Adrift Kaya Marks 4 Years With A Dual Dining Format Led By Chef David Myers

One of Delhi’s finest Japanese Izakayas, Adrift Kaya, recently celebrated four years of serving in the capital with a carefully constructed dining programme that brought together two distinct dining formats to the country, anchored by Michelin-starred chef David Myers.

The experience featured a new cocktail programme and two contrasting service styles—one high-energy and immersive, and the other rather composed and sequential. Spearheaded by Myers, these two formats have rarely been presented together in a single restaurant. The result was a rare format in which mixology and culinary genius operated in tandem over two consecutive, culinarily charged days.

A Cocktail Programme Built as a Narrative

At the centre of the four-year celebration was Adrift Kaya’s newly developed cocktail menu, designed not as a collection of standalone drinks but as a process that unfolds step by step.

Drawing from Japanese bartending in the Edo period, this menu traces a journey along the Silk Route into India, mapping how ingredients, flavours and techniques travel across geographies.

Following a chapter-led approach, the menu moves from the clarity of a drink to its density. Accordingly, each subsection examines the impact of geography (trade routes, altitude, or migration) on the development of flavour. This includes techniques such as fat-washing, broth clarification, and fermentation, which tend to translate Indian ingredients like jaggery, buransh, pickle, and kahwa into a more calibrated version.

The opening chapters focus on umami-driven profiles. Drinks such as Broth of Edo reinterpret the depth of ramen through brown-butter fat-washed whisky and clarified broth, creating a clean and layered expression. Grain of the Rising Sun uses rice vodka and umeshu to reflect the agricultural foundations of Japanese flavour systems.

Moving outwards on the map, the Silk Route chapter is all about richness. Cocktails like Sunstone Negroni, with Japanese gin, apricot and saffron, and Silk Root, with carrot and tepache, explore how far flavour density can be emphasised while retaining clarity.

Meanwhile, in the Himalayan chapter, the approach shifts towards reduction and restraint. Drinks such as Garhwal Snow and Valley of Gold use buransh, honey, kahwa, saffron, and almonds for a rather herbal, acidic flavour. And the final chapter arrives in Delhi, where drinks like The Red Fort Old Fashioned and Dilli 6 Spritz reinterpret jaggery, pickle, and spice.

As India’s cocktail landscape continues to evolve, this new programme is all about a collective move towards international calibration while retaining a connection to what’s sacred to the local. 

Format One: Kaya After Dark

On May 1, the restaurant introduced a bar-focused Kaya Late experience. The evening was lively and interactive, with a flying buffet and dishes passed around to guests.

One of the evening’s highlights was the Tuna Cutting Ceremony (Kaitai-show), a traditional Japanese butchery ritual. This event, rarely seen at this scale in India, shaped the menu, with the fresh cuts going straight from preparation to the table. The temaki bar also featured top-quality ingredients such as toro, botan ebi, and spicy tuna, along with vegetarian options made with tofu and seasonal produce.

The experience also included a tuna maki roll workshop led by Chef Vladimir, a much-needed interactive part of the evening. The menu featured raw and composed ingredients, including salmon belly tartare, sashimi selections, seasonal nigiri, and Kaya’s signature maki rolls. 

The progression concluded on a sweet note, with a dessert selection focused particularly on mochi—a Japanese favourite, for good reason. The flavours ranged from matcha and yuzu to seasonal fruit.

Format Two: A Five-Course Tasting with Chef David Myers

The second evening transitioned into a seated, course-led format under the direction of Chef Myers. Structured as a five-course tasting menu, the meal began with delicacies such as bincho lobster with wasabi and shiso, chutoro with caviar on brioche, and confit duck gyoza paired with lime pickle. Later came courses like konbu-cured snapper with blood orange and lobster tempura served with truffle yuzu ponzu, followed by Temaki. 

The later courses introduced the more robust mains, with highlights including uni spaghetti with soy butter and duck marinated in sake lees, paired with spiced cherries.

While the non-vegetarian menu was authored by Chef Myers himself, its vegetarian counterpart was developed by Chef Vladimir, mirroring the same kind of structure and intent. As for the vegetarians, the menu moved quite effortlessly from lighter dishes such as cherry blossom-inflected tofu and yuzu-cured preparations to kakiage and tofu-based preparations, and culminating in plates like soba nori and grilled king oyster mushroom with matsutake jus.

The impeccable cocktails from the new programme were paired alongside the courses, designed to complement the taste, density, and ingredients of each course—much like an Izakaya is known for. 

As for interactive elements, Chef David Myers also led a matcha-whisking demonstration, using ceremonial-grade Uji matcha and traditional equipment. Considering just how matcha-obsessed the world has gotten lately, this came in at the perfect time! 

About Chef David Myers

David Myers is an American chef, restaurateur, and television personality, currently based in Los Angeles.

Myers is a chef whose work has long been shaped by movement, whether across cities, cuisines, techniques, or cultural contexts. Endearingly referred to as the “Gypsy Chef,” Myers has built a career that resists being stuck to a single geography, instead drawing from years of travel and immersion in different food cultures.

The chef initially came into the limelight when he opened Sona in Los Angeles in 2002. After the restaurant bagged a Michelin star in 2007, Myers began expanding into a global portfolio of dining destinations spanning Tokyo, Singapore, Dubai, and Hong Kong. And the only thing that remained static across these ventures? An ingredient-driven approach shaped by travel, where regional influences were reinterpreted, not replicated.

His culinary language is very informed by Japan, a country he has returned to repeatedly over the last two decades. That sustained engagement, not just as a visitor but as someone who has lived, cooked, and opened restaurants there, forms the backbone of his work. At concepts like Adrift Kaya, this translates into a modern interpretation of the izakaya: one that retains the essence of Japanese dining while allowing space for reinterpretation.

Read more: Dosa Is Among The Top 10 Contenders Of The World’s Best Pancakes

Also read: Delhi’s AABBCC Makes It To TIME Magazine’s World’s Greatest Places 2026