends who’ve supported me and whom I’ve helped along the way continue to shine and grow, as well as be the very best version of myself.

Cinnamon Kitchen’s House of Holi event, which offers guests the chance to throw paint at one another in a purpose-built "party pod", runs from Wednesday 6 to Thursday 21 March. To book visit cinnamon-kitchen.com