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4 min readFeb 4, 2026 12:14 AM IST
Chef Gaggan Anand, whose eponymous Bangkok restaurant Gaggan is a fixture on the world’s most influential dining lists — ranked No. 6 on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 and crowned No. 1 on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 — is finally coming to India.
Confirming the development, restaurateur Zorawar Kalra, who is partnering with Anand for his India debut, says, “The cat is finally out of the bag. Yes, Gaggan Anand is coming to India.”
The restaurant will be located on Janpath, in the iconic space that earlier housed Masala Library. “The restaurant there had to be shut unceremoniously in February 2018. We held on to the space for eight years, and now, finally, we will have this new restaurant there,” Kalra says, adding that discussions had been underway for nearly eight months. “It all happened by chance. I had the best meal of my life at his restaurant, and we started talking.”
While details remain under wraps, Kalra says the restaurant is expected to be ready by May or June. “I promise it will be a game-changer.”
Anand had confirmed the move himself earlier this year.
“India, maybe ten or even five years back, was not ready for me,” he said in an interview with India Today. “The way I look at food, the way I present it, I felt fine dining here would be an uphill task. I must give credit to the younger generation of chefs, such as Varun Totlani, Prateek Sadhu, Jason Ebenezer, Hussain Shahzad and Adwait Anantwar, for giving me the confidence that what I do abroad can now be done in India. Their standalone restaurants are pushing the envelope. I want to be part of this journey. I want to come back to learn, adapt and have fun.”
Who is Chef Gaggan Anand?
A trailblazer of progressive Indian cuisine, Gaggan Anand is a self-taught, instinct-driven chef who describes himself as a “chef, musician, dreamer, romantic fool, rebel, and conductor of chaos in the kitchen.” Born in Kolkata, Anand trained briefly as a drummer before entering professional kitchens, an outsider trajectory that went on to define his culinary philosophy.
He founded Gaggan in Bangkok in 2010, and the restaurant has since been named Asia’s Best Restaurant five times, radically reshaping how Indian flavours are perceived on the global fine-dining stage.
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At Gaggan, the menu changes every three months and aims to take diners on what Anand calls a multi-sensory journey, combining taste with sound, light, touch, smell and surprise. One of the courses famously requires diners to lick their plates.
“This playful culinary performance fuses bold flavours, apocryphal stories and interactive energy,” wrote the Michelin Guide while awarding it one star. “The more you participate, the more vivid and unforgettable the evening becomes.”
As of now, the Bangkok restaurant itself is undergoing another transformation. Anand shared on Instagram earlier this week that a new chapter will begin on May 29. Drawing inspiration from the concept of chakras, the reimagined Gaggan will focus on a sensory, mental and spiritual dining experience. In an earlier post he had revealed that the restaurant will become a 15-seat space, each meal will last 180 minutes, and the use of phones and cameras will not be allowed.
While Anand has staged several pop-ups in India over the years, this marks the first time he will open a permanent restaurant in the country. Whether the Delhi outpost will be an extension of Gaggan or an entirely new expression remains to be seen, and the anticipation is already high.
