Gaggan Anand - Fanning an old flame

The chef best known for his chart-topping Bangkok restaurant Gaggan is in India for a residency, serving up 25-course meals at Rs 50,000 per head. The event is sold out and wait-listed. Does that mean it's time to finally drop anchor here too, with his first restaurant in India? The diners are ready, but he wonders if the industry is

- Rachel Lopez

Over much of the past 20 days, Kolkata-born, Bangkok-based chef Gaggan Anand, has been camping out at the Delhi Hyatt hotel, with a skeletal team of 14. They've been cooking a 25-course dinner night after night, for 40 diners at a time. Prices have been set at Rs 40,000 per person; Rs 50,000 with alcohol. Yet, Anand's residency (February 18 to March 14) has been sold out. "All I can say is that the response has been phenomenal," says the 45-year-old.

The chef rose to fame after he left India for Bangkok in 2001, then interned at Spain's El Bulli, frequently listed as the top restaurant in the world in the early 2000s. He returned to Bangkok, where he paired the molecular gastronomy and progressive cooking techniques he'd learnt with Indian cuisine, at an eponymous restaurant he launched in 2010. Gaggan was consistently listed among the top restaurants in the world.

Anand has since appeared on an episode of Netflix's Chef's Table, invested in other restaurants in Thailand, and had sold-out pop-ups across Asia. His latest venture, GohGan, a fusion restaurant he runs in collaboration with the celebrated Japanese chef Takeshi "Goh" Fukuyama, opened in Fukuoka, Japan, in January.

India, however, has always been the Holy Grail. Anand's quest to win this country over to his style of cooking might now be within reach. Diners are ready, but perhaps the restaurant industry isn't, he says. Excerpts from an interview.

You've fed 800 people, each paying Rs 40,00 to Rs 50,000. Even so, you knew you'd lose money with this residency. So why do it?