Chef Garima Arora A Matter Of Taste

After winning the world, our homegirl is finally back in Mumbai. Michelin star chef Garima Arora is all set to open her first restaurant in the city

- Ananya Ghosh

Chef Garima Arora, who at 32 had become the first Indian female chef to earn a Michelin star for Gaa, her modern Indian fine dining restaurant in Bangkok, is all set to open her first restaurant in the city from where she had started her culinary journey. She is starting an outpost of BANNG—the Bangkok-inspired Thai restaurant, and her first one in India, launched in 2024 in Gurugram in collaboration with Riyaaz Amlani' Impresario Handmade Restaurants—in Bandra this month. While Gaa, which has since earned one more Michelin star (in December 2023), is hailed for being among the modern fine-dining restaurants that put Indian cuisine on the Michelin map, BANNG is her tribute to Bangkok’s vibrant culinary culture. “Gaa is a fine dining restaurant; it’s a set menu where the whole experience lasts over two and a half hours. BANNG is actually the polar opposite—it’s à la carte, it is high energy, casual, and fun. They offer very different dining experiences and very different service experiences, so they are actually polar ends of the same spectrum,” says the Bangkok-based chef who hailing from a Mumbai-based Punjabi family her culinary journey had started inside the family kitchen taking inspirations from her dad’s diverse culinary skills.

We caught up with the Michelin-starred chef, restaurateur, MasterChef India [Season 7] judge, and a new mother for a freewheeling conversation. Excerpts:

Tell us something about the Mumbai chapter of BANNG. Is there anything you are doing differently from the Delhi one?

Mumbai has an entirely different energy. It’s where I grew up. In some ways, it’s even more demanding. But we took what worked in Gurgaon the flavours, the format, the soul of the space and sharpened it. In Mumbai, we were a little bolder, a little more playful. Both speak the same language, just in different tones.