For a generation of Indian diners that casually debates the merits of regional Japanese ramen styles and knows the difference between pho and laksa, it’s easy to forget that not too long ago, most “Asian food” in India existed under one giant, vaguely soy-sauce-coloured umbrella. Back in the early 2010s, specialised Asian restaurants were still relatively uncommon outside luxury hotels, and the idea of an entire restaurant dedicated solely to Burmese cuisine felt, at best, niche and, at worst, commercially risky.
And yet, that’s exactly what Burma Burma decided to do.
Before the restaurant opened its doors in 2014, Burmese food in India was essentially a blank page. That changed when a third-generation restaurateur, shaped by a family that had lived in Burma for over two decades, decided to turn a personal food heritage into a public one.
Started as what co-founder Ankit Gupta calls a “passion project,” Burma Burma emerged from a desire to showcase “the dishes and beverages (he) grew up eating at home and make Burmese cuisine accessible to a wider audience.” At a time when most restaurants leaned heavily on more palatable, familiar menus, Burma Burma took the opposite route, introducing diners to fermented tea leaf salads, delicate noodle soups, tribal Burmese recipes, and ingredient-led cooking rooted in the culinary traditions of Myanmar.
The timing, as Gupta admits, worked in their favour. “India was at a turning point where people were beginning to explore more specialised and regional international cuisines rather than sticking to generic offerings,” he says.
What began as a series of sold-out pop-ups became India’s first Burmese-only restaurant. And twelve years, 21 locations, and eight cities later, Burma Burma has done something rare in the Indian food industry: it has made an entirely unfamiliar cuisine feel like it was always meant to be here.
In a conversation with Outlook Traveller Eats, co-founder Ankit Gupta breaks down the recipe for a successful restaurant and more.
Scaling A Cuisine Most People Had Never Tried Before
Burma Burma didn’t begin with a business plan. It began, as Ankit Gupta tells it, with food he grew up eating at home. His family had lived in Burma for 20–25 years, and that immersion gave him something most restaurateurs spend careers trying to manufacture—a genuine, lived fluency in a cuisine. “It felt natural to build something around the food I had grown up eating at home,” he says. “This connection gave me access to authentic ingredients, an understanding of food habits and an appreciation for the nuances of Burmese food.”
Before there was a restaurant, Burma Burma was a series of pop-ups across the country planned with more passion than ambition. However, many sold out and received a response that surprised even Gupta. That validation, he says, was what made the leap to a full-fledged casual dining restaurant feel less like a risk and more like an inevitability.
After opening its first-ever outpost in Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda, it was clear that Indians were loving Burmese cuisine. However, scaling any restaurant is hard. Scaling one built around a cuisine that most of your potential customers have never encountered is something else entirely.
When Burma Burma decided to expand beyond its first location, Gupta was acutely aware of what was at stake. “Expanding a restaurant always brings up the question of consistency—in food, service, and the overall experience,” he says. “In India especially, comparisons happen very quickly.” The stakes were higher than usual: Burma Burma wasn’t just protecting a dining experience; it was protecting the entire Indian public’s first impression of a cuisine. Get it wrong in one city, and you’d potentially set Burmese food back by years.
So they moved slowly and deliberately. Before a second restaurant opened in Delhi, nearly two years had passed. The core team—including co-founder Chirag Chhajer himself—relocated to the city for six months, working through every detail from fit-outs to staff training. That caution has since been institutionalised in sourcing ingredients, maintaining quality, and the restaurant’s operations. In fact, a new dish takes five to six months from discovery to reserving a permanent spot on the menu!
Twelve years and 21 locations in, that patience appears to have been the point all along.
The Ingredients, Techniques, And Traditions Behind Burma Burma
When Burma Burma first opened, the menu drew almost entirely from street food. Formal restaurant culture had never been especially prominent in Burma, and so the early offering reflected what Gupta had grown up with. Dishes eaten at home, at roadside stalls, in the kind of everyday settings where Burmese food has always lived most comfortably.
Twelve years on, that menu looks considerably different. It now reaches into territory that required years of deliberate excavation with heirloom recipes gathered from homes and communities across Burma, tribal cuisine, hyper-regional variations from different parts of the country, and dishes that carry the influence of migration patterns.
The line Burma Burma draws for itself is strict. While innovation is permitted, it must originate from within Burma—the city, not the restaurant.
“If a new interpretation or idea aligns with the cuisine and its authenticity, we adopt it. However, we remain strictly a Burmese restaurant. We don’t experiment with fusion or non-Burmese elements, as that would defeat the original purpose of celebrating Burmese food and culture,” says Gupta.
Burma Burma Is Here To Stay!
Ankit Gupta doesn’t dwell on milestones. “We don’t really look at numbers like 12 or 15 years,” he says, “but the impact that it has been able to make on the foodscape of India and its dining out scene.”
That impact is, at this point, difficult to overstate. Burma Burma arrived at a moment when an entire cuisine had no presence in India’s restaurant landscape and ended up becoming a pioneer in introducing audiences to a cuisine they had never experienced before.
The philosophy that got them here is almost disarmingly simple. Product before location and patience before expansion. Authenticity before ambition. “Long-term success always comes down to quality, consistency, and the people behind it,” Gupta says.
For him personally, what has kept it meaningful across nearly two decades in the industry is something more immediate than legacy or scale. “Watching guests discover Burmese food and appreciate its uniqueness is deeply rewarding.” It’s the same impulse that started the pop-ups, that drove the sold-out early events, that eventually became a restaurant.
When visiting, don’t forget to try their iconic Khao Suey—it might just be life changing.
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