Every annual best-restaurants list is a small statement about the year that produced it. The 2024 Condé Nast Traveller India × Zomato Top Restaurant Awards — the fifth edition, announced 11 November 2024 in Mumbai, voted by a hundred-member jury across ten Indian regions in two rounds — made three statements at once: South India won the country, Goa is a fine-dining state now, and a single Mumbai restaurant group quietly took five of the top forty seats.
What follows is the list, the geography, and what the rankings reveal about how India eats in 2024.
The top fifty (Condé Nast Traveller India × Zomato, 2024)
| # | Restaurant | City / Area | Chef / Operator | Cuisine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avartana | ITC Grand Chola, Chennai | Chef Ajit Bangera | Modern South Indian |
| 2 | The Table | Colaba, Mumbai | Gauri Devidayal & Jay Yousuf | Contemporary global |
| 3 | Indian Accent | The Lodhi, New Delhi | Manish & Shantanu Mehrotra | Modern Indian |
| 4 | Masque | Mahalaxmi, Mumbai | Aditi Dugar / Varun Totlani | Farm-to-table tasting |
| 5 | Bomras | Goa | Bawmra Jap | Burmese / Asian fusion |
| 6 | Olive Bar & Kitchen | New Delhi | AD Singh / Olive Group | Mediterranean |
| 7 | NAAR | Kasauli, Himachal | Chef Prateek Sadhu | Modern Himalayan |
| 8 | Cavatina | Benaulim, Goa | Chef Avinash Martins | Goan / seafood |
| 9 | Bandra Born | Bandra, Mumbai | Hunger Inc | Goan / coastal Indian |
| 10 | Izumi Assagao | Assagao, Goa | Chef Nooresha Kably | Japanese |
| 11 | Petisco | Anjuna, Goa | Chef Aman Singh | Spanish / seafood |
| 12 | Mizu Izakaya | Bandra, Mumbai | Lavinia Pereira / Trupti Nayak | Japanese izakaya |
| 13 | Wasabi by Morimoto | Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai | Morimoto group | Japanese |
| 14 | INJA | New Delhi | Adwait Anantwar & Inácio Mendes | Indian-Japanese |
| 15 | Hosa | Siolim, Goa | Suresh DC | South Indian / Goan |
| 16 | Avo's Kitchen | Goa | Chef Avelino "Avo" Carr | Modern Goan |
| 17 | Naru Noodle Bar | Bengaluru | Chef Kavan Kuttappa | Ramen / noodle bar |
| 18 | Megu | The Leela Palace, New Delhi | Leela team | Japanese |
| 19 | O Pedro | BKC, Mumbai | Hunger Inc / Hussain Shahzad | Goan-Portuguese |
| 20 | Wabi Sabi | The Oberoi, Bengaluru | Oberoi team | Japanese |
| 21 | Seefah | Khar, Mumbai | Chef Seefah Ketchaiyo | Thai |
| 22 | Americana | Lower Parel, Mumbai | Pass Code Hospitality | American |
| 23 | The Glenburn Penthouse | Kolkata | Glenburn team | Multi-cuisine |
| 24 | La Loca Maria | Pali Hill, Bandra, Mumbai | Chef Manuel Olveira | Modern Spanish |
| 25 | The Bombay Canteen | Lower Parel, Mumbai | Hunger Inc / Hussain Shahzad | Regional Indian |
| 26 | Comorin | Gurugram | Manish Mehrotra & Rohit Khattar | Pan-Indian small plates |
| 27 | Naru / Navu | Bengaluru | Chef Akhil Kashyap | Modern Indian |
| 28 | Manam Chocolate Karkhana | Hyderabad | Chaitanya Muppala | Bean-to-bar chocolate |
| 29 | Tres | Lodhi, New Delhi | Jatin Mallick & Julia Carmen Desa | Contemporary European |
| 30 | Izumi Bandra | Mumbai | Chef Nooresha Kably | Japanese / omakase |
| 31 | Lupa | Bengaluru | Manu Chandra & Chetan Rampal | Modern Italian |
| 32 | Bengaluru Oota Company | Bengaluru | Sridevi & Krishna Gowda | Karnataka home food |
| 33 | Prasa Prazeres | Goa | Chef-in-residence | Goan tasting |
| 34 | The Second House | Goa | Chef Christianno Brigado | Goan-modern |
| 35 | Baan Thai | The Oberoi Grand, Kolkata | Oberoi team | Thai |
| 36 | Veronica's | Bandra, Mumbai | Hunger Inc | Sandwich shop / deli |
| 37 | Slow Tide | Morjim, Goa | Chef Pablo Naranjo | Mediterranean-seafood |
| 38 | Chinoiserie | Taj Bengal, Kolkata | Taj in-house | Cantonese |
| 39 | Karavalli | Vivanta Residency Road, Bengaluru | Chef Naren Thimmaiah | Coastal South Indian |
| 40 | Bar Spirit Forward | Bengaluru | Arijit Bose | Cocktail bar (food incl.) |
| 41 | Farmlore | Bengaluru (outskirts) | Mythrayie Iyer & Johnson Ebenezer | Farm-to-table tasting |
| 42 | For The Record — Vinyl Bar | Goa | Greg Bashir | Listening bar / European |
| 43 | The Johri | Jaipur | Abhishek Joshi & Siddharth Mathur | Rajasthani heritage |
| 44 | Kappa Chakka Kandhari | Chennai (also Bengaluru) | Regi Mathew & Augustine | Syrian Christian Kerala |
| 45 | Pumpkin Tales | Chennai | Chef Praveen Anand | Café / bakery |
| 46 | Amoli | Santiniketan, West Bengal | Chef Auroni Mookerjee | Bengali contemporary |
| 47 | Indian Accent (Mumbai) | BKC, Mumbai | Old World Hospitality | Modern Indian |
| 48 | Sapa Sourdough & Pastry | Mysuru | Chef Anita Sapavadia | Bakery |
| 49 | Bhawan | Gurugram | Chef Sahil Rana | Punjabi heritage |
| 50 | Ukiyo | The Ritz-Carlton, Pune | Ritz-Carlton team | Japanese |
Sources: News9 Live tabulation of the CN Traveller India × Zomato 2024 Awards; cross-referenced with Perfect Serve India, Outlook Traveller, Curly Tales, and Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025.
01 — South India wins the crown
Avartana at number one is the first time a South Indian restaurant has topped the CN Traveller list. The restaurant — inside ITC Grand Chola, Chennai, with theatrical multi-course menus called Maya (7 courses), Bela (9), Jiaa (11) and the longer Anika / Tara (13) — has a signature moment that has become the most-quoted line in Indian fine-dining writing: a rasam served in a martini glass, infused with coriander through a French press, that tastes exactly like your grandmother's rasam.
The South's win is broader than one room. Karavalli (Naren Thimmaiah's 35-year-old institution at Vivanta Residency Road, Bengaluru) is at #39. Kappa Chakka Kandhari (Regi Mathew and Augustine's Syrian Christian Kerala kitchen) at #44, with locations now in Chennai and Bengaluru. Bengaluru Oota Company (Sridevi and Krishna Gowda's single-sitting Karnataka thali, no menu, all heirloom) at #32. Naru Noodle Bar at #17. Sapa Sourdough & Pastry from Mysuru at #48. South Indian food at the fine-dining tier is no longer the regional cousin to "modern Indian." It is the genre's most confident voice.
02 — Goa is now a fine-dining state, not a beach state
Ten restaurants on the list of fifty are in Goa: Bomras (#5), Cavatina (#8), Izumi Assagao (#10), Petisco (#11), Hosa (#15), Avo's Kitchen (#16), Prasa Prazeres (#33), The Second House (#34), Slow Tide (#37), and For The Record (#42). Every one of them is chef-owned and year-round. The seasonal-shack era of Goan fine dining is over.
The story underneath the geography: Goa has become the destination Indian operators move to to open the restaurant they couldn't open in Mumbai. Bawmra Jap (Bomras) has been there since 2008. Avinash Martins (Cavatina) is the chef bringing Goan into fine-dining grammar. Greg Bashir's For The Record is India's first proper vinyl listening bar. Pablo Naranjo's Slow Tide is beachfront European-coastal at a level Mumbai's coastline is structurally too compromised to deliver.
03 — Mumbai still leads on volume — but the centre of gravity has moved
Mumbai's count: thirteen restaurants on the list. The Table (#2), Masque (#4), Bandra Born (#9), Mizu Izakaya (#12), Wasabi by Morimoto (#13), O Pedro (#19), Seefah (#21), Americana (#22), La Loca Maria (#24), The Bombay Canteen (#25), Izumi Bandra (#30), Veronica's (#36), Indian Accent BKC (#47). Plus Papa's on the Asia's 50 Best extended list (#66, 2025) but absent from this specific CN Traveller cut — a list quirk worth noting.
Mumbai's count is the largest single-city total, but the headline rank is in Chennai. The first-place restaurant being South Indian, not Mumbai-modern-global, is the structural read.
04 — Hunger Inc has built India's first restaurant group with critical mass
Five entries on a top-fifty list from a single restaurant group: Bombay Canteen (#25), O Pedro (#19), Bandra Born (#9), Veronica's (#36), and the bistro-bakery family extensions in spirit. Plus Papa's — Hussain Shahzad's 12-seater chef's counter above Veronica's — on the Asia's 50 Best extended list. No other restaurant group in India has held this share on a major editorial list.
The architecture underneath: Sameer Seth and Yash Bhanage's restaurant group, founded with Floyd Cardoz, now run with Hussain Shahzad as the chef-auteur layer (a year at Eleven Madison Park before returning to lead the kitchens). Five distinct brands, one operating culture, a coherent design language across all of them. It is, for now, the only Indian restaurant group with a recognisable in-house identity at the level of an international restaurant group.
05 — The chef's-counter, tasting-menu format has gone mainstream
Papa's (12 seats, 12 courses, reservations open the 1st of every month at 11am IST, sold out by 11:03), Naar (16 seats, 6 seasonal menus), Avartana's 13-course Anika and Tara, Masque's 10-course farm-to-table, Farmlore's farm-counter, Ekaa's 20-course (Niyati Rao, on the Asia 50 Best extended list).
Five years ago India had perhaps two functioning tasting-menu restaurants. In 2024 it has fifteen. The economics work because the format is unit-cap small (10-16 seats), unit-margin high (₹4,500-13,000 per cover), and the brand-equity yield per seat is higher than any other restaurant format in the world.
06 — Destination dining has arrived
NAAR, sixteen seats in a 16-cover dining room in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh — a six-hour drive from Delhi. The chef is Prateek Sadhu (ex-Masque). The menu is six seasonal Himalayan tasting menus, ₹6,500-13,000 per cover. It is now booked three months out. Add Farmlore on the outskirts of Bengaluru, Amoli in Santiniketan (the first fine-dining table in Tagore country), Sapa in Mysuru, and a generation of properties in tier-2 cities that exist precisely because the city is the journey.
07 — Women chefs are central, not token
Aditi Dugar (Masque), Niyati Rao (Ekaa, on the Asia 50 Best extended list), Gauri Devidayal (The Table), Mythrayie Iyer (Farmlore), Anita Sapavadia (Sapa), and Lavinia Pereira and Trupti Nayak at Mizu Izakaya — six of the top forty rooms on this list are women-led or co-led. Garima Arora (Gaa Bangkok, two Michelin stars, the first Indian woman) and Himanshu Saini (Tresind Studio Dubai, three Michelin stars) sit outside the India list but inside the same generational story.
For an industry that historically siloed women into pastry, this is structural change, not tokenism.
08 — The bar–restaurant boundary has collapsed
Bar Spirit Forward (Arijit Bose's omakase-style cocktail counter in Bengaluru) appears at #40 on a restaurant list. For The Record (vinyl listening bar in Goa) at #42. Veronica's at #36 is a sandwich shop. The format-purity that defined Indian fine dining for a generation — "this is a restaurant, that is a bar, this is a bakery" — has dissolved. A beverage-led room with a serious kitchen, or a bakery-led room with a serious cocktail programme, is now a restaurant-list entry on its own terms.
What this means if you operate, build or invest
Five structural reads from this list:
- The premium is moving to the regional and the small. A 16-seat Himalayan tasting room outranks a 200-cover hotel restaurant. The architecture of the next ten years of Indian fine dining is small, specific and chef-owned.
- Goa, Bengaluru and Chennai are catching Mumbai on quality at the same time as Mumbai is consolidating. Mumbai has thirteen; the other three cities have twenty-one combined. The geographic distribution of serious eating in India has flattened.
- A restaurant group with five recognisable brands and a coherent design language is now possible. Hunger Inc has shown it. The next operator who builds that architecture will be on the cover of the same lists.
- Women chefs are leading the kitchens that are leading the lists. Hiring, training, investment and editorial coverage decisions should reflect this.
- The tasting-menu format isn't a fad. It is a unit-economic answer to a labour shortage and a margin compression that the rest of the industry hasn't solved.
The list is the cover of the magazine. The structure underneath is the article. And the article is that Indian fine dining, in 2024, became specific.
Kaam Hire is the hospitality-only hiring platform behind this blog.
Sources & references 8
- News9 Live — CN Traveller × Zomato Top Restaurant Awards 2024
- Perfect Serve India — CN Traveller Awards 2024 coverage
- Outlook Traveller — Asia's 50 Best Restaurants 2025 India entries
- Curly Tales — Farmlore, INJA, Papa's on Asia 50 Best extended list
- World's 50 Best — Naar opening feature
- ThePrint — Papa's Mumbai 12-course tasting
- Robb Report India — Chef Manish Mehrotra on mentorship
- Elle India — Prateek Sadhu / Naar
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