Are You Actually A Good Diner? Here’s What India’s Best Chefs Think

We Indians are deeply emotional people. We feel with passion and an all-consuming love for most things in life. Even when it comes to food, and especially when it comes to food.

We’re nostalgic like that—known far and wide for attaching the many fragments of our life to a dish, a peculiar memory to a chutney, a phase of our life to that one take-out order, our mothers to most of what we know about food. We love familiarity; we appreciate repetitiveness done right. Those among the culinary fraternity know it and say it. As Thomas Zacharias, Chef and Founder of The Locavore, puts it: “(Food) is emotionally alive for us.” And that in itself is beautiful.

However, a deep compassion or feeling for things comes at a cost. A flip side. When we attach ourselves too closely to a static idea of something, there’s too many expectations that come, loud and clear. There’s already an idea of how it should be before a chance is even given. And sometimes, that closes us off.

In India, most things come with culture attached. With memory and tradition, and a rather long history of how things have been happening since time immemorial. Food, and especially hospitality, has always been an industry that puts the guest first. Comfort first. Taste first. Presentation first. Craft? Sometimes second.

Food, and serving food, is an art. Chefs make themselves vulnerable when they present a new dish, just as an artist does when writing a song or painting a canvas. However, because food consumption is far more literal than other forms of art, our perceptions of it remain slightly distorted. “Many diners are still learning how to engage with food as something more than a product they have paid for,” as Chef Zacharias puts it.

The Indian diner has changed enormously; that much is undisputed. We’re travelling more, eating more adventurously, asking better questions, and engaging with food in ways that would have been unusual even a decade ago.​

Chef Manish Mehrotra, founding chef of Indian Accent and the one behind Nisaba, says: “fifteen years ago, a plate of blue cheese would send people running. Today, people crave it. That’s not a small shift.”  But, as Chef Zacharias points out, curiosity is not the same as knowledge. And exposure is not the same as respect. There’s a gap, and many chefs are too polite to say so loudly.

We asked them to say it anyway.

The Elephant in the Room

“Food is a conversation, not a performance,” says Chef Amnindeer Sandhu, founding partner at Bawri, Paalash, Kikli, Punchline, and Barbet & Pals. And in India, we’re still trying to understand that.

Let’s start with the thing nobody at the table wants to say out loud: the Indian diner, for all the progress made, still has a complicated relationship with the restaurant as a space. Not with food. But with everything the food represents: the labour behind it, the intention driving it, and the unspoken agreement that dining out is a shared experience, not a one-sided transaction.

Despite the emotions we share for food, “we’re still developing a culture of respecting the complete dining experience,” Chef Sandhu added.

“In many places abroad, people understand that they’re paying not just for ingredients but for years of skill, research, service, and teamwork. Here, value is still often measured by quantity or familiarity.” It’s a gap that shows up not in any single dramatic moment, but in mentality.

Part of that is about entitlement—a word that comes up, carefully but consistently, across conversations with chefs. Chef Mehrotra frames it with characteristic directness: “Indian diners, because of our past, where we come from, feel slightly more entitled.” 

Chef Manu Chandra, Founder of Manu Chandra Enterprise ( Single Thread & Lupa), puts it plainly. “You’re not here to antagonise me, but to have a good time. And we’ll do our best to make it as special as possible for you. But at no time should somebody come in feeling like they run the place or they reserve the right to do whatever they want,” he says.

It remains vital to note that this isn’t a condemnation but an observation. Chef Zacharias says, “Hospitality should never mean surrendering all dignity or boundaries. A guest can be disappointed. A guest can complain. But the conviction in saying “I am paying, therefore I can behave however I want” is not hospitality. It is entitlement.”

He credits this partly to how hospitality is understood in India. “Because of our service and class structures, hospitality is often mistaken for unlimited accommodation,” he says.

“The guest is not just welcomed, but sometimes expected to be indulged at any cost.” The result is a dynamic in which service staff are often ill-treated, menus are treated as negotiable, and the restaurant’s own discipline (such as timings, limitations, intentions) is rarely respected.

What makes this harder to address is that it doesn’t always look like “bad” behaviour. Sometimes it looks like enthusiasm, or high expectations, or simply the confidence of someone who eats out a lot.

“Diners will respect the food, but not always the system that makes the food possible. They may appreciate the final dish, but not fully recognise the work of the cooks, servers, cleaners, dishwashers, stewards, farmers, fishers, delivery people, and supply chains behind it,” explains Chef Zacharias.

When comparing a diner in India with one in Europe or Southeast Asia, Sandhu says a large gap exists. “Indians take Indians for granted…there is room for greater appreciation of craftsmanship and the labour behind every plate.”

According to Chef Chandra, the pushback against service charges in India only widens the gap. “Restaurants here provide some of the best service compared to anywhere else in the world, and yet there’s resistance in acknowledging that. Conversely, if one goes to New York or San Francisco, a 30% tip is standard, and nobody questions it, even if it is for relatively subpar service.” It’s a concrete, uncomfortable example of the broader entitlement dynamic playing out in plain sight. 

And unfortunately, the same kind of expectations impact our reactions to experimentation.

Sandhu describes the typical reaction to a new ingredient or technique as “a mix of curiosity and hesitation” Zacharias puts his finger on exactly why: “If you serve a fish curry, a biryani, a chutney, or a regional preparation, people already have a reference point from home, from family, from travel, or from memory…But it can also make them quick to judge. ‘This is not how my mother makes it’ or ‘this is not authentic’ can become a way of shutting down curiosity rather than opening up conversation. Memory is a beautiful thing to bring to a meal. Until it becomes a wall.

A dish asking you to reimagine something you already understand is often misconceived as an insult. However, what if we thought of it as an invitation to know more, to explore it in ways you perhaps haven’t encountered before?

“Food isn’t just flavour; it’s memory, geography, and culture,” says Sandhu, “and sharing that story helps people connect with what’s on the plate.” But that connection requires the diner to meet the kitchen halfway. To arrive not just hungry, but genuinely open. And that, still, is the part we’re working on.

In Our Defence…

While constructive criticism is the focus of this article, it’s worth noting one thing that every chef I spoke to keeps reiterating: the Indian diner has come a long way. And while there’s immense room for improvement, a lot has changed for the better.

Chef Manish Mehrotra has been watching this shift longer than most. Using the same blue cheese as our benchmark, fifteen years ago, blue cheese on a plate was practically a provocation. Today, people seek it out. “People’s palate, people’s knowledge, people’s experiences have changed, and they have become more adventurous,” he says. “There is a difference, and I think that difference is for good.”

Today, we’re travelling more than ever, trying newer things, and indulging in what lies outside our comfort zone. A natural consequence of that is a greater acceptance of the unfamiliar, even when it comes to food. And when the conversation is about food, the context within which it’s placed matters significantly.

While curiosity and apprehension run hand in hand, Chef Sandhu points out that context matters. “The interesting part is that once people understand the story behind an ingredient or why a technique is being used, they’re far more willing to embrace it.

Zacharias agrees. “If you tell (diners) about the farmer who grew the millet, the fishing community behind the catch, the history of a particular preparation, or why an ingredient matters ecologically, their understanding shifts. The plate is no longer just a plate. It becomes a doorway into a larger story.”

Meanwhile, Chef Hussain Shahzad, Executive Chef at Hunger Inc. Hospitality (Papa’s), points out a vital change in India’s dining culture over the past few decades. “We have gone from dining out being largely occasion-driven to people actively seeking experiences, travelling for meals, making reservations months in advance, and investing time in discovering new restaurants,” he says. For a growing number of Indian diners, the restaurant is no longer just a backdrop for a birthday or an anniversary. It’s the destination itself.

Curiosity, too, is no longer niche. Zacharias, who watched this shift closely during his years at The Bombay Canteen, describes what it looked like in real time: “When we first began celebrating regional Indian ingredients and dishes in a contemporary restaurant context, there was curiosity, but also hesitation. Over time, diners became more open to the idea that Indian food didn’t have to be limited to a handful of familiar restaurant tropes.” Food from home kitchens, tribal foodways, coastal traditions, toddy shops—conversations that once felt too niche for a restaurant dining room are now sought after more than ever before.

Shahzad perhaps puts the mood best: “The conversations around food have become richer, and that’s a positive shift for the industry.” And when you ask chefs what gives them hope, what keeps them cooking through the criticism, the comparisons, the entitled occasional guest, it almost always comes back to this. The diner who leans in more than they need to.

“There is a lot of curiosity in India, but it needs to be nurtured. And restaurants, chefs, writers, and platforms like ours also have a responsibility to create that space,” says Chef Zacharias. Creating that space, it turns out, starts at the table. And it starts with us.

So, How Do We Do Better?

• Come for the food and experience. Not the content.

Social media has done genuinely good things for how we discover and engage with food. But it has also quietly shifted the reasons many of us show up at a restaurant in the first place. As Zacharias puts it, “sometimes the question becomes, ‘Is this worth posting?’  rather than ‘What am I actually eating? Who made this? What does it mean in this place?” In the era of being constantly online, the meal becomes content before it becomes food, and when that happens, you’re not really eating anymore. You’re producing. So, put the phone down.

• Come with an open mind—expect the unexpected. 

Ask questions (not interrogate). Taste before judging. Chef Sandhu suggests, “You don’t have to like everything you eat, but respecting the effort behind it creates a healthier food culture.” Be open to being surprised, and as Zacharias says, “don’t reduce every dish to whether it matches your personal memory of it. 

• Practice respect. Towards everyone.

This not only means the head and sous chefs, but also the restaurant’s staff, time, reservations, and rules. A restaurant is an “ecosystem of labour,” and one diner alone does not reserve the right to disrupt or disrespect any of it. 

• Remember, food is also a craft. It deserves care.

“Being a better diner doesn’t mean becoming serious or joyless. It means eating with pleasure, but also with attention. That attention can change everything,” says Chef Zacharias. Every chef takes a step toward vulnerability when preparing, plating, and serving food, and that’s worth remembering while eating out.

• Constructive criticism is not the same as passing judgment.

A customer may not “always” be right. There’s a way to present a question or a complaint, and entertaining rudeness is not a part of the syllabus of hospitality! Mistakes are always made (at both ends), but maintaining dignity remains paramount. 

• The choices we make as diners shape what survives. 

It’s the basic economic rule of supply and demand. A higher demand boosts supply, and the same applies to the culinary industry. “If we only reward novelty, that is what restaurants will chase. If we reward depth, seasonality, regionality, fairness, and honesty, we create more room for those values in the food world,” explains Chef Zacharias.

• Do your homework before you show up.

A little research goes a long way, and not just for knowing what’s on the menu. Chef Mehrotra’s advice is straightforward: “Wherever you are planning to go, make sure you research the spot so you don’t get unexpected surprises or demand something which is not there and then feel embarrassed about it.” And the principle scales up well beyond the obvious: understanding a restaurant’s philosophy, its cuisine, and its format prepares you to actually engage with it.

• Nobody is always right—including the customer

According to Chef Chandra, “In fact, no one is always right—neither the customer, nor the ones behind the counter. If something goes wrong, and it often does, there’s always something called service recovery where we work hard enough to work on when we have erred. Acting like a customer owns the place is not customary. It’s simply entitlement.”

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