New Delhi: Indian restaurants have long been missing from the upper end of global dining rankings, but that has changed this year. Two of them, Masque
in Mumbai and NAAR in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, have made it to The World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026 list, the first time India has had two entries in the top 50. Masque is placed at No. 26, while NAAR enters at No. 49. The results were announced at a ceremony in Lima, Peru, on November 4.
India’s last appearance in the top 50 was in 2004, when Bukhara in New Delhi made the list. The two kitchens take very different routes, with one looking across the country’s regional pantries and the other cooking from the Himalayan landscape. Read on to know what sets each restaurant apart and where India stands on the global list.
What sets Masque and NAAR apart
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Masque Mumbai
Masque occupies a restored textile mill in Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi area and opened its doors in 2016. Aditi Dugar founded it, and the kitchen is now run by chef Varun Totlani, who joined in the early days and took over as head chef in 2022. The restaurant serves a seasonal, multi-course tasting menu built on Indian ingredients that are well known in their home regions but rarely seen in fine dining. One dish is a bhel that pairs Goan seaweed with ponkh, a young sorghum from Gujarat. Another is inspired by pachi pulusu, a raw tamarind stew from Andhra Pradesh.
Its global rise has been steady. Masque won the American Express One To Watch Award in 2020, joined Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list from 2021 and stood at No. 68 on the extended global list in 2025, before jumping to No. 26 this year.
NAAR Kasauli
In Kasauli, chef Prateek Sadhu has shaped NAAR around the produce and food traditions of the Himalayas, and its menu changes with the landscape through the year. The kitchen follows a calendar of six Himalayan seasons, buys from local farmers and foragers, and relies on preservation methods that mountain communities use to make seasonal produce last. A Himachali pancake called patande, stuffed with lingru, an edible fiddlehead fern, shows the approach. The fern was found on a foraging trip.
NAAR sustainability award
NAAR also won The World’s 50 Best Sustainable Restaurant Award 2026 for its sourcing, community work and efforts to cut waste. The kitchen puts food scraps to use and preserves ingredients with hardwood ash, among other traditional techniques. Its profile has grown beyond the hills too. Earlier this year, it designed the menu for a state banquet hosted by President Droupadi Murmu for European Council President António Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2026 list
The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list began in 2002. Its rankings are decided by an academy of over 1,100 chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and other dining experts from 28 regions, who can vote only for restaurants they have visited in the past 18 months. This year, Spain’s Asador Etxebarri took the top spot, followed by Bangkok’s Gaggan at No. 2 and Copenhagen’s Alchemist at No. 3. Gaggan was also named The Best Restaurant in Asia.
Indian restaurants on the list
Indian cooking showed up elsewhere on the list as well. Dubai’s Trèsind Studio, led by chef Himanshu Saini, ranked 28th, while Gaggan, founded by Kolkata-born chef Gaggan Anand, stayed among the leaders.
For India, the 2026 list is notable because Masque and NAAR are both based in the country. Together, they show two ways of approaching modern Indian food, one drawing from regional kitchens across the country and the other from the produce and seasons of a single mountain region.
