What’s on the menu at Aamara, Corso Italia’s luxurious new Indian restaurant
Including an interesting Indian twist on a charcuterie board
More New Restaurants
Name: Aamara
Contact: 1224 St. Clair Ave. W., aamara.ca, @aamaratoronto
Neighbourhood: Corso Italia
Owners: Kugendran Perampalam (ThaiRoomGrand, Savor) and Phanom (Patrick) Suksaen (Eat BKK, Koh Lipe, Som Tum Jinda)
Chef: Arulmani Rajarathinam
Accessibility: Not fully accessible
With Aamara, owner Kugendran Perampalam wants to introduce Toronto to a side of Indian cuisine he feels is underrepresented in the city. “I see a lot of North Indian food in the market, but not many people are doing South Indian,” he says.
Perampalam owns several Thai restaurants, including Savor, which is located right next door to Aamara. “I wanted to do something different,” he says. “I’m from Sri Lanka, which has a lot of similarities with South Indian cuisine.”
Related: Bungalow 22, a monthly supper club featuring a rotating menu of regional Indian cuisine
But rather than keeping a focus solely on South Indian cuisine, Aamara’s menu spotlights signature dishes from all corners of the country. “We’ve picked the best dishes from every region and put those on the menu,” says Perampalam.
The menu is currently available à la carte, but a multi-course tasting menu is also in the works. “At the end of the day, my focus is on the food,” says Perampalam. “The food has to be right. If the food is tasty, then customers will come back.”
The food
Chef Rajarathinam’s menu touches on classic dishes from virtually every Indian state. “I’ve been in the industry almost 17 years, and I’ve travelled a lot in India,” he says. “I’ve worked in most of the states and learned which dishes are famous and which ingredients are needed to make them.”
Related: What’s on the menu at Bar Goa, Hemant Bhagwani’s new tasting-menu restaurant
It’s no small feat for one restaurant to represent the wide-ranging cooking styles and flavours found across India, but Rajarathinam approached the task with meticulous planning and research. To distill India’s vast culinary repertoire, he chose dishes that bring maximum variety to the menu. “I didn’t want to use the same ingredients again and again,” he says.
The drinks
Mirroring the continent-spanning food menu, Aamara’s signature cocktails are each inspired by, and named after, a different part of India. Draught beer is courtesy of Scarborough-based Cheetah, which specializes in brews that pair well with the flavours of Indian food. And a tight wine list includes some crowd-pleasing Chardonnays and Cab Sauvs.
The space
Perampalam worked with design studio Revel House to create a warm and ornate space decorated with lighting fixtures and art pieces imported from India. He chose rich teal and eggplant tones to create a setting that would feel elegant enough for date nights and special occasions, and one wall is printed with patterns reminiscent of mehndi.
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Jessica Huras is a freelance writer and editor with over a decade of experience creating food, travel and lifestyle content. She’s a content editor for the LCBO’s Food & Drink magazine, and her work has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, Chatelaine, Toronto Life and Elle Canada, among other publications.
