Whether it is avarai uttakka - local beans cooked with potato, tomato, onions, garlic and tempered with mustard seeds, or sandagai - roasted tomato sauteed with small onion, garlic and coconut ground to a fine paste - the "masala made carefully after dry-roasting 17 spices and not bought off the shops" is the key, Indira says.

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An even more unusual approach is being explored by Alan Fogelman and his team, who have genetically engineered a tomato to produce a small peptide, 6F, that mimics the action of apo A-1.

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Every Tuesday to Friday from 5 to 7:30 pm, the chef prepares small plates of pickled button onions in raspberry vinegar, salted cod fritters, pizzette with anchovies and tomato and more, which are placed on the long bar for drinkers to help themselves.

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