Manish Mehrotra

Manish Mehrotra is a chef and restaurateur known for modern Indian cuisine shaped by hotel structure, restaurant repetition, and long exposure to what a dining room asks of a cook. His training at St. Xavier's High School, Patna, New Era Public School, New Delhi, and Institute of Hotel Management, Mumbai fed directly into professional kitchens and established the discipline that would define his career. He began as Hotel Operations - Management Trainee at Taj Group of Hotels in Mumbai, where he learned timing, order, and clean execution before service reaches the guest.

He then moved to Oriental Octopus at Habitat World in Delhi as Chef In-charge, working in a kitchen that required steadiness as well as range. After that, he served as chef at an Old World Hospitality Pan-Asian restaurant in London, gaining broader experience across different cities and expectations while refining a personal culinary language. Indian Accent in New Delhi became the defining stretch of his career. As Founding Chef there, he helped shape the restaurant’s identity over many years, and as Culinary Director at Indian Accent restaurants in Delhi, Mumbai, and New York City, he carried that point of view across locations.

From 2018, he also worked as Menu Designer at Comorin in Gurugram, extending the same approach to the way a menu is built and read. In 2026, he moved to Nisaba in Delhi as chef and restaurateur, continuing a working method centered on Indian flavors structured for a contemporary dining room. At Nisaba, Mehrotra continues to present inventive Indian food with a style that keeps tradition visible while adjusting it for ease of access.

He has said, “We serve inventive Indian food because all these dishes on the menu are invented in my kitchen.” He has also described the balance he seeks: “There are a lot of traditional things which we serve in a slightly modern way so that people from all walks of life, all cultures, can easily relate and be comfortable.” That principle runs through his cooking, where familiar references remain intact but are reworked with restraint and control.

His signature dishes include Makhan Malai, Butter Chicken, Samosa, Moradabadi Dal, and Buknu. Together, they reflect the range of his kitchen and his approach to Indian food as a living form that can be both personal and widely legible. Recognition for his work includes Best Chef In India - Food Superstars - India’s Top 30 Chefs, American Express - Best Chef Of The Year, Opening of the Year, Nisaba New Delhi, Unlimit Icon, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Culinary Icon of the Year.