PAST forward

Third-generation restaurateurs share how they're preserving legacy while keeping their brands relevant today

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Our tastes today are ruled by matcha, ube lattes, pistachio chocolate, and the 'it' restaurant of the week.

Yet, despite endless new openings, it's the classics we instinctively return to when we're looking for comfort and familiarity. Step inside some of India's oldest dining institutions and you're met with the unmistakable stamp of time and quality: the weight of wooden doors, the glow of aged chandeliers, the friendly rapport between waiters and lifelong regulars. These restaurants, some nearly a century old, are more than commercial establishments; they're repositories of culture, memory, routines, and rituals that have survived political shifts, economic cycles, changing palates and trend cycles that move at the speed of a scroll. Across India, a new cohort of third-generation custodians is balancing inherited legacy with the demands of modern diners. This is the story of three such icons and the people leading them forward.

TRINCAS, KOLKATA

If you were born and raised in Kolkata, you'd know Trincas as a household name. One of the city's most iconic establishments, Trincas began as a small tearoom in 1927 on Park Street, founded by Swiss partners Quinto Cinzio Trinca and Joseph Flury. After their split around 1939-40, the space evolved through partition, independence, and changing cultural eras before finding its stride under Om Prakash Puri and Ellis Joshua, who bought it in 1959 and reimagined it as a food, entertainment, and live-music venue. Trincas would go on to launch the careers of artists like Usha Uthup.