I don’t really agree with Michelin’s hotel keys for India. The idea is to replicate the famous star system used for rating restaurants to judge hotels. Only, instead of stars the ratings are called keys.
In the post Independence era and especially after the princes were de recognised by Indira Gandhi’s government, the palace fell into a state of disrepair. Princess Esra, the Turkish wife of the Nizam, began a conversation with the Taj to restore it and run it as a hotel. With each passing year the Hyderabad of the Nizam seems further and further away. When I shot here a decade ago the hotel found me a master perfumer to interview about the city’s dying fragrance tradition. An expert on pearls was on standby to offer a tutorial. And the chef cooked me an excellent Shikhar-style meal under a tent pitched on one of the hotel’s terraces. But this is a vanishing (if not already vanished) Hyderabad. In food terms alone the city’s tastes change with remarkable speed. Twenty years ago I came to shoot a program on biryani and Nizami food. I only found it at private homes. The restaurants served an all-purpose hybrid cuisine. I came back a few years later and the well known biryani places mostly served rubbish. Each allegedly famous place in the old city made its real money from bogus Chinese food and Gobhi I came back again some years later to check out restaurants for the Culinary Culture ratings and discovered that many vast new places had opened but that a) very few had any interest in Nizami food; b) they were more interested in Andhra/ Telangana food ; and c) most of them were not very good. The biryani tradition was fading away. Instead there was a strong tilt towards the food of the Middle East. As Arabian food is a second rate cuisine compared to Hyderabadi, I found this surprising. But all over the city, restaurants specialised in Mandi which is a Middle Eastern dish of meat and rice and tastes like it was made by a semi-skilled cook who lacked the talent to make biryani. Shawarma places abounded and restaurants had names like ‘Istanbul. The big boys are all here and the biggest of the big boys, Rohit Khattar, has taken Hyderabad by storm. I went to Hosa his modern South Indian restaurant twice and not only was it packed out but there was a queue outside the door.
The conversation began in the 1980s but only amounted to something approaching a deal in 1995. In 2010 the Taj finally opened it as the most exclusive palace hotel (only 60 rooms) in India after years of restoration. This time they found me a tailor who made a nawabi achkan in just 24 hours.
Because it lovingly recreates that bygone era, one reason why I love Falaknuma is.
