27 August,2026 05:43 PM IST | Mumbai | Nasrin Modak Siddiqi
RAGA is already booked weeks ahead. Photo Courtesy: Special Arrangement
Few chefs in the world can make you want to lick a plate clean in public, film yourself doing it and post it proudly. Gaggan Anand is one of them.
After two decades away, the celebrated chef, whose restaurants have repeatedly topped the world's most influential restaurant rankings, has returned to India with RAGA, his first permanent restaurant in the country. Set at 21A Janpath Road in New Delhi, the former home of Masala Library, RAGA is a collaboration between Gaggan, his longtime head chef and friend Rydo Anton, and restaurateur Zorawar Kalra of Massive Restaurants.
Currently open only for dinner from Tuesday to Sunday, the 30-seater offers two seatings, including five seats at the Chef's Counter, and a private dining room with a minimum spend of Rs 2 lakh. The 22-course tasting menu, priced at Rs 11,111 per person plus taxes, is Gaggan's theatrical take on Indian food: familiar flavours, unexpected turns and plenty of reasons to surrender to the plate. At RAGA, he has placed Rydo firmly at the centre, trading his chef whites for edgy, statement-making T-shirts (he wore one written 'Everyone Sucks' on this day), moving between tables, talking to guests and experiencing the restaurant from the other side of the pass.
Years ago, he said he would "never open a restaurant in India", but Kalra made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
In 2007, Gaggan left India for Bangkok on a consultancy assignment. Three years later, he opened Gaggan, the restaurant that would establish him as one of the most influential chefs of his generation, earning two Michelin stars and five No. 1 rankings on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list. For years, Gaggan looked for a way to bring his cooking home, to serve it to his own people. There was Nuage, a proposed restaurant in Bandra with Garima Arora, who spent several months at Gaggan in Bangkok in preparation. The deal collapsed.
Then there was a series of sold-out residencies, some priced at around R50,000 a seat. They proved there was an appetite for his food, but none offered what he really wanted: a permanent home.
Then, in 2025, Zorawar Kalra and his wife, Dildeep, went to dinner at Gaggan in Bangkok. Kalra knew Gaggan, but had never experienced his food. One meal was enough to convince him that Gaggan belonged in India.
Gaggan, who had watched plenty of proposals come and go, was cautious. But this one felt different. He liked Kalra, trusted his understanding of the Indian restaurant business and was drawn to the location he offered. "That was half the deal.
Then came Gaggan's list of requirements. His own architect would design the restaurant. The crockery and cutlery would be specially made in Japan. The chef-to-guest ratio would be unusually high, and the kitchen would be equipped with technology rarely seen in Indian restaurants. One machine alone cost Rs 28 lakh. An ice-cream machine, used for a single dish, cost another Rs 15 lakh.
Gaggan had expected a negotiation. Instead, Kalra said yes. "I was always a control freak, but I have changed and become wiser. It's the right time for Gagan to come here," says Kalra.
Sunday mid-day visited the restaurant the night before its pre-opening, and one thing was clear: Gaggan Anand has not returned quietly. From the zen garden that leads to the doors to the distinctly Japanese minimalist look to the soaring ceiling, two-storey open kitchen, handcrafted Japanese crockery and Schott Zwiesel glasses, RAGA does not scream luxury. It is elegant, restrained and distinctly Gaggan, who, despite his famously eccentric persona, is obsessive about details. The flowers. The candles. The crockery. The music, which jumps between classics and 1980's Bollywood. Nothing seems too small to escape his attention.
The food is where the fun begins. For those who know Gaggan's Bangkok repertoire, there are familiar ideas, but they have been revisited and somehow feel fresh again. Then there are the new dishes: cucumber sliced almost impossibly thin and wrapped in a gel that tastes of mint chutney; a bharwan chilli, dipped in charcoal batter; a chicken wing served with a little rope; a vada pav meets Bombay sandwich moment made with onion water. A saffron soft serve that is so perfectly textured that Gaggan is happy to point out the very expensive machine responsible for it. And then comes the Japanese-style tiffin, stacked with Tabak Maas, cauliflower disguised as a brain and a superb Nalli Nihari, deep, slow-cooked flavour without the usual greasiness and yes, a course that asks you to lick the plate.
What makes RAGA particularly enjoyable, though, is that the theatre does not get in the way of the food. You can talk across the table, laugh, eat with your hands and enjoy dinner. The performance is there, but so is the pleasure of eating.
That feels important because Gaggan's restaurants have always understood that a meal can be more than a succession of courses. At RAGA, that same instinct survives, but there is something warmer about it. Perhaps that comes from being home. Gaggan Anand is not returning to India to relive his glory days. He is arriving at the peak of his powers.
RAGA is already booked weeks ahead, a remarkable response even before the restaurant has properly settled into its rhythm. The demand raises an irresistible question: is the draw the food, or Gaggan himself?
Perhaps, at this point, separating the two misses the point. Gaggan is the restaurant. The restaurant is the experience.
The question is no longer whether RAGA will survive the initial rush. The more interesting question is what it might change. If Gaggan, Kalra and Rydo get this right, RAGA could do more than become one of India's most talked-about restaurants. It could help redraw the country's modern dining landscape.
And after making India wait this long, perhaps that is exactly the kind of arrival Gaggan had in mind.
The only point on which Kalra and Gaggan disagreed was the price. Gaggan had charged around Rs 50,000 for his Hyatt residency; Kalra wanted to keep RAGA's 22-course tasting menu at about Rs 11,000.
Eventually, Kalra won the argument, and Gaggan understood the logic: if this was a homecoming, the price should not be so high that friends and family could not afford to come home.
