The last time I wrote about the things that frequent travellers wanted from hotels – and rarely got – I ended with a threat: I would be returning to the subject with further installments.

This week, I am going to focus on hotel food. Because India is still to develop a full-fledged restaurant culture, it is the hotels that have become centres of F&B excellence. Read more

A few weeks ago, the Saturday magazine of Business Standard ran a perceptive story on India’s best chefs. It also asked top chefs to pick their own favourites.

And while the usual suspects came up again and again (Hemant Oberoi, Imtiaz Quereshi and Ananda Solomon), there was, I thought, a certain generosity about the choices the chefs made. Read more

The great biryani search continues. But Lucknow, it turns out, is pulao country. It is also the place for outstanding kababs and kormas. And it has the best chaat in the entire country

I went to Lucknow as part of the great biryani search. But all controversies about whether Lucknow made a biryani or a pulao were quickly settled. Every single person I met in Lucknow was clear that Lucknow only dealt in pulao, not in biryani. Read more

Vir Sanghvi was editor of the Hindustan Times from 1999 to 2004 when he was appointed editorial director. He writes the Counterpoint and Rude Food columns and is a well-known television presenter.

The one time I flew directly to the West coast of America, it was to Los Angeles. I took the United Airlines round-the-world flight (which no longer stops in Delhi even if it still exists) and changed planes at Hong Kong. It was a fairly tiring experience, despite the fact that my company had shelled out for a First Class ticket. Read more

Okay, I guess the time has come for me to put my science where my mouth was. In last week’s pean to the glories of delicious, golden butter, I said that the old food orthodoxy (i.e. butter is poison) was dead and that scientists had now conceded that many of the butter substitutes that were once considered super healthy (things like margarine and Dalda-type cooking mediums) had been shown to be worse for you than butter. Read more