Chef-approved restaurants, from technical plates and brilliant cocktails in London to Thai-influenced northern Indian classics in Bangkok.
Boundary pushing yet steeped in history with an immense natural larder, Indian cuisine has long been a favourite of gourmets worldwide. One chef that knows his way around the globe through brilliant Indian dishes is Himanshu Saini. Executive chef of Trèsind Studio (No.3 on the list of the Middle East & North Africa's 50 Best Restaurants 2026) and winner of the Estrella Damm 0.0% Chefs' Choice Award, Saini worked under legendary chef Manish Mehrotra at Indian Accent before opening his Dubai restaurant in 2014.
"It's a great moment for Indian food," says Saini. "The narrative has changed from the early 1990s and 2000s. Earlier on, cooking was a profession where people were working not out of passion, but out of necessity. With the growing trend of people taking culinary education in India, travelling across the world and doing stages at different restaurants, we're seeing people who really want to cook Indian food now coming into the limelight."
Saini's menu at Trèsind Studio takes diners on a journey through India's diverse landscapes
The new guard is moving on from the traditional cooking that has defined Indian cuisine in the past and instead opting for new concepts driven by sustainability, hyper-local produce and international influence.
For Saini, an Indian restaurant stands out when it finds its own identity. "An Indian restaurant becomes great when it starts to be original," he says. "It's important to have the soul of Indian food, the understanding of it, but at the same time it's about breaking that metric. There can be 100 interpretations of Indian food, but if you stick to your philosophy, your thoughts, your guiding principles, then you can find your own way."
Here, Saini reveals his guide to the very best Indian restaurants across the globe.
Naar
Kasauli 
"I think what Prateek Sadhu has done with this concept has opened so many horizons for people in India to move out of the metro cities and do something which is so meaningful. At this restaurant in the foothills of the Himalayas, he's challenging himself to cook Indian food with limitations, with what has grown around the vicinity. With Naar, he has his own identity. The menu is very original. I highly rate his restaurant and Sadhu's courage to be able to do something in India, where it's not easy, and it's never been done before."
Bibi
London 
"In London, the Indian dining scene is amazing. It's very hard to pick my favourite ones. Recently I dined at BiBi, which is chef Chetan Sharma's restaurant. It's a very technique-driven restaurant. There's a lot of nostalgia, with many references from Punjabi food to the Indian classics, and its take on these dishes is very refreshing. It also thrives with a great cocktail menu. The experience is so engaging because you can see the live kitchen and the chef comes to your table and explains all the dishes."
Papa's
Mumbai 
"Papa's is a cool restaurant in Mumbai in an old bakery right in the middle of the city. It's really small with a dozen or seats, where the experience is driven by the storytelling of chef Hussain Shahzad's life, from his childhood, where he spent most of his time cooking along with his family, in particular his mother, to his time at Eleven Madison Park. It's also paying homage to chef Floyd Cardoz, who was his mentor. It's a very beautiful programme. It's also probably the most hard-to-get reservation in Mumbai right now."
Haoma
Bangkok 
"Chef Deepanker Khosla thrives on his sustainability philosophy: he has his own urban farm and his own poultry farm. His take on Indian food is very different. You can see a lot of Thai influences as he's been in Bangkok for many years now. The wine programme is also very strong – it's probably one of the best wine programmes in Bangkok."
Nisaba
New Delhi 
"There is a restaurant which opened in early 2026 called Nisaba by chef Manish Mehrotra. He's my mentor. Wherever I've reached today is because of him. He has his roots in pan-Asian cuisine, but he understands Indian cuisine with such a different eye. That is what he's passing down to chefs like me and all the people who worked under him who are also doing amazingly well across the world. It's a restaurant which will be talked about more as we go forward."
Avatara
Dubai 
"The restaurant is vegetarian, where even onion and garlic are not used. In India, without onion and garlic, the food becomes Satvik, which is a different form of cooking. In terms of vegetarian food, Indian food is probably the most diversified. There are so many options with vegetables. And what Avatara does is create their own classics: Indian flavours, Indian dishes, vegetables being used in a way not seen on other Indian menus."
Chatti by Regi Mathew
New York 
"Regi Mathew is one of the most celebrated Indian chefs in India and Chatti is his first restaurant in New York. The concept is that of a toddy shop, a local liquor shop in Kerala in south India, where people buy toddy, a homemade alcoholic drink. Then there is a cuisine around it too. Chef Regi is the master of south Indian food – he believes in going about it in a very traditional way, so there is no fuss. There is pure comfort and indulgence in what he cooks."
Farmlore
Bengaluru 
"Chef Johnson Ebenezer has created his own ecosystem around Farmlore, where he's doing so much and growing lots of things at the farm. And it's not just for the sake of it – it's the philosophy of the restaurant of utilising and researching ingredients that are lesser known from the region. It's a totally different take on Indian food and it's very refreshing."
Hoppers
London 
"The casual restaurant I have loved for many years is Hoppers. It has been one of my go-to restaurants for a long time. The moment I land in London, I head there straight away and eat some of my favourite dishes, including the bone marrow varuval. It's very comforting, classic south Indian food. I'm a big fan of south Indian food in general, so wherever I can find a good restaurant, it's always on my bucket list."
Himanshu Saini is the winner of the Estrella Damm 0.0% Chefs' Choice Award, as part of the Middle East & North Africa's 50 Best Restaurants 2026. Discover the full list.
Header image credit: Anton Rodriguez
