Wire Room Restobar - Phoenix Marketcity, Chennai

Wire room is one of the newest restobars that have been sprung up in Chennai city very recently. The place is part of Design Hotels by Justa and is a sight to behold on the inside! We were here on an invite to try the food and cocktails.

The Design hotels as the name suggest gives prime importance to the design and significance of the property. The hotel's hallways are an amazing sight to witness based around themes like 'Maya' or Illusion and made by renowned artists.

The new restobar Wire room is no different and has been designed by architect Pronit Nath with kilometers of taut wires running the length of the ceiling creating the illusion of the pattern known as "Madras Checks." There are weights hanging at the end of a set of wires to keep them tight!

Wireroom has a lot of elements that remind the visitor of Chennai and Tamilnadu's culture , right from the architecture which is based around the Madurai Meenakshi Temple's perfectly symmetrical corridors lined with carved pillars! You can see the same effect with wires and mirrors right behind the loaded bar shelf! The lighting is dim but not depressingly so, the interiors are tinged with red and lit up in places for a pleasing effect and the sound system is pretty solid! The sound had some thump without distortion and for the first time we could hear each other speak clearly even though the music was loud!

Karthik (L) and Chef Raheman 

We met Mr. Karthik Palaniappan the F&B manager at Wireroom. Karthik has extensive experience with mixology which is the field of creating a great cocktail with perfect ingredients. In fact, he has won pan-India contests for the best cocktail. He told us about his belief in making a cocktail with the best possible ingredients. He personally makes the syrups used in the cocktails and Wireroom does not Monin syrups which he said give an overload of sweetness!

The Chef Was Raheman Mir Hafizur who was quite particular with the ingredients he used and the kind of items brought on to the menu.

Summary of the food

Wire room has a lot of interesting dishes backed with some good experience from the chef and focus on quality. They've decided to focus on world famous dishes like Tacos, kebabs, Pita pockets and even Japanese food and give it their own twist reminding us of the quintessential Madras. Read on below to know why Wire room wins Chennai's heart.

Summary of the Cocktails

They are serious about the classic cocktails which are made with a lot of care and original ingredients owing to Karthik's guidance. They've managed to incorporate many flavors from Madras creatively and make some truly unique cocktails for Chennai! The best one was undoubtedly the Magizchi which is a tribute to Tamilnadu's most famous actor in recent times. Read on to know more about all these.

On to the Food!

We were served tasting portions of quite a few dishes from the menu. Here's a short write-up about what I felt about the dishes and why it was loved or not!

Quinoa Salad

This was superbly fresh and moist which added to the eatability. I've never eaten much vegetarian food in a bar! Much less quinoa but I was taking plenty of spoonfuls of this topped with the Avocado and lots of greens. First time I am recommending a vegetarian bar-eat!

Gelouti shots

These melt-in-the-gelouti shots were made from very finely minced mutton spiced with their in-house masala. They were quite spicy for me but with the dip it was just right.

Pita Pockets

With soft pita bread pockets which are made fresh everyday in-house, the pockets surround a lovely mutton kebab and plenty of thinly chopped veggies which rounded out the flavors and gave the pita lots of crunch and texture.

Tikka Taster plate

We were served with a platter of 5 kinds of tikka! There was the Hariyali kebab, the malai tikka and more. All the tikka pieces were really fresh and tender as it should be.

Momos!

Surprisingly we were also served vegetarian momos with a translucent skin placed on a layer of

The salsa served alongside was fresh and just made. There was also soya sauce on the side to dip into. I preferred the salsa with a bit of the soya drizzled.

Soft shell Tacos

Now this was quite a delicious taco because of the soft, freshly made taco shell that made a lot of difference. The fresh cut veggies and meat inside made it quite yummy to bite into as a healthy side-eat.

Sushi!

There was even sushi brought to the table and I had a nice time savoring the nicely made maki rolls. This is one of the few bars in a non five star restaurant that serves Sushi and it showcases the Chef's expertise.

Harissa Prawns

This was nicely made with a tongue tingling harissa based marinade enveloping the large prawns. It was tasty enough for me to suck out the masala from the prawn head something that I usually dont attempt!

Cocktails and a Surprise!

Magizchi

This was the star of the show with a megastar's face carved into its foam! None other than Superstar Rajnikanth! It's a nice mix of Gin with ginger, Karupatti (palm jaggery) and egg white forming the creamy head of this drink! This was the first time I've had egg white on my drink but it had zero flavor from egg while adding to the creaminess nicely. The combination of Karupatti and gin with the classic ginger combo made this a very tasty cocktail indeed!

About the Classic Cocktails

Now, Wireroom seems to be quite serious about not messing with the classic cocktails and making them as true to the spirit as possible. And they have taken some additional steps to make their cocktails stand out in flavor. The syrups used to create them aren't synthetic but made in house to get the best flavor possible. And it did show in the final flavor which was more mellow and much less synthetic n outright syrupy. Justifies the higher pricing for sure to an extent.

That Madras Touch! Touch pannitanga da! (Touched the heart! :D)

Until now we had a great time with the drinks and food but the best part is yet to come. This was the sight of some native, local "side-dish" items or thottuka as we call it!

There was maanga (unripened mango) well marinated with spices, a piece of fried n salted chili and of course, the much loved Thaaen muttai and dried sweet ginger! It was awesome to have a bite of these

Dessert

Chocolate Chilli Baked Yoghurt, Tiramisu and Chocolate brownie

Well this was nicely done with chilli flakes in the white chocolate disc that topped the baked yoghurt. There was a bit of mango jelly which made for a great pairing with the thick textured yoghurt. I could get the milky profile of the dessert and there was also jamuns to satisfy the sugar cravers.











Chocolate brownie: This was a meaty brownie with a thick buttery center as can be seen and it was really good! Not the usual dry n crunchy sort of brownie. The ice cream helped make things even better but I loved having the brownie just by itself.

The Tiramisu was fresh and well done too dusted with cocoa powder. Definitely an apt dessert to have at a bar since its supposed to contain alcohol too.

Mall Entrance to Wire room.