Why couldn’t Mumbai have been like Dubai? Why do Indians who struggle within the Indian system suddenly shine so brightly when they go to Dubai and take advantage of the opportunities the city offers?

For instance there has recently been a huge hooh-ha about Butter Chicken ice cream. The sudden surge of interest and the many polarising responses that followed the posting of a video on Instagram ...

Well, no, for several reasons. First, President Murmu has gone public in a way that no president in history (at least none that I can recall) ever has. Generally, such conflicts are kept out of public ...

There is much to learn from Dubai. It faced a situation over which it had no control and where attacks could come at any time. But it coped magnificently because of the quality of its leadership.

I always judge Dum Pukth-style restaurants on the basis of three dishes: mutton biryani, Kakori Kabab and yellow dal (not the Bukhara black dal that everyone now copies.) In my experience the ITC ...

Bukhara, which will begin celebrating its 45th anniversary this weekend, is now the most famous Indian restaurant in the world. Nearly every US President since Bill Clinton has eaten Bukhara’s food.

What do you suppose is India’s favourite bottled sauce? If you answered ‘tomato ketchup’ you would probably be right. But despite the current sauce boom and the growing popularity of mayonnaise, I ...

If you have been following the furore over the price of tomatoes, you will note that reporters and political analysts often refer to tomatoes as a basic staple of Indian cooking and the food of the ...

When does a cuisine become truly international? My guess is that the tipping point comes when a cuisine’s dishes and techniques are so widely accepted that anyone, anywhere in the world, no matter ...

Did the gatekeepers at the AI Summit decide that they needed to be Gatekeepers? Was Bill Gates told that he would not be welcome at a Summit that is already reeling from controversy after controversy?

The first time I had an authentic Peking Duck in India was at the Great Wall restaurant at the Leela Palace in Mumbai twenty years ago. I was having lunch with Captain CP Krishnan Nair, the Leela ...

For reasons that are not entirely clear to me, my X feed is full of people discussing ‘hacks’ on how to get access to a hotel breakfast buffet without paying for it. Inevitably there are others ...