How tasting menus and cocktail bars are taking over India's small towns

We are seated around a table and asked to pick olives off hooks placed on a prop that looks like an olive tree. What follows is a meal featuring fresh salads, pastas and Basque cheesecake. Another day, another meal, this time Japanese-inspired with sushi, soba noodles and katsu curry. These may sound like any other gourmet meal on a weekend outing in a metro, except that the former is at Atelier V, a casual fine-dining restaurant in Indore, and the latter at Yakitori, a Japanese restaurant in Virsa Baltistan in Turtuk, Ladakh.

India’s culinary landscape is now seeing chefs choosing to root themselves in smaller towns instead of chasing F&B glory in tier-one cities like Mumbai, Delhi or Bengaluru. Chef Prateek Sadhu’s 16-seater Naar in Kasauli is perhaps the pinnacle of what’s possible in an offbeat location. In Mangaluru, chef Shriya Shetty’s Buco, an artisanal gourmet bakery and café, has made it to must-do lists for both visitors and locals alike. People now drive from Bengaluru or plan a pit stop at Sapa Bakery in Mysuru. Tourists plan a meal at the eight-seater Accentuate Food Lab while on a break in Aurangabad.

SMALL-TOWN ALLURE

Dina Weber, 30, a self-taught baker from Germany, who runs Sapa Bakery, was 20 when she backpacked through India during a gap year in 2014-15 and decided to stay. She recalls that when Sapa began in 2019, Mysuru didn’t have many European-style bistros or bakeries. Weber began experimenting with sourdough breads, French and German pastries, eclairs, mousse cakes and tarts.

“Every week, I would ride to bed-and-breakfasts with samples hoping someone would order. On Sundays, I had a small stall at a yoga café. After a few weeks, people returned for my babkas and doughnuts, and that kept me going,” says Weber, adding that big cities don’t lend themselves to creating something with a feel of community. “We can be more playful and daring because our overheads aren’t as heavy. That allows for more trial and error with our guests and in building a community,” she says.

For Vedant Newatia, founder and chef at Atelier V, the idea for a cocktail bar and restaurant came about in 2022. He was home in Indore during a break from work at the Michelin-starred restaurant Steinhalle in Bern, Switzerland.

“When I began in 2024, some thought Atelier V was ‘a bit much’ for Indore, which has always been a great food city, but primarily for Indian cuisine and casual dining. While the interiors have evolved, menus have not. Even today, there aren’t many places focusing on technique-driven global cuisines like European, American, Mexican and Vietnamese, or a solid cocktail programme. That’s where we fit in,” says Newatia, 30.

The response, he says, was mixed at first and they made changes to the menu to accommodate guests’ preferences. “We worked on making the food approachable. When the French onion soup did not work, we replaced it with Bhutanese cheese and chilli stew Ema Datshi, which people enjoyed for the spicy kick,” he says.

Over time, Atelier V has hosted bar takeovers by popular names such as Muro (Bengaluru), 1932 Trevi (Jaipur), and Soul (Udaipur). In September, it collaborated with Stir Modern Classic Cocktail Bar from Vietnam.

At Accentuate Food Lab in Aurangabad, which opened in 2021, chef-consultant Mohib Farooqui’s tasting menus comprise 9-13 courses that blend Indian flavours with international ones. His big advantage was that Aurangabad did not have many fine-dining options. “Being an industrial town, people here are well-travelled and crave a good pasta or a Lebanese meal. That inspired us to plan menus around Italian, Levantine or North African cuisines,” says Farooqui.

He set up the restaurant to be closer to his family, he says. “But I also wanted to open something that would ‘accentuate’ the dining scene in the city. I started with the idea of serving modern, global food with a touch of European techniques and some Asian flavours,” explains Farooqui, 43, who previously taught at the Taj Group and worked at Le Cordon Bleu Gurugram.

THE MANY CHALLENGES

What may seem easier in big cities is often a big challenge in small towns. For Japanese cuisine chef Minori Ota, of Yakitori in Turtuk, which opened in 2021, the ingredients have to be brought from metros into Leh, which is 200km away. “I once ran out of shiro-dashi, an essential seasoning for soba soup. I improvised it with vinegar, and created a seasoning mix of local and Japanese ingredients for chicken stock powder,” she says.

Building teams and creating a kitchen culture where everyone pitches in can also be challenging. Staffing in smaller cities is generally harder, either for lack of trained talent or the young moving out for better opportunities. “Operationally it was tough to deal with the feudal mindset that’s present in many Indian kitchens. It’s harder in smaller towns, where many come from traditional set-ups and rigid hierarchy. In Europe, everyone pitches in. Here, people can be quick to say, ‘this isn’t my job’,” says Newatia.

Farooqui admits being based in Aurangabad has diminished the publicity that is easily accessible in metros. “Being an eight-seater in a small town means I don’t have the luxury of big budgets to hire a PR agency. But my team and I have made things work,” he says.

From Mysuru to Leh and further away, what stands clear is intent—to create something special for the diner. The kitchens are powered by conviction and quiet ambition and have proven that a great culinary concept no longer requires big city gloss to succeed. A steady increase in the number of such conceptual spaces as small town dining destinations is only poised to swell.

Ruth DSouza Prabhu is a features journalist based in Bengaluru.