The Taste by Vir Sanghvi: How Indian restaurant Tresind Studio won Dubai's first three Michelin stars

Hindustan Times

24-05-2025

It was one of the more extraordinary things that I have done in my life. It started when Michelin called me to discuss something confidential.
If you know how the Michelin Guide works then you will know that everything they do is confidential. Their inspectors are not gifted amateurs who like eating out. They are hardcore professionals who work full time for Michelin and eat at least 300 meals at restaurants every year. They are famously anonymous and because nobody recognises them they can pretend to be ordinary customers out for a good meal when they visit restaurants. Because restaurateurs may become familiar with some faces, Michelin mixes it up, sending inspectors from other countries to assess restaurants. So, if you run a Southern Italian restaurant in, say, Seoul one of the guys who reviews it may have flown in from Naples.
No outsider knows what the inspectors decide, or how the final decisions about stars are made or even how many inspectors have visited the restaurant. Nothing is revealed except for the stars themselves which are announced at annual functions in the 50 or so locations where Michelin operates.
So, when Michelin told me that our conversation was totally confidential I was not surprised. But what they said next did surprise me. The inspectors had finally decided to award three stars to a restaurant in Dubai, something they had not done for the three years that Michelin had been in Dubai. But now, in their fourth year, they were finally ready to take the plunge.
Gwendal Poullennec, who is international director and the boss of the guide, was going to make a special trip to Dubai to tell the lucky restaurant two days before the formal announcement. Would I like to go with him to the restaurant when he broke the news?
Would I? Of course, I would!
They would tell me the name of the restaurant they said only if I agreed not to tell a soul.
At this stage I had a trip booked to South East Asia and was not going to be available to attend the Dubai awards but the moment Michelin asked me, I decided at once to reschedule the South East Asia trip. (Naturally!)
So which restaurant would it be? I suggested to them that it would be Row on 45 which had stormed into the list with two stars the previous year. Or perhaps it would be FZN which I had predicted would be the first three-star restaurant in Dubai.
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They did not comment on my speculation but said that Gwendal wanted to break the news to an Indian restaurant.
I knew at once which restaurant it had to be: Tresind Studio.
There was no doubt in my mind that Tresind Studio deserved three stars. Except that Michelin had never before given three stars to an Indian restaurant. Was it now going to break that precedent?
It was.
I was overjoyed for the folks at Tresind who I have admired since I first wrote about the restaurant over a decade ago when it had just opened and nobody had heard of it or of its young chef, Himanshu Saini, who was still in his 20s but already showing signs of greatness.
But most of all, I was really overjoyed for India.
For decades now, Indian cuisine, one of the world's greatest, had been dismissed as an 'ethnic' cuisine, its reputation destroyed by cheap Bangladeshi curry houses in the UK. Even when an Indian restaurant got a star, it usually stopped at that single star and chefs who Frenchified their food were rewarded by most global organisations. Only Gaggan Anand in Bangkok kept India's foodie prestige alive by being daring.
Admittedly this had begun to change once Gwendal (who is an Asia buff and a Japanese speaker) took the Michelin guide around the world and began recognising non-European cuisines. Indian restaurants began finally to get two stars and Michelin's old 'French is best' global image softened to reflect the modern era.
But three stars for Indian food?
Nah!
Anyhow I kept my word to Michelin. My son said he wanted to go to the Dubai ceremony. I told him I would be in Thailand. Himanshu asked if I was coming to Dubai. I lied again. I posted Thailand pictures on my Instagram to confuse everyone.
Then, two days before the ceremony, having sneaked into Dubai, I got into a car with Gwendal and we drove to Tresind Studio. Michelin had told the Tresind team that they wanted to shoot for a forthcoming event in Qatar so a TV crew was hard at work shooting with Himanshu upstairs while we hid in a coffee shop downstairs.
Finally, the crew gave us the go ahead and we went up to let Gwendal convey the news.
Himanshu says now that he was too dazed to notice I had entered but members of his team who did see me despite my best efforts at being inconspicuous, wondered what the hell I was doing there. Then Gwendal introduced himself and told the assembled team that they had won three stars.
I have known Himanshu for a long time and he is pretty much the brand ambassador for gratuitous weeping, but to my surprise he held it together and made a cogent speech for the cameras. But it was Vipin, Tresind's super cool manager, who is responsible for the restaurant's impeccable service, who was overcome by emotion and burst into tears. So did much of the team.
All of them were made to sign NDAs and to promise not to breathe a word till the official announcement. I was sceptical but they kept their word. Two days later when I went to the official ceremony, nobody had any idea that Tresind Studio had won the ultimate accolade.
At the ceremony, I met Himanshu's wife, the rock of his life, and told her how surprised I was by Himanshu's composure. Well, she said, when he finally told her, she wept uncontrollably. And then Himanshu finally let it all out and joined her in her tears. Given the enormity of the achievement, they had a right to be emotional.
So, is this a new beginning for Indian food at an international level?
Gwendal who has worked so tirelessly to give non-European cuisines the respect they deserve, thinks it may well be. Rene Redzepi, one of the world's most influential chefs, thinks Indian food has begun its ascent. 'This is the first of many many more,' he told me. Gaggan Anand who set off this boom said 'so good to see a young chef do it and to pave the way for future generations'.
As for me, I am relieved to not have the burden of keeping the secret any longer. And there was tension too: I broke the story on the Hindustan Times online edition just as the announcement was being made. (It was page one in the print edition.) I worried about filing too early and giving away the secret. Or of filing too late!
But speaking as an Indian, I am delighted to see our cuisine get the recognition it deserves.
And yes, I am thrilled to have had a tiny walk-on role in this saga.
Michelin lived up to its reputation for confidentiality. Even as we kept the Tresind Studio secret, nobody let slip that another restaurant was also getting three stars. Bjorn Frantzen became the only chef in the world to have three restaurants with three stars as his FZN at Atlantis triumphed.
It's a great achievement but now that the doors have opened I am sure that it is only a matter of time before an Indian chef challenges Frantzen!
Because last week, in Dubai, Michelin ushered in a new era for the international acceptance of Indian cuisine.