What India’s F&B Scene Tells Us About Desire, Design, and Identity

We don’t eat in pixels… we devour IRL

I. A Life Measured in Meals

I didn’t realise how seriously I took food until I looked at my camera roll one day and found over 20,000 images of meals — neatly archived by city, restaurant, and folder. Bangalore. Berlin. Copenhagen. Tasting menus. Street snacks. Neighbourhood cafés. Napkin details. Notes on texture. Staff demeanour. Lighting. Alongside my husband, who is just as much an avid foodie, or more than I am.

Most people document food for content.

I do it for memory.

Because for me, food is taste and feeling.

It’s how I travel, how I bond, how I build intimacy.

It’s the mood, the menu, the lighting, the linen.

It’s the eye contact from the server. The weight of the plate. The quietness between courses.

It’s what I remember more than the hotel, more than the outfit I wore.

“If you ask me to make a plan, it almost always revolves around food. Our lives do, too—quite literally.”

It’s also why I’ve never wanted to take on F&B brands as a marketer.

Not because I don’t love the industry.

But because I love it too much.

And like most things I love, I prefer to experience it before I attempt to package it.

II. India’s Food Boom: Passion, Profit, and the Pursuit of Soul

India’s F&B landscape is booming.

In the last decade alone, we’ve watched India go from food-as-function to food-as-theatre.

Chef’s tables priced at ₹40,000 per head — with names like Gaggan Anand, Marco Pierre White, and Massimo Bottura — are selling out. Private tasting rooms in Mumbai are booked weeks in advance. And cities like Bangalore, long overlooked, are finally earning a seat at the table.

The data supports the shift:

• India’s food services industry is projected to cross ₹6.5 lakh crore (~$78 billion) by FY27

• Fine dining and chef-led formats are growing at 12% CAGR, outpacing QSRs

• 65% of HNIs now prioritise culinary-led leisure over shopping or luxury travel (Knight Frank, 2024)

• Instagram, Zomato, and WoM are now the top three drivers of consumer discovery across Tier 1 and 2 cities

But here’s the part the numbers don’t tell you:

Some of my most emotionally transformative meals weren’t white-glove or wine-paired.

They were street-side, steam-soaked, and entirely unpretentious.

Like Kartik’s Channa Bhatura in Bangalore — a ritual I’ve honoured since I was eight.

Not dine-in. That was never the point.

It was a Sunday morning affair: queueing on the road, placing our order from the car, waiting. And eventually, booking our bhaturas on Saturday nights just to ensure we’d get our fix the next day.

The food is simple. The taste? Sacred.

Or Mylari in Mysore, where the dosa isn’t crunchy — it’s soft, cloud-like, folded over itself with ghee. We once took a detour to Mysore just to eat at the OG.

Or Chickpet’s midnight idli vendor, where the experience is part fever dream, part religious ceremony: steam rising from aluminium pots, idlis passed hand to hand under a single bulb, sambar sloshed into flimsy cups. You eat standing. You leave smiling.

Or Brothers Kulcha in Amritsar, where I once brought back over 15 kilos of food from ATQ to Bangalore, all so I could share what couldn’t be explained in words.

“Luxury isn’t about price. It’s about presence. It’s about how much a meal stays with you long after you leave.”

And yes, I marvel at the sophistication of Aditi Dugar’s projects, the conceptual depth behind Kaushik’s work at Farmlore, and the poetry of Chef Prateek Sadhu’s Naar, who, for me, has set a new standard for what thoughtful, Himalayan-rooted fine dining can feel like.

I find joy in the packaging of Subko, the storytelling of Pranoy at Kerehaklu, the curation at Comorin, the emotion behind Kavan’s craft, the buzz around Papas (even though I still haven’t got a reservation), the slow evolution of places like Bhawan and Inja and of course one of my favourites Alex Sanchez; Americano. Iconic. Always.

But I hold them in the same breath as Paranthe Wali Gali or Haveli (a hidden gem in Chandni Chowk), as the sugarcane carts in Jayanagar, as the pucka vendors in Kolkata that never make it to Google Maps.

Because India’s food culture is layered.

And it’s growing — economically, creatively, and emotionally all at once.

What people are really spending on is food along with

Belonging. Emotion. Memory. Mood.

Whether that costs ₹30 or ₹30,000.

III. Why I Never Took on F&B Clients

It surprises people when I say this, but I’ve never wanted to take on F&B brands as a marketer.

Not because the work isn’t exciting.

Not because the visuals wouldn’t be gorgeous.

And definitely not because the stories aren’t rich.

It’s because I love food too much.

Not in the way people casually say they’re “foodies”

But in the way that I treat a meal like a memory, a menu like a manuscript, and a restaurant like a living, breathing organism with mood, rhythm, and soul.

“When I love something that deeply, I want to experience it. Not monetise it.”

I’ve spent the last few years building brands across some of the most complex, high-stakes categories out there. But food? That’s different. It feels too personal to pitch.

Because when a meal falls flat, I don’t just forget it. I feel it.

And when a restaurant’s digital presence is curated with all the right cues, the fonts, the reels, the influencers, the PR gloss — but the experience doesn’t match the moodboard, something in me breaks.

It’s disappointment and betrayal.

You don’t eat pixels. You eat presence.

You don’t remember the logo. You remember how the staff made you feel when you asked for a substitution.

F&B is a category where marketing cannot be louder than the experience.

Because the product is the plate.

It’s the emotional residue it leaves behind.

That’s what makes it sacred to me.

So yes, I’ve designed brand strategy for everything from B2B tech apps (boring, I know) to wellness platforms.

But when it comes to restaurants, I’ve kept a healthy distance.

Because I want to eat for my soul, not for scope.

Because I want to be able to walk into a place, taste something extraordinary, and not wonder if I could’ve written the campaign.

Because some things…

are too delicious to be professionalised.

But some stories don’t knock. They linger.

Avinash was one of them.

People like him: the ambition, the fire, the honesty… always strike a chord with me.

With Soka, it was about the people.

It was the opportunity to walk alongside something as it was being built. To be part of the foundation, not just the furniture.

And once I said yes, I committed. Emotionally, strategically, wholeheartedly. Because when I believe in people, I don’t show up halfway.

Some restaurants I write about. Others, I quietly root for from the inside.

Now, with my partner — my husband — spending more time with us at Form & Flow, the dynamic is shifting again.

Kabir’s worked in F&B for over 10 years.

He brings a different lens to the table — pragmatic, technical, obsessed with numbers, margins, systems.

Where I see the lighting, he sees the layout.

Where I feel the room, he breaks down the cost per cover.

We both love the industry. Just differently.

For him, it’s logic. For me, it’s language. For him, the numbers excite. For me, it’s the feeling.

And maybe that’s what makes our work richer now.

That we both see the soul.

We just reach it from different directions.

IV. The People Who Get It Right

For all my reservations about marketing food, I’ve also seen — and tasted — what it looks like when it’s done right.

With presence. Intention. Integrity.

When you sit down to eat and feel, from the first bite, that you’re being taken care of, not managed.

When the lighting knows what time it is.

When the soundtrack doesn’t fight the fork.

When the menu doesn’t scream trend, but speaks softly in story.

That’s when you know someone behind the scenes has built not just a brand, but a mood.

That’s what I felt the first time I experienced Naar, or Tim Raue, or Disfrutar

There was no posturing. No over-explanation.

Just fire, produce, and service

You don’t need a tagline when the emotion is that clean.

That same passion lives in Farmlore, where Kaushik is building something driven by passion, and sometimes the team can’t quite translate it with just as much rigour as he and Swati can. Every conversation I’ve had with both of them feels like a peek behind a curtain most people never realise exists.

And then there’s Aditi Dugar, who seems to approach every space — from Masque to TwentySeven Bakehouse — like a design brief for memory. There’s elegance, yes. But more importantly, there’s empathy.

Kavan Kuttappa, to me, is both icon and undercurrent — someone who doesn’t just cook, but codes feeling into food.

And Chef Hussain Shahzad’s Papas is proof that we’re entering a new era — one where intimacy and theatre don’t compete, they complement.

“These are people who understand that food is not just a product. It’s a point of view.”

And it’s not just the high-end kitchens.

It’s the aesthetic and storytelling coming out of Subko, the authenticity of Kerehaklu, the perfectly balanced quietness of Comorin, the thoughtfulness at Inja, the flavour-to-vibe ratio at Bhawan, the humility of Comal’s avocado taco.

Even the hyper-ambitious, impossible-to-get-a-table-at launches aren’t annoying me anymore. They’re affirming something bigger:

India is hungry. And we’re ready to spend on soul.

You can’t fake service. You can’t buy feeling. And you can’t photograph presence. But the places doing it right? They don’t have to. You remember them anyway.

V. What Marketing Often Gets Wrong

For an industry built on sensory experience, a lot of restaurant marketing feels strangely hollow.

Beautiful, yes.

But vacant.

The reel plays. The font is clean. The space is bathed in golden light. The influencers arrive. The articles drop.

And then you go.

And the food is… fine.

The service is cold.

The playlist is fighting the mood.

And the story you were sold collapses mid-bite.

“That’s the heartbreak. Not that the food is bad. But that the story was better than the experience.”

This is about over-marketing and under-delivering.

We’ve reached a point where every new restaurant sounds like it was briefed by the same agency:

– “A modern twist on tradition.”

– “Rooted in nostalgia, inspired by global technique.”

– “Elevated yet approachable.”

It’s not that these phrases are wrong.

It’s that they’ve become meaningless.

Because the real problem is this:

You can’t write a brand story around a dish you haven’t tasted.

And yet, too many campaigns start with a concept deck instead of a conversation with the chef.

Globally and locally, we’re watching an F&B culture emerge where perception outpaces presence.

And in the age of algorithmic aesthetics, we’ve confused engagement with integrity.

“Great food marketing is about harmony.”

The lighting, the pacing, the way a server says “we’re out of that” — all of that is brand.

The weight of the wine glass. The typography of the bill folder. The temperature of the AC.

All of that is brand.

And when it doesn’t align, something breaks.

Not visibly. But emotionally.

A small, quiet disappointment that makes you not want to return — even if the food was fine.

Because you weren’t just promised a meal.

You were promised a feeling.

And you didn’t get it.

VI. Will We Ever Open Something?

The question always comes up — sometimes from friends, sometimes from strangers, sometimes just from myself:

Will you ever open a restaurant? A coffee shop? Something of your own?

The short answer?

Yes. Maybe. Someday.

We’ve done the P&L. We’ve drafted the deck.

There’s a concept we’ve carried with us for years — soft lighting, honest food, good service without the performance.

A place built not for virality, but for rhythm. For return.

But right now, we don’t want to build it.

Right now, we just want to eat. And remember. And feel.

This isn’t the season for creating a space. It’s the season for being moved by them.

Because food, for me, has always been more than the industry itself. It’s intimacy.

It’s how I’ve learned to love people. It’s how I’ve learned to read the room. It’s how I’ve built a map of the world — not through landmarks, but through menus.

So yes, maybe one day we’ll open that space.

But until then, I’ll keep showing up for the ones who are doing it well.

Quietly. Carefully. Wholeheartedly.

Because at its best, food doesn’t need marketing. It just needs to be felt. It needs to be delicious and it needs to have soul.