Last week we were booked to go to Bangkok to attend the World Gourmet Festival, an annual event organised by the Anantara ...

I was invited last week by Puneet Chhatwal, CEO of Indian Hotels (the Taj Group) to Udaipur where around 25 members of the Taj’s senior management were holding a strategy meeting. One evening, after ...

Bukhara, which will begin celebrating its 45th anniversary this weekend, is now the most famous Indian restaurant in the world. Nearly every US President since Bill Clinton has eaten Bukhara’s food.

It’s both puzzling and a little gratifying. Whenever you mention dosas to knowledgeable foodies, they look at you a little superiorly and ask, “But do you like benne dosa?” A new restaurant serving ...

Have you been following the troubles of the Indian rupee which has crashed to historic lows over the last few days? Those of you with long memories will remember that the last time this happened, ...

How will future generations remember our Prime Ministers? This is not a question about serious historical analysis but one about the rewriting and framing of history. It is no secret that for the last ...

There are, wrote F Scott Fitzgerald, no second acts in American lives. I was reminded of this and about how it clearly did not apply to Indian lives when I had lunch last week with Ranjit Mathrani at ...

Most Indian gastronomic classics —that is to say, dishes that you find on lots of menus — have been around for decades if not centuries. North Indian biryani dates back to the Mughals. What we now ...

A lot of nonsense is spoken about food in India. But in no area are the myths and misconceptions as prevalent as they are in the case of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food habits. People still like to ...

I want to discuss the international furore caused by the demand made by the largely Gujarati Swaminarayan sect to evict all women from the Eiffel Tower. But first, we need to talk about today’s ...

The first time I had an authentic Peking Duck in India was at the Great Wall restaurant at the Leela Palace in Mumbai twenty years ago. I was having lunch with Captain CP Krishnan Nair, the Leela ...

Do you find that food tastes different first thing in the morning? Is that first cup of coffee much more bitter? More intense, at least? If you bite into a chilli —from a masala omelette perhaps —does ...