Prior to emerging as one of India’s defining culinary voices, Prateek Sadhu travelled through the cathedral kitchens of some of the world’s most exacting establishments.
His hunger was that of a craftsman intent on mastering every discipline. He absorbed the rigour of innovation at Alinea in Chicago. At California’s The French Laundry, the spiritual pursuit of perfection was what he chased. He learnt the art of arriving at elegance through restraint at Le Bernardin in New York. Noma taught him an entirely new philosophy of terroir and foraging. But the genius move was in what he chose to do with that training: come home.
The arrival of Masque in 2016, which he co-founded, was a watershed moment in Indian fine dining. Born in Kashmir, amid landscapes softened by fog and guided by the scent of pine forests, woodsmoke and cold rivers, Sadhu rejected what everybody seemed to believe about luxury. That it had to arrive dressed in a European language of tactility, aesthetics and ingredients. At Masque, forgotten Himalayan grains, wild mountain herbs and the generational knowledge possessed by small-hold farmers became the primary vocabulary.
Masque earned global recognition, landing among Food Tank’s top 10 restaurant innovators worldwide and crowning Sadhu as India's ‘Chef of the Year’ by the Western Culinary Association of India.
Then came NAAR—Kashmiri for ‘fire’—a sanctuary nestled in the pine-scented hills of Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh and now counted among the Top 10 Global Restaurants in the World (Food & Wine 2026 Global Tastemakers Awards). It is Sadhu’s most personal work yet: almost autobiographical in spirit. The restaurant is built around fire, seasonality and the primal intimacy of cooking close to nature.
NAAR is proof that there is no performative nostalgia in Sadhu’s work, only honesty and a desire to reinterpret the places that have shaped him. He is an archivist of memory, translating the soul of the mountains into a language the world can taste, something that positions him as one of the most visionary chefs of his generation.
Edited excerpts from a conversation with him:
Was there a specific moment when you felt you had truly earned your authority as a chef—and what did that journey demand of you personally?
Authority never came from a title or an award. It came the day people started listening to me for what I stood for, not where I had worked. That happened when I walked away from the safety of established kitchens to build something in the mountains with no guarantees and no safety net. It cost me stability, financial security, comfort and years of being told the vision was too difficult to survive. But that journey gave me something far more valuable: a clear voice, a strong point of view and the conviction to build on my own terms.
Your career isn’t built on lineage or privilege. What did you have to build from scratch to claim your place on India’s culinary scene?
What my family gave me was something more important: strong values—and the opportunity to study at the Culinary Institute of America, which taught me discipline, technique and confidence. From there, everything else had to be built from scratch. The experience, the perspective, the relationships and, eventually, a voice of my own. Working in some of the world’s best kitchens shaped me, but coming back to India meant starting over again. There was no template for what we were building at NAAR. It meant travelling through Kashmir, Ladakh and Spiti, learning from farmers, home cooks and the land itself. It entailed building trust with people, understanding the region deeply, and finding the patience to build something honest over time…
Was there ever a defining leap of faith that altered the scale of your life?
Opening NAAR in Kasauli was that moment. Walking away from a predictable career to build something in a remote mountain town made no logical sense to most people around me. The risks were real financially, emotionally, professionally and there were many moments when walking away felt easier. But I knew that if I didn’t take that leap, I would spend my life building someone else’s dream instead of my own. So, I stayed. Not out of confidence, but conviction. NAAR was never just about opening a restaurant. It was about taking Himalayan food seriously, on its own land and on its own terms.
In the face of doubt or rejection, what belief kept you moving forward?
The belief that the work matters more than the noise around it. Recognition comes and goes, trends change, but the intention behind what you build remains. Whenever doubt grew loud, I returned to the source—the ingredient, the community, the land, the reason NAAR existed. I’ve always believed that if something is honest and genuinely true, it will eventually find its place and its audience.
Today, how do you decide when to push, when to pause, and when to walk away?
It comes down to instinct shaped by experience. You push when the vision is clear but the path is difficult because difficulty alone is never a reason to stop. You pause when the work starts losing meaning, when creation begins coming from exhaustion instead of curiosity. And walking away becomes necessary when compromise hollows out the original intention behind the work.
If regality is earned, not inherited, what responsibility comes with it?
If I’ve earned a seat at the table, my job is not to protect it, it’s to create space for more people to join. Everything I’ve built comes from traditions and knowledge systems that existed long before me, often without recognition. So, the responsibility is to build something larger than yourself, while staying honest to where it comes from. And above all, never become too comfortable.
How do you want to be remembered?
If years from now, a farmer in Gurez Valley is still growing a rare herb because restaurants created value and respect around it, that would mean far more to me than any title or recognition ever could.
The Indian culinary landscape is evolving rapidly—what do you refuse to compromise on, even as you adapt and grow?
At NAAR, every dish has to answer two questions: where does it come from, and why does it matter. If we can’t answer both honestly, it doesn’t belong on the menu. Indian cuisine today is finding its confidence, but confidence without roots is just noise. What matters to me is staying rooted, treating our ingredients, food cultures, and culinary knowledge with the honesty and respect they deserve.