This new restaurant in Goa's Anjuna serves Indian favourites and global innovations

Jolene by the Sea, a charming 140-seater restaurant at Anjuna Beach, Goa, offers picturesque indoor and outdoor dining. While it doesn’t confine itself to a single cuisine, it masterfully curates flavours and combinations, creating a harmonious culinary experience

Meet Jolene. You'll recognise her by the Dolly Parton country song, or that woman who has an advanced palate of a well-travelled global citizen. She's been brought to life on a cliff, overlooking an uninterrupted view of Anjuna Beach, by Shakeel Ladak, Amrita Arora Ladak, F&B veteran Gaurav Batra, Ankit Tayal of True Palate Hospitality and Chef Suvir Saran.

The first impression of the 140-seater space is its flirtatious breezy openness. We walk into the alfresco, where bohemian canopy umbrellas over relaxed seatings are blowing in the wind. The space, done up in shades of beige, replicates the sand, creating that perfect frame to savour the sunset. The indoor is nestled in a glass house: green planters, soft beige and inviting woodwork create a minimalist yet bold décor outline.

When in Goa, you begin with cocktails. Over the cocktail, not a picante (R650), which has the tartness of grapefruit and sweetness of guava playing truant to dry gin and tequila, Arora Ladak tells us the inception story, "Jolene is a pandemic baby. We had earlier been scouting places in Mumbai, but Jolene was meant to be born in Goa."

From being a VJ on MTV at 15 and an actress, she compares the transition to a restaurateur. "When you are doing films, the reaction of your audience matters. It is the same here! Every day is a box office release," she says, confessing her upbringing has been in a family that always talks about food. "We always discuss what we have eaten and what recipe we can use. It's our love language," says Arora Ladak, whose roots are South Indian and Punjabi.

Amrita Arora Ladak

"While Malla [Malaika Arora] was obsessed with the South Indian side of our home food, I was obsessed with North Indian delicacies. If she wanted sambar rice, I wanted kali dal. My mother mastered both cuisines," she says.

As palates expanded with travel, they came home with stories of having savoured Ethiopian food and German stews. "But we'd come home for her dal, chawal, papad and achaar," she smiles, adding, "Jolene is for the very same traveller - a wanderlust kind of person who savours a bit of everything."

Misal Ramen

Between buttery bites of Jolene's versions of garlic bread - flatbreads stuffed with caramelised onions and feta, and a more-favoured meaty decadence of chorizo we turn to again and again, Chef Saran tells us his thoughts behind designing the menu. He says it is a space for hungry people coming to Goa to watch a sunset and spend the best minutes of their lives.

"The food is modern, global and comforting. We've taken food from the world map and do all the shringaar that Indians love," says Saran, who has 33 years of experience running restaurants in New York, including Devi, the first South Asian restaurant to win a Michelin star in 2004. He had returned to India six years ago with the idea of retiring. "But life had other plans. India is where New York was in the 1990s - in flux. It's churning, growing up, and coming of age. We are now looking at India 2.0," he adds.

Kochi Lobster Cornettos

Executing his philosophy in the kitchen is his sous chef, Ashish Sharma, who pours his Mexican and Punjabi roots into the menu - there is texture, colours and an innate sense of amalgamating flavours. "Two nations that have so much rich history and cultural depth from Harappa to Mayan, we're as old as each other. And yet we also became poor, but never for good food. Our food is for the hungry visitor who has travelled the world - global citizens who want to eat off the world while mirroring the seasons in India when they come back home," Saran adds.­

The Kochi lobster cornetto (Rs 700) sums up this philosophy. "We've made a Kerala lobster curry, chilled it down and filled it into a lobster roll-inspired Mexican cornetto. This is a dish you want to eat by the beach side," Saran explains animatedly. Another is forbidden yet yours (R650), a good old Chinese fried rice made with Manipuri black rice, a crop the Chinese royals denied the commoners to eat.

French Onion soup

Sharma urges us to try tuna tartare on a crisp purple corn tortilla. "Purple corn is made using the nixtamalise process, where maize kernels are dried, cooked, and put in an alkaline solution. The Aztecs invented it," he explains, as we take a big bite of the seafood mingled with guacamole and peanuts. It is topped with dynamite sauce that mimics the one served on chicken wings at his favourite American bar.

Sharma has grown up eating Mexican food made with Indian ingredients. "Both cuisines are similar," Sharma says, adding makki ki roti, chawal, and rajma versus corn tortilla, rice, and beans. It's practically the same food with different flavours," Sharma tells us.

Suvir Saran

By now, we've tried the whisky sour (Rs 650), which is too sweet. On the other hand, the King's Sandwich (Rs 650) is a cocktail experience with a bite of peanut butter and bacon between a crisp banana bread. The drink, held in a champagne coupe, has white rum, lemon, banana sugar and peanut butter without making it overtly sweet. The French onion soup (R600) is a salty Manhattan with caramelised onions, fresh herbs and salted butter garnished with aged pickled shallots.

From small plates, T&C, which stands for heirloom cherry tomatoes, burrata and cornflakes play global chakra. Cured in tajin, it is garnished with pomegranates. The vegetarian version of the fermented rice burrito takes uttapam as a base, topped with mustard and sambar potatoes with mustard and coconut chutney. In the same breath, ramen misal (R700) takes a Maharashtrian sojourn with a red chatakedar sauce broth with thecha, barbecued tofu and veggies. All this is finished with a cornflake chivda.

Desserts are the final memory a patron leaves with. The great wall of Anjuna (R600) is a solid takeaway. The 11-layered chocolate cake interspersed with rich ganache has a flaky shortbread finish with a thick molten pour. Next time, this will be our first order. The indulgent guilt-free celebration (R600) is a panna cotta made from coconut milk, garnished with shavings of chocolate, coconut macaroons and fruit compote. It reminds us of elaneer payasam, the pudgy coconut cloud pudding of Kerala.

Jolene may not stick to cuisine, but it adheres to the aesthetics of flavour and combinations. It marries techniques to ensure the final experience is not marred by confusion and turns out to be pretty cool to hang out with.