Inside the technicoloured capital shaping India’s melting-pot cuisine

Avartana

Nowhere is Chennai’s growing culinary confidence more apparent than at ITC Grand Chola’s Avartana, which bagged top honours at India’s Condé Nast Traveller x Zomato Top Restaurant Awards in 2024. Since opening in 2017 it has challenged reductive notions of South Indian cuisine as unceremonious or limited to a handful of familiar dishes. On my first visit, two years ago, I was struck by the technical prowess and playfulness of the 11-course Jiaa tasting menu, its Uthukuli…