About the restaurant
Located in the buzzing Keong Saik Road dining enclave, Ahāra is chef-owner Vikramjit Roy’s rock ballad to India. Through both food and art, Roy’s first restaurant in Singapore, is a reflection of his roots and culinary journey that has taken him across the seas from India to Japan.
The cuisine
“I came from humble beginnings and I had the privilege of learning from some of the world’s best chefs,” chef-owner Vikramjit Roy explains. “I wanted to bring all my experience into Ahāra.”
At Ahāra, the erudite chef draws from India’s rich diverse history, culture, traditions and creative arts to offer a luxe, unpretentious, yet studied experience of India’s overlapping regionalities and communities while blending the legacy of many lifetimes.
The experience
Ahāra occupies the 1,300 square feet ground floor of a pre-war shophouse, an architectural style synonymous with the neighbourhood. The restaurant is designed in tandem with Chef Roy’s cuisine, to celebrate the multiplicity of India’s culture, tradition and community.
The 32-seater refined dining restaurant offers intimacy without pretension or formality. The eye is compelled to rest upon the statement-making repurposed, restructured fabric sculptures by iconoclastic designer Kallol Datta suspended from the ceiling.
Datta’s spectacularly unorthodox works, powerfully defy convention and set the tone for Ahāra’s revisionist definition of food as the root of all well-being.
The art
Art is part of the dining experience at Ahāra and a curated selection is displayed proudly throughout the restaurant. These pieces are created by artists hailing from across India’s many regions in a celebration of all of her cultures, traditions and communities. Expect a fresh slate of names like Parul Gupta, Kallol Datta, Pranjal Kaila, Vishwa Shroff and Chetnaa — each offering their own unique perspective on facets of contemporary India.
These pieces are part of an extensive collection belonging to The Eight Foundation, an institution that supports contemporary art practices and its community. The foundation was established by Vir and Simran Kotak to embrace the exploration of the cross-pollination of ideas between contemporary art practices, the worlds of design, architecture, food, beverage, the environment, politics and social sciences.
Find out more about The Eight Foundation here.