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Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: Hit the right spots
The hottest new restaurants in Mumbai and Delhi play with Japanese ideas, riff on Indian classics and serve South-American surprises. A wide range for the hungry
Vineet Bhatia has been around for so long that newer generations sometimes forget how much he has done for Indian food. Twenty-five years ago, when Indian restaurants abroad were expected to serve ‘ethnic’ food at low prices, Zaika in London, where Vineet was the chef, became the first Indian restaurant in the world to win a Michelin star. (Another restaurant, Tamarind, where Atul Kochhar was the chef, also won a star that year.)
Vineet moved on from Zaika and won Michelin stars at two other London restaurants and one in Geneva. He redefined Indian food in London and changed the way in which many classic dishes were cooked and presented, while creating new dishes that have since been widely imitated.
In recent years, he has run a global portfolio of around a dozen restaurants, of which four are in India with the Oberoi group (where he started his career). I went back to Ziya at the Oberoi in Mumbai, which was the first of his Oberoi restaurants a couple of weeks ago, to find that it had been completely refurbished and that the menu had been refreshed.
I have been a fan of Vineet’s cooking for two decades, so I was not surprised to find how good the cuisine was. But the Oberoi chefs have built on Vineet’s original vision. Nishant Kumar Singh who has a real feel for the classics and the hotel’s versatile executive chef Kayzad Sadri have created a restaurant that has something for everyone from the great dishes of Indian cuisine to Vineet’s brilliant creations. Trendy Indian restaurants will come and go. But Vineet’s food will remain the lodestar for modern Indian chefs.
I had two other good meals in Mumbai. Hearth On The First is a fire-cooking restaurant on the first floor of the Eros cinema building, and despite minor irritants – there was something wrong with the exhaust when I went, which made part of the room cough-aloud smoky – I had a good time. The simple dishes were well executed: A delicious smash burger and pizza with house-made chorizo. The more complicated dishes came from a kitchen that clearly knows its stuff: Duck and lamb were cooked expertly and a bone-marrow dish was outstanding. I would happily go back.
Gaijin is currently a super-hot new restaurant in Khar. On the night I went, it was packed out with all kinds of guests, ranging from the rich, the glamorous and the famous, to normal people out for a good time.
I liked the restaurant, which is basic and slightly grungy. But I was most impressed by Anand Morwani, the chef-partner who is actually better than the restaurant. A classically trained chef, Morwani has familiarised himself with Japanese ingredients and techniques. But because he knows how many years it takes to master Japanese food, he doesn’t claim to be turning out great and authentic Japanese cuisine. In fact, the name Gaijin means outsider in Japanese.
And as an outsider, Morwani uses the form and language of Japanese cuisine to turn out dishes that spring from his own imagination and merge global flavours and ingredients. It’s not really Japanese food, and the range of flavours is greater than is typical of Japanese restaurants.
I thought the food was creative and thoughtful. Morwani is not quite there yet, but he is a chef to watch because as he develops his own style, he will certainly hit the top league. And it will be the sort of food that no one else will be cooking.
In Delhi, I tried Grammie, a much-awaited new restaurant. I first heard of Tanveer Kwatra when he was the chef at a hotel in Gurgaon. Everyone who ate his food came back raving about this chef who had trained in Australia. But strangely, the hotel did not do much to push Tanveer or his food.
But Tanveer did not need anyone else to push him. He had an entrepreneurial streak and strong people skills, so he moved to the management side and became the general manager of the W hotel in Goa, which he put on the map so successfully, that people forgot about its design failures or its problems with municipal authorities.
I didn’t think the W hotel could contain Tanveer’s talents, and when I next heard of him, his wife Ginny Kohli and he were running successful restaurants and delivery operations all over India.
A few months ago, he opened what is probably his flagship restaurant, the much-anticipated Grammie in the Sangam Cinema Complex. It’s a brave decision, because restaurant complexes in Delhi start out well and then begin to fade away. Sangam is no longer the buzzy place it once was. But Grammie should help revive it.
The food is theoretically European, but the menu ranges from South-American-influenced dishes to distinctive Japanese flavours. (Tanveer runs a very successful sushi operation in Hyderabad, so he knows the cuisine.) It’s crowd-pleasing stuff that reflects Tanveer’s vast experience and his background as a chef.
It is great to find somewhere in Delhi that’s exciting, because judging by my experience, it’s Mumbai where the adventurous, good stuff is happening. Hopefully Delhi will catch up.
From HT Brunch, August 1, 2026
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