Is it golden egg or golgappa? Plates are the new canvas and chefs the new artists

Sarfaraz Ahmed, head chef at Tresind Mumbai, has plenty of plates. Over 10,000, at last count. There’s also assorted crockery, cutlery and thingamajigs designed to bring something extra to the table. Collected from around the world, nearly half the crockery comes from Studio RAW, which makes bespoke tableware, in the Netherlands.

Excessive? Perhaps not, when you do the maths. Tresind serves 60-75 people for dinner, which can mean some 900 plates over 14 courses. Every time the menu changes, so do the plates and cutlery. “Everything on the plate tells a story. It usually starts with selecting the ingredients and deciding on the texture and the flavour. Then comes plating, keeping the guest’s experience in mind,” says Ahmed. “Will the guest be comfortable eating it is the guiding principle.”

Welcome to purposeful plating, where food is served to whet your curiosity as much as your appetite.

LOT ON THE PLATE

At the recently opened Raga by Gaggan in Delhi, Lick It Up is a popsicle painted on the plate and is experienced by licking it clean. Rydo Anton, chef and cofounder, says plating begins with the question: What should the guest feel before they understand what they are eating? “Curiosity, recognition, confusion and nostalgia can all be part of the first bite.”

Its Golden Egg is a gilded egg resting on a crisp nest. The sight tickles the fancy, but it carries the old flavours of pani puri. “The form creates intrigue, but the flavour brings you immediately back to something deeply familiar,” says Anton.

Indian Accent, the OG in bringing purpose to plating in India, serves its palate cleanser in a toy pressure cooker. Its shorba comes in clay pottery cups, while ghee roast mutton and soya boti have been served in customised miniature copper pans.

At Bengaluru’s Farmlore, chef Johnson Ebenezer serves bites on a hand-glazed ceramic map of Karnataka, cut into three interlocking jigsaw pieces. He says his childhood Sundays listening to sermons inspired The Miracle Course: Loaves, Fishes and Cana. The plate for the crisp fish ripples like a desert while a footed stoneware goblet holds a clear pour . “Before a guest tastes anything, the vessels have set the scene,” he says.

Ahmed’s avocado chaat at Tresind is crowned by an unsweetened ghevar, its beehive-like form informing a presentation involving honeycomb and fresh flowers. He says his plating has become restrained over the years. “As a young chef, you tend to overdo it. With age, experience and cooking sense, you become simpler and more elegant. You restrict yourself.”

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BEYOND BEAUTY

Food expert, TV host and author Rashmi Uday Singh has had a ringside view of this transformation. Some two decades ago, presentation was largely about fine crockery, “a few slashes or designs of colourful sauces perhaps” and maybe edible flowers. Today, besides bespoke vessels, the plate is part of the storytelling.

Several forces converged to bring the plate here: greater disposable incomes, travel, especially gastrotourism, international restaurant awards, molecular gastronomy and social media. Also, restaurants themselves have changed. “Restaurants have overtaken most other forms of entertainment and become destinations in themselves. Moreover, food is one thing that involves all the senses,” she says.

Singh mentions chef Nikhil Nagpal at ITC Maurya’s Avartana, who presents thayir sadam in a see-through glass jar finished with dried red chilli, and Himanshu Saini at Tresind Studio in Dubai, who presents khichdi on a marble cutout map of India. “It is not only delicious but also a learning experience.”

That sense of place is important for Rahul Sharma, chef at Nila in Bengaluru. Its Ladakhi dishes are served on rocks, which recall those he saw at the Sangam where the Indus meets the Zanskar. His dish, Raktse Karpo Apricots, has flower-shaped apricots served on a rosemary plant, while Ladakhi Turnip uses a hollowed-out turnip as the bowl for a custard and pickle made from the same tuber. “Plating should have a double impact on the diner: the first with how the dish looks, and the second with how it tastes and connects back to the ingredient and the story behind it,” says Sharma.

At the newly revamped Masque in Mumbai , which opens its doors on October 1, executive chef Varun Totlani is clear that ease of eating is the guiding principle. The team lays out its collection of customised plates—usually made by ceramicists in Bhopal. Totlani’s considerations are surprisingly prosaic. Will sauce flow off the edge? Does the cutlery glide smoothly on the dishes? Will the diner have to tilt a bowl to get the last spoonful of broth? Will a steak knife grate awkwardly against a ridged plate? “Something can be super pretty but not convenient to eat, and that doesn’t work for me.”

NEW RULES ON THE TABLE

Across kitchens, a surprisingly consistent plating rulebook exists. Fluff is frowned upon. Says Shantanu Mehrotra, executive chef at Indian Accent: “There is a very thin line between creative plating and gimmickry.” A plate should be clean and considered, he says, rather than overloaded with garnishes. “Every element should have a reason for being there.”

Ahmed ensures everything on his plate is edible. For Totlani, flowers or microgreens make the cut only when their flavour matters. Sharma’s test is whether the presentation supports the food or overwhelms it: “The moment presentation becomes more important than food, it starts becoming theatre.”

Ebenezer may have some method to the madness. He sketches a rough layout of each course, usually a map of where things sit and where the eye lands, but at go time, intuition takes over. “The real design happens at the pass with the team. We plate it, step back, move things and plate it again.”

His thumb rule: the vessel must serve the food and the diner should never have to wrestle with dinner. “Beauty without ease of eating is a broken promise.”

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PHONE EATS FIRST

There’s another diner permanently at the table: the phone camera. Totlani acknowledges it: “On social media, plating is No. 1 because you can’t taste through the phone.”

Singh points to what good plating can achieve: “Whimsical plating can create expectations the food may not live up to. When done well, visual presentation heightens anticipation, flavour and memory.”

Ultimately, the experience of eating is what stays. As Anton says, “The real reveal should happen in the mouth, not on the screen.” Ebenezer recalls dining at Piazza Duomo in Piedmont, where chef Enrico Crippa’s folded cards interpreted the dishes. “History was handed to me before my fork even moved. That’s the whimsy I chase now —not flowers and leaves for texture, but a small object or story that changes how the plate is understood.”

For Anton, the line is whether presentation changes the experience of eating. “For me, the test is clear: if you remove the story, the unusual vessel and the theatrical presentation, does the food still taste delicious?” That is something to chew on.