Why Royal
& Regional

India’s food is not a single cuisine. It is a network of regions, courts, communities, landscapes, home kitchens and generations of cooks.

Across the country, food has been shaped by royal courts, regional landscapes, local ingredients, family traditions and generations of cooks. Some dishes were refined in palaces. Others evolved in home kitchens, markets, farms and community gatherings.

Ten recipes at a time

Royal & Regional is designed as a continuing sequence of volumes. Each volume holds ten finished recipes: enough to establish an editorial arc, small enough that every chapter can receive the attention it deserves.

The first volume begins with Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani. The remaining nine places stay unnamed until their recipes are selected, tested and approved.

One finished chapter is more meaningful than a catalogue of placeholders.

Royal and regional, together

The title is deliberately broad. It makes room for dishes shaped by royal kitchens as well as food formed by geography, local ingredients and everyday practice. Neither is treated as more “Indian” than the other.

The intent is not to reinvent these traditions, but to understand them, respect them and make them easier to recreate faithfully—with a modern sense of clarity and precision.