Food is an important part of travel which helps me get to know the place better. Such was my experience with The Flying Elephant Chennai where I was generously invited for lunch by their team when I was on a trip to Chennai, India. The Park Hyatt is already an established name in the hospitality industry and The Flying Elephant is one of their most promising restaurants.
A fine dining restaurant in the heart of the city is the Flying Elephant Park Hyatt Chennai for you. With a vast variety of cuisines including Indian, Continental, Turkish, Italian, Asian and Thai, The Flying Elephant Chennai will leave you wanting for more.
Chef Balaji Natarajan the executive chef personally overlooks the kitchen and continuously innovates cuisines for a wide array of choices.
The Park Hyatt Chennai
The Park Hyatt Hotel is based on the theme of a rich man’s hotel. The gorgeous entrance with the amazing decor of the reception represents the drawing room. The dining room restaurant is a 24-hour restaurant literally based on the concept of a home’s dining room. Park Hyatt’s spa room is on the highest floor to represent the daughter’s free spirit. Where else would you get such creativity & ideology in the design of a hotel?
Restaurants in The Park Hyatt Chennai
There are two restaurants in The Park Hyatt Chennai – one is The Dining Room & another is The Flying Elephant.
The Dining room
As the name suggests, The Dining Room is the hotel’s dining room which is open 24X7 for guests. The breakfast buffet at The Dining Room serves a vast range of choices from Indian, Continental, Arabian, and Asian, desserts and tea, coffee along with juices. The dining room is designed to serve 127 guests at a time and 241 on a rotating basis in a buffet, awesome, right?
The Flying Elephant
The Flying Elephant is Park Hyatt Chennai’s special restaurant which opens only for dinner or evening drinks. The restaurant is spread vertically across 7 floors with each floor serving different cuisines, live grills, and an ambience to set your heart for.
Review of The Flying Elephant Chennai
Chef Balaji introduced me to a variety of cuisines and although I sat in The Dining Room, he personally made sure to serve me dishes available in both of the restaurants.
Decor
The Hyatt is a world-renowned brand and the Park Hyatt Chennai is no exception. Hyatt brand is also associated with amazing culinary delights all around the world.
The Dining Room
The Dining Room is a bright restaurant meant to cater to 127 guests at a time. The restaurant is on the ground floor just opposite the reception. The Dining Room is designed in a way to portrays the dining room of a home. The best part? The pool just next to the restaurant makes up for an astonishing view.
The dining room believes in serving fresh food and thus their buffet bowls are small in size which helps the rotation of food.
The breakfast buffet of the restaurant is famous not only to the hotel’s guests but also the locals of Chennai. The restaurant’s speciality is freshly baked croissants on an hourly basis depending upon the guests. Their popular items with the guests are their desserts including long cakes, soft-serve ice cream, marshmallows, Spanish churros & waffles. A great variety indeed, isn’t it?
The Dining Room hosts a Sunday brunch, where the pool area is also included to serve guests with special counters for kids and desserts. Every brunch is themed uniquely which is the USP of the Park Hyatt Chennai. I’d suggest trying out a relaxing lunch at The Park Hyatt for brightening out a lazy Sunday.
The Flying Elephant
The Flying Elephant Chennai is a restaurant, especially for dinner and evening drinks. The bar time is usually 1800hrs till 1900 hrs and from 2330hrs till 0200 hrs in the night. The restaurant is spread across the entire building laterally on all 7 floors. Each floor has its own decor with every special cuisine, ranging from Turkish, Indian, and Italian to Continental. You can choose to sit in any. The Flying Elephant is also known to host parties, how great is that?
Food
The chef presented me with one starter – Jakarta Laksa, Fresh Fig Salad, Beetroot Ravioli, Meen Polichadhu and a Kiwi & mint cooler.
I loved all the dishes, but some more than the others, stay tuned to which one I recommend the most –
Salads & Main Course
Vegetarian Jakarta Laksa
Vegetarian Jakarta Laksa was the first Asian dish served by the chef and as the name suggests is vegetarian by origin. The platter arrived with feta cheese, galangal, lemon grass, shallots & dressing with Kafir lime leaves along with rice noodles. The dish is served with flavoured coconut soup which enhanced the flavour of the Laska.
The laska instantly touched my taste buds and I couldn’t resist drinking all the soup on my plate. Do I recommend it? A big yes. A perfect portion of the dish, with a stunning presentation, the dish can be a perfect starter.
Ravioli Di Barbabietola
The second dish was like a sight to the sore eyes purely how it was presented. The beetroot ravioli prepared with truffle and goat cheese and parsley pesto was incredibly scrumptious. What I loved the most about it? The flavour of beetroot. You ask, why? If eaten separately, beetroot doesn’t have a very pleasing flavour. But combined with ravioli, this augmented the flavour many folds.
The ravioli melted perfectly in my mouth giving me enough time to relish the dish. I highly recommend trying out this beetroot ravioli when visiting The Flying Elephant Chennai.
Orange Fig Salad
Which meal is complete without a salad? I agree, none. Although I am not a salad person, but rather usually like Greek salad mostly. But I was fairly surprised by the Orange Fig Salad the Flying Elephant Chennai presented. The salad is framed with fresh figs, oranges, arugula, and walnuts and finally dressed in mustard lemon & honey for the perfect healthy taste.
If you love fresh salads, this orange fig salad should be your go-to pick. What I loved most about it was the flavoured walnuts perfectly embodied in the salad. They definitely magnified the flavour for me.
Meen Polichadhu
When in Chennai, never leave out the city without trying the seafood. This was a delicacy which I highly recommend to all, one should never leave this dish out from the Flying Elephant Chennai.
I have tried fish from a number of places and never really liked it from anywhere. But when Chef Balaji presented this delicious fish wrapped in a plantain leaf spiced with shallots, country tomato & coconut milk, I was intrigued.
The fish was cooked flawlessly, and the seasoning made the dish difficult to resist. The fish melted in my mouth and those irresistible flavours made me eat all on my platter. It was pure perfection.
Those who eat fish, I would advise, definitely try it out.
Desserts
Chocolate Cream
This is one of the most popular desserts of the Flying Elephant Chennai. The delicacy is not moose but rather slightly thicker than the same. The chocolate cream is served with melba toast & can be easily enjoyed with the toast with no need of a spoon. The cream is seasoned with sea salt & vanilla oil to give a unique flavour to the cream.
My Recommendations –
Vegetarian Jakarta Laksa, Orange Fig Salad in salads & Meen Polichadhu in the main course. Chocolate cream in the desserts. Although knowing that they serve fresh croissants, I am sure to try those someday too.
Cost
The Flying Elephant Chennai is reasonably priced in the slightly upper range of fine dining ones. The price range for two will cost roughly around 3500 ₹ or 50$ or may increase a bit depending on the number of people or any special dishes.
My Rating
Environment-Friendly Initiatives
I pride myself to be a responsible tourist and I always look out for places which do their part in sustaining the hospitality industry. I would like to dignify The Park Hyatt Chennai in this aspect that they are indeed making efforts to keep it environment-friendly. They use palm leaf plates as an alternative to disposable plastic plates for their live counters. Palm leaves are easily available in Chennai, & are provided by Arteka autism society and thus the initiative. An impressive & unique one for sure.
Apart from this, The Park Hyatt Chennai is also associated with the Blue Cross Society. As food wastage is a huge problem in the hotel industry, the Park Hyatt amazingly deals with the issue too. They don’t throw away the food and rather donate to the society which deals in animal welfare.
The Park Hyatt Chennai believes in the theme of Glocal – Global + Local. Whatever food they prepare, they try to acquire the ingredients organically and from around the local communities.
Would I return?
Definitely Yes! Whenever I will be in Chennai, I am going to return there for sure. This time I was there for lunch, but I’ll be sure to attend a lively dinner at the Flying Elephant Chennai.
I was deeply impressed with Park Hyatt Chennai, its delicacies, and its sustainable tourism initiatives. I can write about them all day and would love to stay with them on my upcoming travels as well.
If you like to book with them you may use head to their official site or use this link for the best deals.
Booking.com
Did I convince you to try out The Flying Elephant Chennai? Do share your thoughts with me.
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Disclaimer – The Park Hyatt Chennai generously invited me for lunch but, as always, all opinions are my own.
[…] I do get to try the lovely hotel restaurants too, like the Flying Elephant at Park Hyatt. […]
[…] for authentic dishes, it is nice to know a few restaurants beforehand which serve the authentic food. If you’re vegetarian and not travelling to/in […]
You know it is a good place when the locals go there! The food looks delicious and so beautiful presented. I would love to try the Sunday brunch
Agreed 🙂 I always look for places which is local’s favourite.
Hi Shivani, nice review of Park Hyatt and the elephant cove. The pictures are so realistic, I’d love to eat there if and when I visit Chennai. The salads look delicious, especially the fig salad 😋
Believe me, this was one the best salads I had 🙂 So glad you liked the post, hope you visit there when you visit Chennai.
I love the pictures. They definitely score high on the presentation. Would love to try this out when I am in Chennai.
I agree, plating made me more hungry 😀
Beautiful plating – looks delicious too!
Indeed 🙂 Glad you liked it.