Global flavours, local tables

Dulce de Mirchi (@dulcedemirchi)

For Priyal Mehta, the founder of plant-based supper club Dulce de Mirchi, food has always been important to her. Growing up in a Jain Gujarati household in Asian countries including Thailand, she was surrounded by flavourful vegetarian dishes created by her mother. This, paired with her experiences in New York, shaped her dreams to cook vegan food and share it with people.

“When I started my pop-ups, I didn’t even know it was called a supper club,” she says. “It was going to be my platform to show my creativity. My idea was literally to break the misconception people have that vegan and vegetarian food is boring, because for me, it’s the total opposite and there is so much you can do with vegetables.”

Now, after four years, Dulce de Mirchi is going strong with Priyal’s menus inspired by her travels, heritage and, of course, produce. Her recent Thai-inspired supper club was a look at how a cuisine that is primarily considered to be meat- and seafood-heavy can still shine through plant ingredients. Priyal says, “There is so much in Thai food that you can do vegetarian, so this menu really celebrates beautiful Thai produce and what you can do with that.” From a guacamole starter with Thai spices and lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, to a sweetcorn red curry fritter bao (with the bao made without milk), and a pandan waffle with caramelised palm sugar miso gelato… there’s plenty to explore on her table. “My intention when I’m making something is to never make it taste like meat. It’s more about celebrating the beauty of the ingredient itself,” she explains.

The magic of attending her dinners extends beyond the plates. With like-minded diners united by their love for food as well as an openness to new experiences coming together at her table, guests have often formed connections – Priyal adds that some groups even created WhatsApp groups to stay in touch long after the meal is over. Priyal is now exploring new horizons. One of her dreams is to publish a series of cookbooks to document her collection of recipes, and has also recently enjoyed teaching children’s cooking workshops. While a restaurant might be on the cards one day, she is still fully committed to her supper clubs. “The supper clubs are the closest to my heart and I hope I can always continue to do them. It’s the perfect playground to experiment with new ingredients and different dishes,” she says.

SEBZE by Su (@sebzebysu)

You wouldn’t necessarily realise it, but Surabhi Sehgal only launched her supper club, SEBZE (meaning ‘vegetables’), in November 2024. Through her food, guests are treated to a celebration of produce and, quite frankly, culinary artistry, while her husband Girish is the perfect host, creating an intimate yet vibrant space for diners to start chatting with each other as if they’ve known each other for years, rather than minutes.

“I just love vegetables,” says Surabhi. “I grew up in Dehradun, India, where we had a vegetable patch at home,” Surabhi recalls. “Everyone loved vegetables; that’s how I grew up. I find it alarming when people don’t like vegetables, I don’t understand it.” Surabhi’s passion for food has always been deeply personal. “My mom’s an artist, my dad’s a poet, so food has always been my way of showcasing my art,” she explains. “I’m a mum and I have two boys; all through their life I’ve tried to hide veggies [in their food]. Now my son is in college and he has more spices than me in his spice drawer!”

This connection to food runs through SEBZE’s every detail. From the pomegranate and tamarind martini served on arrival to the pumpkin roti, which she credits to her grandmother, the menu tells a story. One standout dish, sweetcorn shorba, is a direct tribute to her grandmother, who used to roast corn and turn it into a warming soup. “This dish is like a hug from my grandmother,” she says, when serving the soup. Playful touches are found throughout the menu, such as the palate cleanser of shikanji popsicles – green apple, mint, pomegranate and rock salt.

Part of the supper club’s ethos is focused on showcasing how satiating plant-forward food can be: guests are often surprised by how full they feel after a meal at chef Su’s – as she’s also known at home. Surabhi recounts when two guests who, expecting nothing but light dishes and raw vegetables, planned to dine elsewhere afterward. “They said they didn’t miss eating meat at all,” she recalls.

As SEBZE grows, so has Surabhi’s creativity. The debut menu, RASA, featured eight courses which focused on Indian flavours front and centre, while her second menu, TAAZI (meaning ‘fresh’), pares it down to five courses with a focus on seasonal Mediterranean flavours. “I’m excited to showcase new menus, and it’s pushing me [as a chef] as well,” she says. “I keep creating new recipes, which I had never thought I would, but with supper clubs you need to create something original that’s not out there already.” Owning her own restaurant is a long-term dream for Surabhi, and given how she’s started, it’s clear the best is yet to come.

Prunch (@prunchme)

Priyansh Parekh went from posting about what he was eating during the pandemic, he says with a touch of humour, to hosting theatrical and immersive supper clubs in Dubai – and across the world. “Where I’m at now is marrying the Indian identity that I have and being born in the UAE, with all the cultures that I’ve grown up around and lived in. It’s about going on that journey of self-discovery through food,” Priyansh says.

At the core of Priyansh’s work is the joy of experimentation and the fear of ennui. “I’ve never repeated a menu, which is perhaps not a great business move,” he admits. “I want to enjoy the creativity of food and keep changing it up. Otherwise I feel like it would be the monotony of working in the restaurant, and I didn’t want that feeling of making the same thing again and again and getting comfortable. I want to be freaking out in the kitchen.”

At a supper club hosted in collaboration with new project Saffron Society, his dishes blend both nostalgia and reinvention. His soup course, for example, is meant to evoke the flavours of soups found on Indian railway routes while creating spicy, tangy notes that are reminiscent of the South Indian rasam.

Beyond the plates, Priyansh says that his supper club is about community. “When I came back [to Dubai from architecture school in Australia], I needed to find my people,” he says. And find them he did – through pop-ups at cafés, intimate dinners and larger events (like his first ever ‘Prunchmas’ at KAVE in Alserkal Avenue in December 2024).

His goal is also to generate playful moments that become conversation-starters. In one dinner inspired by the seven deadly sins, the “envy” course served identical-looking green sauces, while Priyansh hinted to the guests that they taste different. “That was the whole point. You didn’t know if the other person’s tasted better – so we made you envious. When I came back everyone had tried each other’s sauce. That was fun because you’re a bunch of strangers and are now eating from each other’s plates!”

For now, Priyansh is focused on enjoying each event as it comes. “When I started, I was too focused on the future, but I wasn’t in the moment for a lot of my earlier supper clubs. So now I’m trying to do that and make the most of it.”