The festive season is here — and with it, a new culinary language that’s rewriting the rules of tradition. Move over, heavy silver thalis stacked with predictable favourites. This season, India’s top chefs and catering artists are plating nostalgia with a modern twist — think inventive, indulgent, and unapologetically chic.
Welcome to the new-age festive menu — where heirloom recipes meet haute gastronomy. The idea isn’t to abandon tradition, but to elevate it. Imagine ghee-roasted makhana tossed with truffle oil, payasam laced with sea salt caramel, or chaats served in martini glasses, layered with textures and memories. It’s comfort food with couture confidence.
Across India’s wedding circuit and intimate festive dinners, the trend is unmistakable — heritage, but make it gourmet. Menus are being curated with seasonal ingredients, slow-cooked techniques, and global influences. Chefs are bringing back forgotten grains and home-style masalas, but pairing them with microgreens, edible flowers, and an artful plating aesthetic worthy of a Michelin kitchen.
At Jaipur’s palace soirées, you’ll find avocado khandvi canapés and rose petal risottos; in Mumbai’s high-society homes, a gold-dusted shrikhand parfait might share space with burrata puris. Every course feels like a conversation between past and present — where your nani’s recipes whisper through the modern flair of molecular gastronomy.
Sombir Chaudary, Co-founder of Kalpaney and The Jamming Goat by Kompany Hospitality says,
From the very beginning, Kalpaney was imagined as a space that could celebrate vegetarian food in new ways — rooted in Indian flavours, but layered with a global lens. So when it comes to festive menus, our approach is simple: how do we take something you’ve grown up with and make it just surprising enough to feel special again? For us festive dining is about nostalgia, care, and balance. That’s why every dish we put on the menu goes through rounds of trial and error until we decide to put it on the menu.
Take our Makhana Corn Chaat with Coriander Sprig, for instance, it’s inspired by the deep-rooted cultural and spiritual significance of makhana, which is considered pure, sattvic, and auspicious during fasting and traditionally enjoyed in sweets like makhana kheer or simply roasted for snacking, we reimagined it as a classic street-style chaat, Just spiced roasted makhana, creamy yoghurt, pomegranate pearls, and sweet corn. It’s light, festive, and full of flavour.
In a country like India, there’s always something to celebrate, festivals, weddings, rituals, seasons, even just the joy of gathering. With so many cultures and occasions woven into our daily lives, festive food doesn’t need to feel foreign or overworked. Instead, we try to bring something that feels culturally familiar, but still sparks curiosity. Something you recognise, but haven’t tasted quite like this before, like our Undhiyo Thepla Tacos which is a Gujarati-Mexican crossover bringing together two cultural icons Undhiyo, the slow-cooked celebration of seasonal vegetables and thepla that feels both festive and fresh. We made a festive special undhiyu with raw banana, sweet potato, arbi and peanuts in a coconut-peanut masala chutney and wrapped it in soft theplas, served with mint sour cream. It’s playful, but deeply personal, a reminder that festive food can evolve without losing what makes it feel like home.
It’s not just food; it’s storytelling. Each bite celebrates how Indian cuisine can evolve without losing its soul — because luxury, today, is deeply rooted in authenticity.
So, as the lights glow brighter and the season of togetherness unfolds, swap that predictable thali for a tasting menu that makes you rethink what festive indulgence really tastes like. After all, the future of feasting looks deliciously reinvented — and we’re here for every modern morsel of it.
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