At Puducherry’s Promenade sample a seven-course French–Indian tasting menu

“I’m French, but my cooking changes wherever I go,” says Mathias Vila, the Bordeaux-based chef who has spent over two decades in Michelin-starred kitchens across Europe, from Munich to the Côte d’Azur. Now in India for the first time, he is preparing a pop-up in Puducherry that brings his classical training into conversation with local flavours he has been exploring since he arrived. 

Hosted by The Promenade hotel, the pop-up will bring Vila’s style of modern French cooking to Puducherry. The seven-course tasting menu, offered in vegetarian and non-vegetarian formats, reflects the precision of his classical training along with the small local influences he has begun exploring in India. “I travel a lot, and I love to mix my kitchen with the kitchen of another chef,” he says. “Here, I want to introduce French technique but also use ingredients like ghee, Pondicherry salt and Kerala pepper to bring a little of India into the menu.” 

Parsnips in a citrus-inspired texture and maple syrup ice cream
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

The menu moves through classic French structure: hors d’oeuvres, soup, entrée, palate-cleansing sorbet, and a choice of mains before dessert. Both versions begin with a a vol-au-vent, a light, crisp pastry with filling, and salad, before splitting into a chilled vichyssoise, a leek, and potato soup for vegetarians and a Lyon-style onion soup for non-vegetarians.

A cocoa tartlet layered with braised red onions, porcini and truffle forms the entrée, followed by a raspberry–kaffir lime sorbet.

The mains offer two choices: Provençal vegetable tian or truffle-scented celery risotto on one side, and richer options like beef Wellington, ghee-poached sea bass or slow-cooked chicken with morels on the other. Dessert stays firmly in French territory, closing with either a spiced tarte Tatin or a mille-feuille, and finally, coffee with a small entremet.

Chef Mathias Vila
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

For The Promenade, the collaboration is a way to bring a more classical form of French dining to a city that already has a long-running appetite for it. In the days leading up to the pop-up, Vila has been working inside The Promenade’s kitchen, fine-tuning technique and aligning the menu with the standards he follows in Bordeaux. The tweaks are small — how the puff pastry is handled, how flavours are balanced — but they make a noticeable difference to the final plate. “They already have a very good kitchen,” he says. “I’m only adding little things, like more butter in the pastry or a different way of balancing flavour, so the dishes reflect the way I cook in France.”

A Taste of France will be hosted at The Promenade hotel, Puducherry from November 27 to 29. The meal is priced at ₹2,999. For reservations, call 8189800045.