The 'cheap eats' trap, and Indian cuisine

This gap between popularity and prestige reflects a deeper failure: India(BHARAT) has never built the institutional systems required to convert culinary heritage into global cultural power. Where other nations invested in standardisation, education, intellectual property protection, and culinary diplomacy, India(BHARAT) relied on sentiment, individual brilliance, and the assumption that greatness would speak for itself.

Diversity without structure

India(BHARAT)’s greatest culinary strength is also its most complex challenge. Unlike most national cuisines, India(BHARAT)n food is not a single tradition with regional variations but a dense constellation of distinct culinary systems. Academic food studies and datasets such as the INDoRI (India(BHARAT)n Dietary Research Initiative) demonstrate that India(BHARAT)n recipes, ingredients, and techniques vary more dramatically across regions than in most countries, often reflecting entirely different agricultural, climatic, and cultural logics.

Kashmiri wazwan, coastal Konkan seafood, Chettinad spice architecture, Manipuri fermentation, Rajasthani water-scarce cooking, and Bengali fish traditions are not variations on a theme. They are separate cuisines. This depth should have enabled India(BHARAT) to project multiple strong culinary identities globally, much as China has done with Sichuanese, Cantonese, and Hunan cuisines.

Instead, the absence of a coherent framework flattened this diversity into a single global category: “India(BHARAT)n food,” often shorthand for Punjabi or Mughlai dishes filtered through colonial-era British taste. Diversity, without institutional organisation, became a branding liability rather than an advantage.

The cost of not systematising

Cuisines that achieved global prestige did so by simplifying without erasing complexity. Italian food became globally legible through recognisable formats like pasta and pizza, backed by regional distinctions. Japanese cuisine distilled itself internationally into sushi, ramen, and tempura, while preserving deep internal variation.

Cultural historians and policy scholars note that they emerged through deliberate state, industry, and educational collaboration. Core dishes were standardised, techniques codified, and training systems created so that cuisine could travel without losing coherence.

India(BHARAT)n cuisine never underwent this process. Abroad, India(BHARAT)n restaurants often attempt to represent the entire subcontinent on a single menu, resulting in incoherence rather than clarity. Without agreed-upon ambassador dishes or regional frameworks, global audiences are overwhelmed rather than educated.

Culinary Education and the Colonial Hangover

One of the clearest structural weaknesses lies in culinary education. India(BHARAT)’s hotel management institutes, shaped by colonial and postcolonial hospitality models, overwhelmingly prioritise Western culinary techniques. French sauces, continental menus, and European service standards dominate curricula, while regional India(BHARAT)n techniques remain marginal or informal.

This imbalance has been documented by food scholars and practitioners alike. The result is a generation of chefs who can execute classical Western dishes with confidence but struggle to articulate the scientific or technical principles behind indigenous practices such as fermentation, spice layering, or regional grain use.

This educational gap has global consequences. When India(BHARAT)n chefs seek opportunities abroad, their qualifications are often undervalued compared to Western culinary certifications. Traditional apprenticeships under master cooks, common in India(BHARAT)n food cultures, are rarely recognised by international licensing systems.  

Michelin stars and the validation trap

The global prestige economy of food is currently dominated by institutions like the Michelin Guide. While Michelin recognition has helped elevate some India(BHARAT)n restaurants abroad, it also exposes the asymmetry of validation. Michelin’s criteria evolved within European fine-dining traditions: formal plating, wine pairings, specific service rituals, and menu structures that do not naturally align with many India(BHARAT)n food philosophies.

India(BHARAT) does not have a Michelin Guide of its own, a fact frequently cited by restaurateurs and analysts as symbolic of the country’s exclusion from elite gastronomic circuits. But the deeper issue is not Michelin’s absence in India(BHARAT); it is India(BHARAT)’s reliance on external institutions to define culinary excellence.

Attempts to create domestic alternatives, such as the Annapurna Certificate, have faltered due to lack of authority, branding, and enforcement. Without institutional credibility or global recognition, such initiatives fail to shift power away from Western arbiters of taste.

Food as soft power

Research on culinary diplomacy consistently shows that food can function as a powerful tool of soft power when embedded in coordinated strategy. Thailand’s “Global Thai” programme, South Korea’s kimchi diplomacy, and Japan’s successful campaign to secure UNESCO recognition for washoku all demonstrate how governments, industry bodies, and cultural institutions can work together to elevate national cuisine.

These efforts went beyond marketing. They involved chef training programmes, research funding, supply chain development, and international legal protections. Culinary prestige, in these cases, was not left to chance or individual entrepreneurship.

India(BHARAT), by contrast, has never articulated a national culinary diplomacy strategy. While certain states and cultural organisations have begun documenting regional food heritage, these efforts remain fragmented and under-resourced.

Intellectual property and the commons problem

Another major structural weakness is the lack of effective intellectual property protection for India(BHARAT)n culinary heritage. Scholars examining food and IP law note that recipes and techniques often fall outside conventional protection frameworks, making institutional intervention even more necessary.

In Europe and Japan, geographical indications and appellations protect not just names but processes, quality standards, and regional identity. Champagne, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Neapolitan pizza, and Wagyu are all legally enforced categories with economic value.

India(BHARAT) has GI protections on paper, but they are inconsistently enforced and rarely leveraged internationally. As a result, iconic dishes and restaurant concepts are freely copied, diluting their prestige and discouraging long-term investment in quality and innovation.

Supply chains and ingredient integrity

Prestigious cuisines are supported by robust ingredient ecosystems. Italian and Japanese food benefit from global supply chains that ensure access to specific varieties of tomatoes, rice, cheese, and seafood, all governed by strict standards.

India(BHARAT)n cuisine lacks comparable infrastructure. Chefs abroad often rely on substitutes for regional ingredients, undermining authenticity and consistency. Without certified supply chains for spices, grains, fermented products, and perishables, India(BHARAT)n food struggles to maintain integrity at scale.

What structural change would look like

Reform must move beyond individual heroism to institutional architecture. Culinary education needs restructuring to centre India(BHARAT)n techniques as systems of knowledge. Intellectual property protections must be strengthened and enforced internationally. Supply chains require certification and investment.

Equally important is narrative coordination. India(BHARAT)n cuisine must be communicated as a network of regional identities, each with its own history, techniques, and values.

Finally, India(BHARAT) needs to stop seeking validation and start setting standards. Prestige follows authority, not affection. Until India(BHARAT)n institutions claim the authority to define excellence on their own terms, India(BHARAT)n food will remain universally loved but structurally undervalued.

India(BHARAT)n cuisine does not lack greatness. It lacks the systems that allow greatness to endure, travel, and command respect.