India’s Culinary Maverick Manish Mehrotra Begins His Next Chapter with MMCA

MMCA is set to be a platform, crafting the future of India’s culinary landscape

Indian food carries centuries of memory, flavour, and ritual, and Chef Manish Mehrotra has long been at the forefront of shaping how it is experienced today. His cooking bridges heritage and modernity, blending comfort with invention, restraint with boldness. Last year, the multi-hyphenate stepped down from his role as Culinary Director at Indian Accent. Now, with the launch of Manish Mehrotra Culinary Arts (MMCA), he begins a new chapter to create a platform rooted in mentorship, research, and the preservation of India’s culinary wisdom.

MMCA is designed not as a single restaurant - it’s conceived as a holistic platform combining immersive gastronomic experiences, mentorship, culinary research, and storytelling. He envisions crafting new dining concepts, mentoring the next generation of chefs, and using research and storytelling to protect India’s culinary heritage. Backed by co-founders Amit Khanna of Amaya Ventures and Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, the platform is being built with cultural sensitivity and cosmopolitan influences.  

Manish Mehrotra has long been hailed as the flagbearer of Modern Indian Cuisine, a chef who has reimagined the country’s foodscape without ever severing its roots. His cooking lives at the intersection of memory and innovation - where the flavors of street corners, festive kitchens, and childhood meals are elevated through global techniques and fine dining precision. He is celebrated for playful reinterpretations of tradition, with signature dishes like blue cheese naan and foie gras-stuffed galawat kebab that embody his distinctive blend of desi and global luxury. 

Mehrotra is the author of the Indian Accent Restaurant Cookbook, published in two coffee-table editions by Penguin Books, with a recent paperback edition released by Hachette Books. Mehrotra’s deep passion for his craft is matched by his in-depth knowledge of ingredients and their origins. An avid collector of cookbooks, he owns over 1,500 volumes, a reflection of his love for learning and his constant pursuit of inspiration.

The MMCA platform is more about a return to the unpolished and the unhurried. To kitchens where food was not styled for cameras but prepared with integrity. To flavors that carried the warmth of memory and the depth of culture. In a world where dining is often about trends and spectacle, Mehrotra reminds us that food is more about connection - between people, between past and present, and between culture and the world. As he says, “At its heart, MMCA is about food as a cultural narrative, connecting tradition with the world, and chefs with their craft.” 

The first restaurant under MMCA is set to open in New Delhi in late 2025, offering an exploration of grain, fire, and comfort. It will reimagine the Indian kitchen in a modern, restrained style - one that is seasonal, soulful, and uncompromising in its integrity. Mehrotra describes this debut project as quiet and purposeful, a return to food that is deeply Indian yet endlessly evolving. The platform will also launch a catering arm next year, extending its philosophy of sincerity and craft to larger celebrations. By blending memory with imagination, tradition with innovation, Chef Mehrotra’s new venture is a call to experience Indian food not as a product, but as a living story. And with MMCA, that story is only just beginning.