Mumbai’s Masque Turns A Decade Old In An All-New Avatar

Masque celebrates its 10th birthday with a revamped space and an all-new tasting menu

Contributed By

Aanchal Poddar

04 October 2026 05:44 PM

Chef Varun Totlani and Founder Aditi Dugar are the forces behind Masque

In March this year, I found myself inside Masque’s kitchen, relishing Chef Varun Totlani’s kakigori-inspired take on the Gola. It was the final course of his 10-course tasting menu which was an ode to Mumbai. For this course, he invited us, the guests, inside the restaurant’s kitchen and prepared the cold desert right in front of us.

He topped a salad of mulberries and grapes with a foam prepared using Kolkata’s Gondhoraj lime. The dessert was finished with shaved ice (like in kakigori) and a house-made mulberry syrup. “Polish it as soon as you can. You are competing with ice that will melt in a jiffy,” said Totlani.

He has been the man helming the kitchen at one of India’s most celebrated fine-dine restaurants since 2022. Founded by Aditi Dugar, Masque opened in 2016 as India’s first tasting-menu-only restaurant. Over the last decade, it has brought back laurels to the country by placing India on the global culinary map. The restaurant has ranked six times on the list of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants and was awarded the Art of Hospitality Award, this year.

Masque’s All New Avatar

When I asked Dugar about the restaurant’s biggest achievement in the past decade, she pointed to the relationships and community Masque has built over the past ten years. “In the early years of the restaurant, everyone was taking a chance with us just to create something that India had never seen before,” she said. Mentioning diners, international chefs, and those from local communities who became part of Masque’s family, she credited them as the most important part of the restaurant’s journey.

Talking about the changes Masque has undergone as part of adopting an all-new avatar on its 10th birthday, Dugar said, “It is likely that you don’t recognise the space except that we have retained the Rathin Barman installation.” To create a more intimate dining room, the restaurant has been revamped, and seating capacity has been reduced. This is meant to ensure that every plate that flies out of Masque’s kitchen comes with greater attention to detail and flavour, something they have already been well known for. “Today, we want to be better than yesterday. More covers means less time spent refining every plate,” said Chef Totlani.

Best restaurants in India — Dishes from Masque’s all-new tasting menu

Talking about the new tasting menu, he emphasised that it is rooted in Masque’s philosophy of highlighting Indian produce while presenting ingredients in a unique, one-of-a-kind plate. “Along with using rare and lesser-known ingredients, we use everyday ones and treat them differently through various techniques. The menu also celebrates the idea of achaar, chutney, and other condiments that accompany our food,” he said.

One highlight from the new menu is the Bombil Papad, which features the iconic Bombay Duck pressed into a waffle press and converted into a crispy papad. The fish (except the head), which is generally considered a cheap variety and not enjoyed by many, is turned into a waffle. Totlani’s favourite ingredient, corn, also shows up on the menu (like always). “We are doing a corn bhajiya/bonda/pakoda along with a corn chai, which also featured on our previous menu and has somewhat become a signature dish for Masque,” said Totlani.

The star chef also mentioned the yoghurt and citrus dessert, which features yoghurt, Gondhoraj lime, and Narthangai, a traditional South Indian sun-dried, salted citron. When I asked both Dugar and Totlani what the next decade holds for the restaurant, both said, “We only want to do better.”

“If the rumours are true, then am also definitely eyeing that star,” Totlani added.

While the restaurant is now ten and all set to win hearts with a revamped space and a new tasting menu, it would be a disservice not to look back at its journey of becoming one of the county’s most innovative and consistent restaurants.

The Journey Of Masque

Best restaurants in Mumbai — Masque, Mumbai turns 10

After helping her mother with her catering business and formalising it under Sage & Saffron, Dugar gained insights into restaurants and hospitality through her travels and dining experiences at restaurants across the world.

That led her and her partner, Aditya Dugar, to observe a gap in the Indian market: a lack of a standalone fine-dining restaurant. That discovery led to the inception of Masque, with Chef Prateek Sandhu heading the kitchen until 2022, when Chef Totlani took over. “Our aim was to spotlight India’s produce that we seasonally enjoyed in our own homes but never found a place in a formal restaurant setting,” said Dugar.

The restaurant’s approach to food evolved over the years. It started as a cuisine-agnostic, ingredient-forward restaurant, then became one driven by the chef’s stories, with Sandhu bringing Himalayan ingredients to the plate, and finally became an Indian restaurant telling the India story through the country’s produce. “Ten years ago, everyone thought we would fail, but we were sure to keep evolving, experimenting, and never feeling comfortable in our shoes,” added Dugar.

She mentioned that Masque’s journey has been one of discovering local bounty within our country’s borders.

She recounted instances when they had flown in a kitchen team member to Kashmir to execute a course during their collaboration with Eleven Madison Park (EMP). “The EMP team required the carrot with the root and stock, and since most carrot after harvest goes into cold storage, we had to send someone to Kashmir so they could pick it up right after harvest,” she said.

Another standout feature of the restaurant that I had a chance to explore was the Masque lab. From their koji box to a wall lined with jars fermenting and storing ingredients from across the country, the Masque lab is an extension of everything that happens inside the restaurant’s kitchen. When I asked Dugar why they decided to start the lab, she mentioned that it was a way for them to store and experiment with ingredients they were making a great effort to acquire from across the country. “Most of these ingredients had a shorter shelf life, so we wanted to do the R&D to understand how we could incorporate them in our dishes over a longer period of time,” she added.

Wishes to the restaurant and its team to serve many more incredible plates, surprise us with ingredients we didn’t know existed, and continue making the country proud! Here’s to another decade of many more occasions to walk into the Masque kitchen and eat dessert before the ice melts.

Happy 10th birthday, Masque!

Also read: Is The Michelin Guide Finally Setting Foot In India?

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