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Winter at QLA: When Technique Meets Season There's something quietly satisfying about a restaurant that understands the rhythm of seasons. Not the manufactured urgency of "limited time only" menus, but a genuine respect for what the earth offers at any given moment. QLA in Delhi has always been that rare establishment that lets ingredients speak before ego does, and their new winter menu is perhaps the clearest articulation of this philosophy I've encountered in recent memory. I went in expecting refinement—QLA has never been short on that—but what I found was something more compelling: a kitchen confident enough to let simplicity do the heavy lifting. The Philosophy Behind the Plate Before I get to the food, it's worth understanding the mind behind it. Chef Dipender Tiwari, Director of Culinary & Dining at QLA, represents a breed of chef that's increasingly rare in our age of Instagram theatrics. Trained under French chef Jean Claude Fugier and having worked with German chef Lars Windfuhr, his classical European foundation is impeccable. His stint at "Jacques"—the fine-dining concept by the legendary Jacques Pépin—only deepened this technical prowess. But here's what makes Dipender interesting: he's taken all that European discipline and applied it to ingredients that most fine-dining kitchens wouldn't look at twice. Fiddlehead ferns. Celeriac. Moringa. Parsnip. There's a quiet rebellion in this approach, inspired, he says, by Massimo Bottura's philosophy of purpose-driven cooking. It's the kind of cooking that doesn't announce itself loudly but reveals its depth slowly, deliberately. The Winter Story This winter menu isn't trying to be clever. It's trying to be honest. The premise is deceptively simple: take ingredients at their seasonal peak, apply world-class European technique, and let global influences drift in where they make sense. No forced fusion, no gimmicks—just thoughtful cooking that respects both tradition and evolution. The result is a menu that feels rooted and exploratory. You taste winter in every bite—those deep, earthy flavors that ground you, punctuated by bright notes that remind you that cold weather doesn't mean monotony.

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This post was published on 18th December, 2025 by Rahul on his Instagram handle "@rahulprabhakar (Rahul Prabhakar)". Rahul has total 64.6K followers on Instagram and has a total of 2.4K post. Rahul receives an average engagement rate of % per post on Instagram. This post has received 80 comments which are greater than the average comments that Rahul gets. Overall the engagement rate for this post was than the average for the profile.