Breakfast gets a healthy upgrade with heritage grains and superfoods

The need to start one’s day with a healthy breakfast has been time and again insisted upon by global nutritionists. At a time when the world is moving towards using local produce, superfoods, reviving heritage grains and healthy fats like locally-made cheese, why should our breakfasts remainat packaged cereals?

The ‘Zesty Mornings’ offerings at Madras Pavilion in ITC Grand Chola in the city are reimagining breakfast, which is mindful of the carbon footprint, while being healthier for the diner. The brekkie here rethinks every aspect of the morning meal — from cheeses, cereals, milks to grains used in each dish. Instead of your regular cereal, expect homemade ones like wheat flakes, fig, jowar and almonds cereal, palm sugar corn flakes, cacao nib and buckwheat cereal and a proprietary ragi flakes. Move over, store-bought granola, as red rice and jaggery granola has taken over! For all the vegans, the choice of milk has been expanded to alternatives out of nuts, seeds, grains and soy beans. Juices here get richer with vegetable and fruit blends like green apple, celery, kale shots with basil seeds. Can’t do without dosas or idlis in the morning? Expect an addition of ragi or millets in them.

With a choice of whopping 100 dishes on the buffet, this breakfast includes lost grains like millets, amaranth, sorghum, red rice, etc., in your favourite dishes like pongal, upma or khichdi. The healthier options start right from stevia in the sugar selections to go with your morning coffee. Cheese platter is turned more sustainable, with local additions, including a brie from Tiruchy, and cheeses out of ingredients sourced from Jaipur, Puducherry and Mukteshwar. Spread on a cracker with a dollop of homemade jams, these cheeses offer a hearty start to one’s morning. Croissants and the bakes here use sprouted grain flours, packing them with nutrients.

Sous chef Sujosh Kahali says the idea of the spread is to make an impact on a busy modern-day traveller. “When we look at a business traveller of the current day, he or she has very little time. We want to make an impact with our offerings — by giving a variety of luxurious and healthy dishes to choose from. We’re not taking away a croissant, but are modifying it in a healthier way with amaranth flour,” he points out as he walks us through the elaborate spread. For instance, micro-greens are no longer limited to kitchens, as they can be used by a diner to his or her liking on the breakfast bowls.

The puffed amaranth and pumpkin seed granola, served with a cashew cream, figs and jaggery syrup demonstrates all that the upgraded offering aims at. It’s luxury in a bite with the rich cashew cream, and crunchy, with a healthy addition of jaggery and figs. The flying idlis, with a ragi option, are unmissable — the fluffy pillow-like idlis dunked in kempu chutney (red chutney out of byadgi chillies) are sure to melt in your mouth. The Manipuri black rice (chakhao poireiton) khichdi we tried was a bowl of comfort. Served with a variety of condiments like peanuts, fried onions, etc., the dish packs just the right nutrition and fibre needed tokick-start your day.