Are you one of them who has evolved from fine dining food to experience based local food? If Yes Cavatina is the place you must visit.

Why Cavatina? Well many reasons atleast for me it gave me an experience of my childhood food. Modern yet local and traditional. Every dish is rooted to history and tradition including the local drink urak! The ingredients and produce used to make the dishes are sourced locally from local fishermen and farmers. Every dish has a story.

We wanted to taste as much as we could from the menu and hence settled for chefs tasting menu.

The pav and poder both hold a very important place in the goan food scene. And I am glad I could experience poder poder ponk ponk the dish that serves pav, day before left over curry ( it’s a delicacy) and salsa to add tang to the dish.

The bisque was a delicate crab xec xec with tender crab meet to bite into. The flavour was subtle and delicate.

Local inspired spanakopita was a beautiful mix of thamdi bajji ( red amaranth) cashew butter in delicate phyllo sheet. This beautiful piece of food art was served on a old roof tile.

The rice pancake stiffed with prawn masala was a bite into burst of Goan flavour.

Betul has the best rock crabs that were used to make Kulli ( crab) cutlets with canacona chilli served on a bed of avocado chili mole. The mole has a awesome native pickle flavour.

The chicken cafreal served with quail eggs on a nest of potato crispy is a beautiful tribute to the most famous goan dish cafreal!

Hay smoked mackerel served on toasted bread and topped with salted raw mango took me back to my school days.

Patra de Goa has delicate seabass wrapped with green masala in a banana leaf the in-house mashed pumpkin cashew and red amaranth adds colour and flavour to the dish.

The Red boiled rice with the prawn gravy served with a splash of burnt feni is every goans dream come true!

Everything good has to have a sweet ending and oh my gaud! Literally this cheese cake that is made using gaud ( jaggery) had that amazing smoked flavour of jaggery and every thing nice!

The raw honey flan had the perfect sweetness, flavour and texture!

The in-house made salted caramel icecream was nothing that I have had before!

Visit Cavatina if you want to understand real Goan food and flavours made using only local produce. Dining at Cavatina means getting a true Goan experience with loads of food history and stories! Chef Avinash is holding on to his roots and giving goans and tourist who are visiting Goa a true Goan experience.

Cavatina is at Benaulim Taj Hotel Road, near Joecons Beach Resort, Benaulim, Goa 403712