House of Ming. Top-quality Cantonese, Sichuan and Hunan cuisines. The regular menu at the Delhi restaurant is huge. Perhaps a tasting platter might take the guesswork out of ordering. They offer four-course and five-course tasting menus that cover their greatest hits. Think crispy spinach, crispy morels, pickled vegetable dim sum, Peking tofu or duck. It’s customisable too.

Indian Accent. Nothing at this restaurant chain is cheap. And almost everything on the modernised Indian menu is unusual. So, a tasting menu is a great way to get a sense of what’s happening. The six-course version covers their famous chaat, saag paneer and aamras puri for vegetarians. The more meaty offerings include duck galouti kebabs and tandoori Scottish salmon. For dessert, there’s coconut and jaggery brulee and Baileys’ ki chuski.

Inja. An Indian twist on Japanese food – or vice versa. The Delhi restaurant’s most recent Hawker High tasting menu, which launched early this year featured the Hamachi “Bombay Sandwich” (hamachi sashimi, wasabi potato, sweet potato chips, ito-katso, and sandwich chutney) and Koji chicken wings that came with tamarind and jaggery teriyaki and a hint of smoked kashmiri chili. It paid tribute to the hawker cultures of both countries and we hope it returns soon.

Yauatacha. The Mumbai outpost of the global Chinese-food chain serves two set menus on weekdays. The best bet: The six-course Supreme Taste of Yauatacha menu: a sampling of their soup, salad, award-winning dim sim, stir fries, mains, dessert and drinks. Pull out the chopsticks for har gau, rolls, stir-fried ramen, puffs, and dumplings. The catch: It’s served until 6pm. So this is brunch, lunch or a very indulgent in-betweener.

Tresind. With outlets in Dubai and Mumbai, Tresind is where you go to for Indian food with a Western spin. The degustation menu is a little bit of everything: Avocado bharta appears next to some shiso khakra, Meghalayan chicken Khasi curry. There’s malai burrata and a filter coffee Cornetto. Everything sounds familiar, and yet a little new. That’s the whole point.

Palaash. Three hours away from Nagpur in Maharashtra, inside Tipeshwar forest, is a restaurant that blends local and Assamese cuisines. It’s more than East-meets-West. The food is cooked by local women over an open fire, and the spread changes with the seasons, but mostly features dishes from chef Amninder Sandhu’s memory. Think combinations such as bamboo smoked pork with Indrayani rice (an Assamese delicacy), or black crab with wild garlic and chilli.

Lupa. The Bengaluru restaurant celebrates Italy. The tasting spread covers a Neapolitan stew with seafood, chilli peppers, tomato, oregano, and lemon with grilled focaccia; a Corzettipasta, which is a type of pasta cooked with a wild mushroom ragu, coupled with a topping of crispy garlic and toasted walnuts. There’s a salumeria and gelato lab too. Salut!

Glenburn Penthouse. Classic Calcutta favourites show up on the tasting menu of the Kolkata restaurant. There are Anglo-Indian dishes, old-timey Mughlai and Kolkata Chinese food, celebrating the city’s communities. So, it’s possible to get quail egg with potato alongside pulled duck shingara with some pineapple chutney. The place looks appropriately old-world too, but still chic.

Farmlore. The only kind of menu at this Bengaluru restaurant is a tasting menu. Everything is farm-to-table. There are five and ten course meals to choose from, depending on what time of the day you drop in. The restaurant doesn’t serve chicken or beef, but does include some dairy. So, you never know quite what you’re going to get, but you can be sure it will be freshly plucked, harvested and cooked.

Masala Library. The Delhi branch has shut. The Mumbai one is going strong. The nine-course tasting menu offers a nice peek into their modern Indian cuisine. There are both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options; no drinks. Included are two amuse bouche and two desserts, you’ll also get the miso aubergine bharta with brown butter asparagus, or brown butter duck ghee roast, emapanada kachoris, Madras curry and pancakes with banana aero-mousse. Yum.

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