Craving old-school pizza? Secret Sauce, a new thin-crust pizza restaurant opens in Chennai

If you’ve eaten a thin-crust pizza successful Chennai immoderate clip successful the past decade, chances are that you person heard of Ox and Tomato and wondered what happened to it.

The reply is not a comeback. It is Secret Sauce, a caller task from Sandesh Reddy, soft-launching this play earlier opening afloat connected Monday successful Alwarpet, successful the abstraction that utilized to location Finale Dessert Bar.

Mansi, who ran Ox and Tomato for years and is Sandesh’s spouse some successful concern and marriage, did see reviving that nostalgia for years. “Ox and Tomato saw radical who’d locomotion successful mundane to divided a repast oregon conscionable drawback and go. People successful the neighbourhood had their ain favourite items connected the menu. I made galore friends done the project,” she says.

The two, who person worked unneurotic connected a paper for the archetypal time, accidental that it became wide that recreating thing from a antithetic era, successful a marketplace with truthful overmuch prime now, was not the champion approach. “Trying to recreate an Ox and Tomato successful today’s market, erstwhile there’s truthful overmuch enactment and choices, I didn’t deliberation it was the smartest decision, product-wise. The 2 of america person travel unneurotic to enactment connected a paper for the archetypal time. She is the numbers idiosyncratic and asks wherefore the costs are arsenic high,” Sandesh says, laughing. Today, they are looking to constituent the nostalgia successful a antithetic direction.

At Secret Sauce, the paper is built connected question memories and idiosyncratic cravings, translated onto a 12-inch pizza, Sandesh says. “The pizzas recreate antithetic memories of our travels, positive what we similar eating,” helium adds.

The Siesta with a spicy Goan chorizo pork sausage, pineapple, jalapeno connected a curry base, for instance, comes from times that Sandy has spent trying shack-style meals by the Arabian Sea. He says that it has the nonstop lazy, sun-soaked quality. On the menu, this is simply a wide winner. The pepperoni and the chilli-cheese-toast-inspired pizza (reportedly the lone crockery Sandesh and Mansi hold on) are arsenic coagulated — nary surprises, conscionable bully pizza done right. “A batch much pepperoni,” helium tells Chef Perumal who has been moving with him for 15 years. We hand-pick the meaty reddish desks arsenic we go, ensuring that nary of the delicious smokiness goes to waste.

Not each experimentation lands the aforesaid for each palate. The Thai-inspired pizza with prawns, built astir a greenish curry base, came done with a reasonably generous manus of basil and lemongrass, making for a much herb-forward wound than expected. The Tangra Classic, an ode to Kolkata’s Indo-Chinese carts, had its chickenhearted mentation leaning a interaction sweeter than the chilli-forward sanction suggests. This is each inactive work-in-progress though. Sandy suggests tweaks arsenic we eat. The attempt, helium says, is to get it arsenic close arsenic helium can.

What ties the pizzas unneurotic is the crust — thin, crisp, and noticeably lighter than what Chennai is utilized to today. “The thought is that you could devour a afloat 12-inch pizza by yourself and not consciousness highly stuffed,” Sandesh explains. The dough is cold-fermented for 48 hours but kept debased connected yeast, past spends astir six minutes successful a customized Australian oven with ceramic heaters astatine 400-450°C, giving it a dry, brittle bite. A Neapolitan-style crust, helium says, would drown retired flavours similar the Thai curry oregon chilli cheese. “Here, the crust doesn’t dominate, truthful a coconut-based condiment tin really radiance through,” Sandesh says.

Chef Perumal, who is hard astatine enactment successful the kitchen, says that experimenting crossed cuisines is simply however helium likes to cook. “The ideas travel from Sandy but I adhd things present and there,” helium says.

The terms scope for these pizzas sits betwixt ₹450 and ₹650, and Sandesh is upfront that this is meant to beryllium an mundane spot, not an occasion-only indulgence.

There’s besides a amusive broadside story. Secret Sauce has teamed up with Maadi Mart, an absorbing Chennai-based marque that makes its ain scope of condiments and a phenomenal curry leafage zaatar murphy chip, connected a trio of location blistery sauces: 1 Indian-leaning, 1 citrusy, and 1 with greenish apple, beetroot leaves and slug chilli for a floral benignant of heat. Worth asking for connected your pizza, if you inquire me.

At Secret Sauce, the Siesta (and 1 that follows after), unsocial is worthy a trip.

Secret Sauce is astatine 10, CV Raman Road, Natesan Colony, Alwarpet. A repast for 2 costs astir ₹800.