“People have been expecting Indian food to turn the corner in Melbourne for so long,” says chef Mischa Tropp. In 2018, he introduced home-style Keralan cuisine to Fitzroy’s Rochester Hotel before settling down at the new venue Toddy Shop by Marthanden Hotel late last year.

Tropp is part of a wave of remarkable young Indian chefs making their mark on Melbourne’s food scene with restaurants and pop-ups that challenge preconceptions about Indian cuisine, with undeniably delicious results.

Leading the pack is Helly Raichura. “[Indian] food has always been tasty,” she says. “It’s the perception that’s changed.”

When the Indian chef launched Enter Via Laundry as a supper club in her Box Hill home in 2018, diners were mostly curious about the secrecy of its location.

Now, with a permanent restaurant in Carlton North, there’s a much greater appreciation for the tireless technique she uses in her cooking.

For Tropp, however, an approachable price point was uppermost in diners’ minds when he began doing pop-ups.

“It’s always been easy for French or Italian cuisines to create perceived value,” he says. “But diners see value in [Indian cuisine] now, and they’ll spend money on anything that’s done well, whether that be fine dining or traditional.”

“It’s a beautiful time to be opening that treasure chest,” says Raichura, who credits much of her success to unwavering support from Melbourne’s large Indian community, with savvy diners relishing a taste of home, then spreading the word to their friends.

“When we started, we didn’t get many Indians; now it’s 30 per cent or more.”

Raichura attributes some of the demand to Indian migrants finding success in Australia. “There’s a lot more disposable income that Indians now have ... And they really know what they’re eating: who’s authentic, who’s not.”

For Tropp, opening his 20-seat venue, tucked just off Smith Street, was a matter of finally having the money and skills, emboldened by almost a decade spent travelling to India, to expand his repertoire.

“The more great Indian restaurants we have, the better they’ll be.”

Mischa Tropp

What sets many of this new guard apart is their pride in hyper-regionality instead of serving a broad sweep of dishes from across the subcontinent.

Tropp honours the food of his heritage in Kerala, in India’s south; Raichura champions a different regional Indian cuisine every six months, fiercely researching for each new tasting menu. For those familiar with the specific cuisine, it’s a drawcard. And for those who aren’t? Tutorials don’t come much tastier.

“Food is wrapped up in a lot of emotions for a lot of cultures,” Tropp says. His restaurant has struck a chord with Indians in its emulation of the toddy shops, or drinking establishments, around Kerala that pour fermented coconut juice sourced from toddy palms.

“They call us up and say, ‘You actually serve toddy?’” says Tropp. Indeed, he does. “Seeing their culture celebrated – for a group who didn’t grow up with that – is huge.”

“It’s probably going to turn into a bit of a destination for Indians coming to Melbourne.”

And then there’s the support from the hospitality industry. Instead of competing, his Indian chef counterparts have bonded – and banded together.

For several years, Shashi and Devendra Singh’s Mornington Peninsula winery Avani has showcased some of Melbourne’s most dynamic Indian talent.

Its pop-up restaurant has played host to Biji Dining, a nomadic concept by Harry Mangat, who – like Raichura – cleverly melds his Indian heritage with native Australian ingredients, and Saadi, by husband-and-wife team Sriram Aditya Suresh and Saavni Krishnan – both finalists in the 2023 Young Chef of the Year – who are based at Coburg wine bar Gemini and North Melbourne’s Mauritian wine bar Manze respectively.

The commitment of these trailblazing chefs to honing and sharing their craft is thrilling not only for Melbourne diners today but also for the future of Indian dining here.

“Finding someone with a deep understanding of the cuisine is hard,” says Raichura, who worked in corporate HR before embarking on a hospitality career. “It’s not something we can advertise for ... Skillset is something you often have to import.”

Tropp adds: “It’s not like the UK, where Indian chefs come up in all these amazing [Indian] restaurants.”

A slow but steady stream of new Indian restaurants will, Raichura hopes, create opportunities for people who have capabilities they haven’t had a chance to express yet.

“The more great Indian restaurants we have, the better they’ll be,” Tropp adds.

New venues to visit

As well as the new Toddy Shop, there’s an evolution to explore at some of our most-loved Indian spots.

After earning a hat in last year’s Good Food Guide, Belgrave south-Indian spot Babaji’s Kerala Kitchen has opened a sophomore diner in Warburton, Babaji’s Birrarung.

The Gandhis – the family that founded Caulfield South treasure Bombay by Night – have relocated their follow-up venue, Cafe Southall from St Kilda to Hampton, upsizing the space and the menu of (mostly) true-to-tradition Indian dishes.

Dessert Corner has graduated from an Indian food truck park in Clayton to a fully-fledged diner in Truganina, with owner Deval Patel doing “sweet food for every mood”.

And while Punch Lane restaurant Sunda is broadly Southeast Asian, the return of former sous chef Nabil Ansari as head chef – following founding chef Khanh Nguyen’s departure – means some exciting injections of his Indian heritage on the menu.

Upcoming openings to watch

Indian fine dining is set to have a moment in Melbourne. Chefs Nishant Arora and Janos Roman met while working on the opening of Society, but this May, after several pop-ups, they’ll launch Aanya in Collingwood. It’s more “fun dining” than fine, but razor-sharp technique will result in decidedly fancy dishes such as mango lassi reinvented as a fermented mango “oyster” with seaweed moss, and cumin-and-goat’s-yoghurt snow.

A partner in Aanya is restaurateur Jessi Singh (Daughter in Law, Bar Bombay Yacht Club), who will open “curry pub” You My Boy next door, dishing up pub classics with an Indian accent, such as tandoori chicken and chips, and saucy butter-chicken pizzas. Singh is also soon to unveil Bibi Ji in Carlton, serving generous thali on banana-leaf platters.

Nearby in Carlton North, change is afoot at Raichura’s 20-seat degustation diner, Enter Via Laundry. Adding a small bar in the front room will make her masterful cooking more accessible. Snacks will be a mix of past hits and new tricks, like falooda, a “weird and wonderful” cold dessert of vermicelli and basil seeds layered with Geraldton wax and rosella jelly.

Events to book

The eruption of Indian innovation through the city’s restaurants is mirrored in a glut of Melbourne Food & Wine Festival events, which will bring together Indian talent from all over to offer a snapshot of where the cuisine is at right now – and where it could go.

“When I look at what the Indian and Indian-Australian chefs are cooking for the festival, I’m really excited by the diversity and freshness,” says creative director Pat Nourse, who says the events reveal things you may not have known or expected about Indian food.

“Some of it, like the food Garima Arora does, is influenced by travel and geography – she is an alumna of Noma, and her restaurant is in Bangkok,” says Nourse. Gaa at Evergreen (March 15-24, $250) is the Michelin-starred chef’s first Australian residency.

“Other times,” Nourse continues, “it’s more a reflection of just how vast and complex the cuisine of India is and how little we see of that complexity and breadth in restaurants, especially in Australia.”

The 1800-person World’s Longest Brunch (March 16, $125) in Kings Domain is one hell of a platform, and this year it’s an Indian triple-header starring Raichura, Tropp and Harry Mangat. “It’s not somewhere you would ever have expected to see us,” says Tropp. “It’s a reflection of how the market’s changed – for the better.”

Elsewhere, one of India’s most awarded restaurants is coming to town for Indian Accent x Daughter in Law (March 20-21, $270), and Swadeshi: Raja x Sunda (March 18-19, $234) is a chance to try hatted chef Ahana Dutt’s cooking without the trip to Sydney, as she puts her spin on India’s tribal cuisine with Nabil Ansari.

For Pig Out (March 24, sold out), Tropp is deep-diving into the food of Kodagu (Coorg), a district in India’s southwest, alongside cook and Kodavan cuisine researcher Anjali Ganapathy. And for The South Asia Club (March 19, sold out), Raichura and Gayan Pieris, of Mornington Peninsula restaurant Many Little, will uncover where Indian and Sri Lankan cuisines cross over (and where they don’t).

And beyond the festival, the next Saadi pop-up will be at Gemini in Coburg (March 17, $65). Expect a seasonally inspired dinner menu that taps into Sriram Aditya Suresh and Saavni Krishnan’s culinary heritage.