The stars are aligning

With three Michelin wins, it's a big week for Indian food, and for the country's new wave of under-40 chefs and restaurateurs

- VIR SANGHVI

’Its been a good week for Indian food. Okay, I'll rephrase that. It’s been a great week; the best I can remember in a long time.

By now we are all aware that Tresind Studio in Dubai has won three stars from the Michelin guide. So yes, that is the headline this week. It is a huge and spectacular achievement. But there are other winners so let's wait a little to get to Tresind Studio.

What we might have missed in our exultation over Tresind Studio’s triumph is that Michelin added only two new restaurants to its list of one star places in Dubai. And both those newly starred restaurants have Indian chefs.

Let’s start with Jamavar, a true Indian success story. This is a brand owned by Leela hotels. The Indian Jamavars are all located at Leela properties. The Leela chain was famously founded by the late Captain CP Krishnan Nair and named after his wife Leela. After Captain Nair passed on, his sons sold the hotel company to Brookfield under whom the chain has continued to flourish and expand.

But Dinesh Nair, one of Captain Nair’s two sons, who had already made a fortune in the garment industry, retained an interest in hospitality and opened a French restaurant in one of London’s most exclusive squares. When that did not do well, he fell back on his first love, Indian food, and leased the rights to the Jamavar name (for restaurants abroad) from Leela hotels.