Chef Manu Chandra on fine dining, storytelling fatigue, and what luxury really means today

Manu Chandra has long been regarded as one of India’s most influential chefs—an innovator who brought the gastropub to the country, introduced open-faced baos before they became mainstream, and led the revival of gin culture. Over the last two decades, his work has consistently challenged perceptions of what dining out in India could look like. He is the brain behind award-winning restaurant brands such as Toast & Tonic, Monkey Bar, The Fatty Bao, Olive Beach, and Cantan, and in early 2023, he launched LUPA, a stunning standalone restaurant in the heart of Bengaluru’s MG Road. Named after the mythological Roman she-wolf La Lupa, the space is a celebration of European cuisine with global inflexions and Indian roots.

LUPA represents Chandra’s culinary philosophy—one that prizes thoughtfulness over spectacle and local excellence over imported indulgence. In conversation with Harper’s Bazaar India, he gets candid about the meaning of luxury today, the future of fine dining, and why storytelling needs to know when to stop.

What does fine dining really mean in 2025?

It is the question that has shaped everything at LUPA, and one that Chandra answers with remarkable clarity. “Fine dining was never about feeding the hungry—it was always about the experience,” Chandra begins. For many years, he believes, opulence defined this experience: “grandiosity, multiple touchpoints, silverware, fabric, finesse.” But global influences, especially from Spain and the Nordic countries, pushed the envelope. "Spain was doing 50-course meals on a cliff-side. The New Nordic movement was all about scarcity and minimalism. These places didn’t look grand, but every detail was considered. That became the new benchmark,” says Chandra, who travelled to Norway in 2002, to work with Michelin-starred Chef Eyvind Hellstrøm at Bagatelle—well before Nordic cuisine came to be acknowledged globally.

Chandra acknowledges that while French luxury dining remains unchanged—with its “impeccably dressed waiters and royalty-style interiors”—the landscape today allows for both extremes. And LUPA lives somewhere in the middle. “I want LUPA to feel stunning, but never intimidating. The service needs to be flawless and the tableware thoughtful, but guests should feel comfortable enough to return.”

For Chandra, the real essence of luxury is in restraint. “I could easily buy frozen smoked salmon, pre-sliced, and serve it,” he says. “But I won’t. I smoke it myself because I know guests will taste the difference. That’s what fine dining is—it’s effort, energy, and intention.”

Can fine dining be sustainable?

Fine-dining establishments can be many things—aspirational, immersive, theatrical, even deeply personal. But can they be truly sustainable? Chandra doesn’t shy away from answering. “Restaurants, by nature, are not very sustainable,” he says plainly. He’s also wary of sustainability being reduced to branding. “The whole concept is still used as a marketing tool by restaurants that want to feel good about themselves. Using coffee grounds to grow herbs or placing them in a little pot on a table doesn’t offset everything. Let’s not fool ourselves.”

That said, Chandra, is not cynical about incremental progress. “We do what we can. We’re a very green space, reliant on natural materiality. We keep the temperature at a certain level, we don’t generate too much waste. We have water-recycling units, solar panels… but is that ever enough to offset? No. It’s a step in the right direction. But will it amount to a huge change with regards to the way the planet behaves? Unlikely.”

The overkill of storytelling

Fine dining today often comes with a side of storytelling—sometimes more than needed. Chandra views this growing need to explain every element of a dish with some scepticism. “Storytelling has become very important. You see it everywhere,” he says. “People go to fancy restaurants and someone is explaining a lot about the dish—what the chef did, what inspired it. I’ve been seeing it for a long time. There’s a place for it. But it’s become too much.”

For Chandra, a meal should be immersive, not intrusive. “I’ve gone for a nice meal, and I’m willing to listen to a point. But you don’t want your evening to become all about hearing someone talk, instead of spending time with the people you’ve come with. It can be very distracting.”

He believes that the best restaurants know how to read the room. “Some places, that are seasoned, have been able to find the sweet spot—they know which table wants to be engaged and which doesn’t. But many just don’t get the brief and go on and on. It’s the same at the bar—even the cocktail is explained. The drink’s already warm by the time the story is done.”

This obsession with overexplaining, he feels, misses the point. “This race to overcomplicate everything isn’t healthy. It’s not what defines fine dining, and it’s not going to be long-lasting.”

Design, music, pacing—The invisible details

Are music, design, or even the pacing of service as integral to fine dining as the food itself? Chandra believes they are. For him, fine dining isn't just about what’s on the plate—it’s about the world around it. “The weight of the cutlery matters, the comfort of the chair matters,” he says. “I can’t call myself fine dining if I don’t have other benchmarks at play.” At LUPA, every detail is deliberate. The ambience, the music, and the rhythm of the meal are all carefully orchestrated. “Fine dining is about exposure, perspective, and a sense of self,” he adds.

Chandra also challenges how narrowly the term is defined in India. “Break it down yourself—the top 15 to 20 fine dining restaurants and their seating. In a country of 1.6 billion, 150 to 200 seats on any given night is what’s considered fine dining? Absolutely not,” he says. “Sure, they’re doing a phenomenal job. But it’s time to widen perspectives—because there is so much more,” says Chandra.

Success and simplicity

For Chandra, success isn’t about Michelin stars or magazine covers—it’s something far more personal. “Validation isn’t only through awards,” he says. “For me, validation is seeing a happy child at the restaurant who tells his mother that we need to come again. And the grandmother is saying the same thing. Am I trying to be someone for everybody? There’s no harm in that.”

And while industry recognition has come his way—he was named one of India’s top 10 chefs in 2021 by Culinary Culture, a venture by Vir Sanghvi—Chandra continues to place greater value on the quiet consistency of repeat guests. 

After two decades of shaping the Indian dining scene, Chandra’s focus has shifted. Now, intention, instead of invention excites him. “Sure, I put my iterations and may have combined things that didn’t exist before, but at a fundamental level, I haven’t created food; I’m just a good marketer. And that process excites me,” he says.

He believes the future of fine dining lies not in theatrics or complexity, but in stripping things down. “I wanted to go back to basics. That is the future of fine dining. It will stand true. The world will want to be a simpler place. We’re returning to simplicity in every field, and food will be a part of it.”

And maybe that, more than anything else, is what defines fine dining in 2025—not the chandeliers or the cutlery, but the quiet desire to return.

All images: The brand

 

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