By the point you learn this, Gaggan Anand might have opened Raga on Delhi’s iconic Janpath for previews. So, the media will get to strive the meals and you’ll hear extra about it within the days forward.
It’s no exaggeration to say that Raga is probably the most awaited restaurant opening of the final a number of years. I went for a pre-opening tasting and, jaded cynic that I can typically be, I used to be unable to withstand being blown away. It’s properly on its technique to changing into the very best restaurant in India.
Raga is a homecoming for Gaggan, however additionally it is the end result of a number of unsuccessful efforts by the chef to open a restaurant in India, as a result of serving meals to his personal individuals has lengthy been Gaggan’s dream. And regardless of all of the accolades Gaggan has gained during the last decade and a half (Asia’s finest chef for a report 5 occasions, and so on), he has all the time felt incomplete with out a restaurant in Mumbai or Delhi.
Not that he hasn’t tried. In 2016, he signed as much as open a restaurant in Mumbai. That they had a reputation (Nuage, which implies cloud in French, a play on Gaggan’s identify), a location (Bandra) and a head chef. Garima Arora was set to run the restaurant, and to arrange, she labored for a number of months at Gaggan in Bangkok.
On the final second, the deal collapsed. And although Gaggan had different presents throughout that interval (together with a restaurant at Atlantis in Dubai), he turned them down and stored on the lookout for a restaurant in India.
The pandemic, and a cut up along with his unique companions, distracted Gaggan. However when he was in a position to commit his complete focus to eating places once more, he agreed to take over an area (the Mediterranean restaurant Syrah) at Delhi’s Hyatt Regency, and ran a short lived restaurant (a residency) for 2 months. I used to be sceptical about how properly it will do with a set menu at round ₹50,000 per head. However to my astonishment, it was packed each evening.
Gaggan had the choice of constructing the residency everlasting, however ultimately he determined towards it as a result of he needed to construct a correct Gaggan restaurant from scratch.
In 2025, Zorawar Kalra and his spouse Dildeep got here for dinner to the flagship Gaggan restaurant in Bangkok. Kalra is a really profitable restaurateur who knew Gaggan however had by no means actually eaten his meals. This was ironic, as a result of Kalra’s eating places had launched so-called molecular gastronomy in India, and the unique menus had dishes that have been clearly impressed (‘stolen’ is just too harsh a phrase) by Gaggan, together with his signature Yoghurt Explosion. (I wrote on the time that a few of partially profitable copies of Gaggan’s dishes at Kalra’s first Masala Library tasted as if Gaggan had faxed them from Bangkok over a really unhealthy line.) Kalra says once he ate the actual factor he knew directly that he needed to open a restaurant with Gaggan.
Gaggan had seen many proposals and presents come and go, so he approached this one warily. On the plus facet, he favored Kalra and valued his experience when it got here to operating eating places in India. He additionally favored the situation that Kalra was providing: A major spot on the historic Janpath, the place Kalra had as soon as run his Delhi Masala Library.
However on condition that Gaggan had such particular necessities, might Kalra meet them? As an illustration, Gaggan needed your entire restaurant redesigned by his personal architect. He needed to import the crockery and cutlery from Japan, and he needed all of it to be specifically created for the restaurant.
Then there was the matter of the kitchen. Gaggan needed a better chef-to-guest ratio than any Indian restaurant had ever had. He needed to import the newest expertise. As an illustration, one machine that he required price ₹28 lakh. An ice-cream machine (used for only one dish) price ₹15 lakh.
To Gaggan’s shock, Kalra agreed to the whole lot. He solely disagreed with Gaggan about how a lot to cost. Okalra needed to cap the set menu at round ₹11,000. Gaggan, who had charged ₹50,000 at his Hyatt residency thought this was too low. Finally, Kalra prevailed and Gaggan noticed his level: In case you are calling it a homecoming, then don’t worth it so excessive that your folks and kin can’t come to your house.
I went for dinner on Monday evening and was startled by how the brand new designers had reworked the area. It seemed elegant moderately than posh-fancy, and the Japanese aesthetic of less-is-more had given it a trendy however no-nonsense look. Regardless of his bindaas picture, Gaggan is obsessive about particulars. The night I went, he had spent the day going to florists to search out the best flowers and had purchased new candles for the restaurant from Good Earth. Early in our meal, he determined that the piped music was improper and switched it to one of many playlists he had created for the Bangkok restaurant.
I like good-looking eating places. However for me, a very powerful factor is all the time the meals. I knew it will be good as a result of Rydo Anton, the chef who has been the spine of all of Gaggan’s eating places, had shifted to India and rented a flat close to Janpath to create the dishes.
Gaggan has all the time acknowledged Rydo’s function in his success, however this time he has put Rydo centrestage: Not solely is the restaurant referred to as Raga for the initials of Rydo Anton and Gaggan Anand, however Rydo is the precise chef. Gaggan doesn’t put on his chef’s uniform when he’s within the restaurant and plans to go from desk to desk chatting to friends.
I’ve eaten Gaggan’s meals so usually that I questioned if he would be capable to shock me, given that each one his best hits can be on the menu. I needn’t have fearful. Somewhat within the method of an important rock band, which retains tweaking and rearranging its hits when it performs them dwell, Gaggan and Rydo have made the classics appear contemporary and thrilling. That is the very best model of the Yoghurt Explosion but. The a lot-imitated Gaggan creation of golgappa pani in a candy sphere is reinvented.
And there are nice new dishes. There’s a cross between a vada pao and a Bombay sandwich. A gentle-serve ice-cream has an ideal texture and deep saffron flavour. (Gaggan credit the very costly ice cream machine.) The breakthrough is a tiffin (to the extent that fancy Japanese crockery layered collectively will be referred to as a tiffin) of Tabak Maas; gobhi made to seem like mind (the mind joke was as soon as the funniest a part of Gaggan’s Bangkok monologues) and an unbelievable Nalli Nihari, which has all the deep flavour of the very best nihari and not one of the greasiness. I believe the ₹28 lakh kitchen machine might have been bought solely as a result of Gaggan and Rydo needed to make a non-greasy nihari.
It sounds heretical, however I may very well want it to Gaggan’s Bangkok flagship, which is theatrical and great, however which you’ll’t preserve going again to many times. This is sort of a regular restaurant, the place you possibly can chat to the remainder of your desk and benefit from the meal that’s of the identical high quality because the meals in Bangkok. And you’ll preserve coming again.
Lastly, Delhi, which has lagged behind Mumbai, a lot might have the excellence of being the situation of the very best restaurant in India.
From HT Brunch, August 22, 2026
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