How chefs are exploring new ways to serve duck

Summary

Duck has made its way out of five-star hotels and into café, bar and upscale restaurant menus as adventurous diners try the bird meat in the form of salads, 'kebabs', 'biryanis', cocktails and even desserts

One of the courses at Yyaki, a live-counter dining concept within Delhi's Japonico restaurant, features a duck salad tossed with fresh greens and fermented Chinese cabbage, finished with a Cantonese-style dressing. It pairs with a cocktail made with duck fat-infused whiskey.

The dish is part of a nine-course meal, featuring everything from tarts, soups and salads to nigiri, rolls and even a duck ice cream. "Duck is no longer the filler in the menu. It is the menu," says restaurateur and Yyaki's founder Sahil Sambhi. The idea for a "duck bar" came about when he noticed a growing demand for some of the duck dishes from the Japonico menu, including a version of Peking duck that head chef Roberto Blondi prepares tableside.

While Yyaki, which opened earlier in July, heroes the bird meat, fine dining chefs and mixologists across restaurants, bars, and even cafés are finding new ways to bring it to their menus. Once largely associated with five-star hotel dining, it is now accessible to a wider pool of diners. Lower import duties have made it more affordable, while a growing appetite for newer varieties of meat is prompting chefs to experiment with it.

Chef Tarannum Sehgal of Delhi's latest cocktail bar Top Banana attributes it to affordability at newer restaurants. She serves a duck liver pâté éclair with plum pickle as well as duck skewers. Her inspiration comes from her time in France as a culinary student and later as an intern working at Michelin-starred restaurants, where she got introduced to rillettes, duck breast and eggs, and cocktails made with duck fat.

At Kaspers in Mumbai, chef Will Aghajanian believes it will take a while for diners in India to fully embrace duck. "They still play around more with chicken, and are reluctant to try out newer meats," he says. The European-style bistro plates up some "adventurous" dishes -- duck tongue, which is braised, blanched, and crisped with porcini mushroom fried in duck fat, and served with a fried duck egg on top. He also makes duck confit morcilla (a version of Latin American blood sausage) with apple strudel, and duck liver mousse and pasta. Aghajanian says he enjoys working with duck meat because of how the entire bird can be used rather than just selective cuts.

According to a report in Business Standard, customs duty on imports of duck meat for supply to hotels (three-star and above) and luxury restaurants fell from 30 percent to five percent in 2024. This, according to people in the business, could benefit stakeholders, allowing them to pass savings on to customers.

Rohan Timblo, who runs a duck farm in south Goa, sees this as an opportunity for boutique farms that emphasize the produce. "Indian ducks were considered average, a reason why duck meat varieties from Thailand and the US were preferred. Our farm aims to change that," says Timblo, who started his farm when he saw an opportunity in rearing ducks on a controlled diet after a lacklustre duck meal at a restaurant in Mumbai. Currently, he supplies the meat to restaurants such as Papa's, Bombay Canteen, Kaspers, Americano, Otra and La Loca Maria in Mumbai. He is planning to venture into other cities soon. Though it costs 30-40 percent more than its imported cousin (which costs upwards of ₹600+ per kg), he has seen a rising demand over the last two years. He sells 200-plus ducks monthly now, up from around 100 last year, with the sales going up substantially during the festive season.

For chefs, who enjoy experimenting, duck meat, particularly in the absence of beef, becomes a rich, flavourful option to work with. According to chef Porfirio Arturo Castro Salazar at Heliconia JW Marriott Goa, which specializes in Peruvian-Japanese cuisine, diners tend to be adventurous on holiday, and want to try meats they wouldn't really cook at home. When he came to India three years ago, "very few guests asked for duck dishes". In fact, one of the first dishes, a miso-glazed duck breast with Peruvian rice, explains Salazar, "was rotated off the menu as our offerings evolved". Now the restaurant features it in gyozas and seasonal menus "allowing us more room to experiment with flavours and techniques."

Many of them are also circling back to regional delicacies and bringing them to life in contemporary ways. Take chef Hussain Shahzad of Hunger Inc. Restaurants, whose menus feature duck momos inspired by Assamese cuisine and duck xacuti from Goa. There's also 'What the Duck' at Papa's, a dish that he describes as "hybrid biryani-paella" that comes from his personal memory of taking the khurchan, or the slightly burnt, crispy layer at the bottom of the biryani his mother cooked.

Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal, cookbook author and editor of Godrej Food Trends Report, says, "It's the beginning of the curve, sure, but time will tell how much it resonates with more number of diners, because it is more common in fine dining, where chefs have to put an alternate poultry."

Chef Shantanu Mehrotra of Indian Accent has been using the bird meat (from Thailand) for over a decade, including duck shammi kebabs. While the restaurant's Smoked Duck Biryani, made with Japanese koshihikari rice and served with burani raita, was part of the chef's tasting menu until recently, it now makes way for a Chettinad-style duck along with duck kulcha. "Back then I could see we needed variety. When I think of poultry, it's incomplete without duck. Even today, I can't imagine our menus without it," he says.

With pricing remaining accessible, Indian diners are happily biting into the trend.

Abhilasha Ojha is a Delhi-based independent writer.