Why restaurants are making microdramas to spotlight the people behind their food
Restaurants and cafes like Mumbai's Mokai and Bengaluru's Nandhini Deluxe make reels and microdramas that have creating a fan following for their chefs, staff and kitchen crew
Where do you get your information about the hottest new openings in town? For most of us chronically online folks, it’s probably Instagram. Increasingly and disturbingly, the social media platform is becoming the default source for all kinds of news, be it Mamdani or matcha. In a departure from the storytelling of earlier, which was largely restricted to how a dish gets made, restaurants are going the extra mile when it comes to content, creating everything from behind-the-scenes episodes of setting up an eatery to fictitious microdramas based on the hit series The Office.
Mokai, an Asian-inspired cafe tucked into the busy bylanes of Mumbai’s Bandra is extending its reach beyond the suburb with its microdrama series, #TheOfficeWithTeamMokai, where coffee is served with a side of drama. The main protagonist of the Instagram show is Suraksha Suvarna, the head barista at the café, playing a sassy drama queen who terrorises customers and staff members with her office politics and cheeky comebacks. What started as a fun way to engage with Mokai’s digital audience has extended into multiple seasons with cameos by other food creators such as Natasha Gandhi and Indu Icecream’s Saloni Kukreja. Through the course of the series, viewers are introduced to new additions to the menu, limited-offer specials and other updates, making it a clever way to disseminate information. The comments and engagement on each post are testament to the series’ success.
In Bengaluru, the Andhra restaurant chain Nandhini Deluxe creates meme content with its staff in trending formats and audio to showcase its “pookie chef". Smart-mouthed servers teach customers the right way to eat biryani and spotlight best-selling dishes like Carrot 65.
What’s common between both Mokai and Nandhini’s content is that they put staff members front and centre, building fan bases for specific “characters". In an earlier conversation with Mokai’s founder Karreena Bulchandani, she revealed how customers come into the cafe to seek out Suraksha and take selfies with her. “She has a fan following of her own, it’s very endearing to see how a small experiment on social media has taken its own shape and form."
Benne is another Mumbai-based brand that has taken to social media to tell their story, albeit with a different approach. Being self-confessed “outsiders" in the industry, Bengaluru natives and founders Shriya Narayan and Akhil Iyer found themselves gobsmacked by the inner workings of the restaurant world and began to share their journey of launching their dosa-championing chain on social media. This build-in-public model pulled the curtain back on the challenges food entrepreneurs face on a daily basis. From early morning batter runs to water leakages and that first order slip at a new branch, Benne’s followers have been privy to Shriya and Akhil’s journey every step of the way, and the results have been fascinating.
Comments of comfort, not judgment, flood a post about how Benne’s Juhu branch lost power during the monsoon. On another post about the road being dug up right outside the cafe, heart emojis and messages of support appear. The idea to build in public came from co-founder Shriya, a psychologist, who felt that an honest approach to social media would help the cafe connect with its digital audience.
But it isn’t always rainbows and butterflies on social media. Kavan Kutappa, the founder of Bengaluru’s Naru Noodle Bar says he has a more restrained approach to Instagram, because of the snarky comments the handle was getting on every post.
It has been famously tough to get a reservation at Naru since it opened in 2022 as an eight-seater ramen bar. To get a spot, diners have to log on to Naru’s website every other Monday at 8pm. Despite the restaurant expanding, spots are still hard to reserve. Tales of Bangaloreans’ efforts to book a spot have included everything from writing code and scripts to hateful comments on Instagram.
These social media experiments demonstrate the tricky quality of parasocial relationships built over digital platforms, where followers feel everything from ownership to entitlement over chefs and restaurateurs.
While much of this content is fun to watch, it begs the question: does it really impact business? Social media can help open a funnel of new audiences for a restaurant and drive curiosity and footfalls. But, of course, what will keep diners coming back is the same formula that has helped restaurants stay in business for decades: quality and consistency.
For the founders of Benne, they admit their experiments with social media have not just helped their cause, but have helped the category of “benne dosa" become more popular in Mumbai. “More people are curious about what a proper Bangalore dosa is. That to me is the greatest win," Akhil says.
Smitha Menon is a food journalist and the host of the Big Food Energy podcast. She posts @smitha.men on Instagram
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