The Success Code: Un-masque-ing India's culinary flavours with Aditi Dugar

Mint

05-08-2025

In India's maximum city, Mumbai, is known for its vibrant, and often traditional culinary scene, Aditi Dugar, the brain behind the award-winning Masque restaurant, stands apart. To ask her if she considers herself a chef first or an artist first elicits an immediate response: 'An artist! I'm hardly a chef.'
In the latest episode ofThe Success Code, a series of podcasts hosted by Rushank Shah, promoter of Hubtown, and presented by Mint, saw Dugar talk about how her passion became her profession and how Masque was born, her culinary influences and her views on everything food from the rise of home deliveries to sustainability in food. Some edited excerpts.
Masque is one of India's only restaurants to be consistently featured in the top 100 rankings across the world. The fine dining venture has come to be defined as a space where food transcends mere sustenance and becomes a form of artistic expression – both in the way you see and taste it.
'I think food has a very everlasting memory. It's an emotion, it's nostalgia,' she says. 'You may forget the form or the drama of what's happening at the restaurant, but that memory of the dish stays'. This understanding fuels her approach to menu design, where each creation is not just a combination of ingredients but a careful selection of ingredients that will evoke an emotion or nostalgia from your childhood.
The foundation of Masque lies in deriving inspiration from India's rich and diverse culinary heritage, where every part of the country has something unique to offer in terms of flavours and dishes. 'At Masque, we wanted to really explore the ingredients of our country and give that importance and focus,' said Dugar.
This vision led to a 18-month journey across India, a quest to learn about the hidden gems growing in local backyards which people could be excited to eat. 'For example, we discovered sea buckthorn,hisalu berry andkafal berry when we travelled through Ladakh or Uttarakhand. Sea buckthorn was being used for making fences or a refreshing drink, or the berries were being served out of cones at a vegetable market. So we realised that there is this so much undiscovered, unique produce that needed a spotlight in maybe a fine dining setting. And I think that was the whole idea of how these dishes came together in the very beginning,' she said.
Aditi Dugar in conversation with Rushank Shah
Shah asked her why the choice of fine dining as the medium for this ingredient-forward exploration. 'You said you wanted to spotlight Indian ingredients in a fine dining space. So, why fine dining, considering fine dining itself wasn't common.'
Dugar was quick to answer: 'I think that for me, I was fortunate enough to be exposed to so many different cuisines traveling with my parents or with my husband. For us, it was always about what food we were eating in every city – it could be a local or a fine dining restaurant. All the conversations growing up or on the table were always about food. And I think that obviously influenced the way I thought. I saw that there was a big gap in the market for fine dining. There was a lot happening all over the globe but I didn't want to do the known. I wanted to do the unknown.'
The initial journey wasn't without its challenges. Early on, there were pressures to conform to the usual and have shorter three-course or six-course menus. People even suggested iterations to make it work. But Dugar stuck to her vision.
'At Masque, in the beginning years, sometimes it was difficult to even fill a table of four or table of six in the restaurant. Now, we have a waitlist and have served more than 1.22 lakh people till date. And, we are here to stay,' she said.
The guiding principle at Masque evolved from a purely ingredient-driven approach to a more holistic understanding of seasonality and preservation. In fact, what has changed is the innovation around how the unique ingredients sourced from around the country are used – fresh when they have just arrived and later in pickled, or preserved or dehydrated formats.
'Of course, the menu still revolves around seasonality. In 2020, we started a project called Masque Lab, where we're able to use perishable ingredients in its prime, but also stretch the life of that ingredient through different seasons of our menus at Masque through pickling, fermentation or dehydration,' she explained.
Dugar's own culinary journey has been largely intuitive, driven by a love for food and exposure to diverse dining experiences in different parts of the world on family vacations. She recalls going into kitchens of prominent restaurants out of curiosity in her early years. She assisted at several famous global restaurants and even at a street food outlet in Bangkok through her family's connections.
Shah asked an important question: 'How is your kitchen better and what are the things that you picked up there that you felt you could improve on from a working standpoint, or just kind of differ from these kind of institutional restaurants.'
Dugar shared her journey of evolution. 'I've done a couple of things just because I was curious about how things function and work. But the dots connected when I actually started helping my mom with Sage and Saffron, one of the most iconic boutique catering businesses in the country right now. It started as a home project – I was just helping her professionalise her setup to realise how much I actually love creating those experiences, and I can be the young energy creating that 360 degree experience for a guest,' she said.
She opened Masque a few years later and then started TwentySeven Bakehouse addressing a different segment of the market, focusing on quality within the quick-service restaurant (QSR) space.
Aditi Dugar
She spoke about the food delivery space in India and its evolution after the pandemic. Today, you can get the best ramen from a dark kitchen, or access great Mexican food from someone running a home set-up. 'Our food space hasn't been more exciting. Food is more than just a biryani and butter chicken showing up on the delivery app. It's so innovative. When I ventured into TwentySeven Bakehouse, the whole idea was that QSRs still need to be quality, and there is a space for it. The idea was that you can make mass food but make it with high quality. It could be palatable, but still innovative, and it could reach a larger audience,' said Dugar.
So, have the two experiences been different? 'It's very different, because when you have a low priced product, you're catering to a larger audience, so you are constantly solving for customer feedback. There are packaging issues, delivery issues, coordinating with apps, trying to create a loyalty program. There are so many more touch points. And it's definitely a harder business to focus on, but it's also extremely exciting because of the scale that can come about in a business like this,' she said.
Several ventures down, ask her the magic recipe for whipping up a successful culinary venture and she feels conviction in the idea and the right execution are core to success. As a vegetarian, Dugar says she can see a plate of non-vegetarian food and tell whether it is up to the mark or not. She also has immense faith in her team.
For her, food is not just about the taste. Shah asked ifan artist has a responsibility to the public – should food be good for you, or, should it only taste good. At this, Dugar underlined that sheholds a strong sense of responsibility towards the food she serves.
When considering the ethical dimensions of food and the role of a culinary artist, she asserts, 'We will always be very conscious about the ingredients that are going into our product. We are not going to be using palm oil and cheap, low quality ingredients to cut costs. We are sticking to very high quality ingredients. When you're in a food business, you are extremely responsible for what you're feeding people. Masque is such an ingredient forward restaurant. So we're so conscious about how everything is made with so much precision, the way we, you know, use our ingredients and really derive the highest, nutritional value, also from the cooking process.'
Looking into the future of this industry, Dugar recognises that 'Sustainability is a work in progress. I don't think any restaurant is 100 per cent sustainable. There are some restaurants that don't even have a dustbin – they can put all the wastage to some usage. All of us as food people have this responsibility.' This awareness underscores a commitment that extends beyond taste and presentation, embracing a more holistic and responsible approach to the art of food.
Watch the full episode now:
Note to the Reader: This article has been produced on behalf of the brand by HT Brand Studio and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of Mint.