Indian Chefs With Michelin Stars

Updated 7 October 2026 · Star counts and prices checked October 2026

23 restaurants serving Indian cuisine hold Michelin stars in the 2026 guides, but none of them is in India, which has no MICHELIN Guide. The highest-rated is Trèsind Studio in Dubai, where chef Himanshu Saini won the first three stars ever given to an Indian restaurant, in May 2025.

So every one of the Michelin star chefs India celebrates works abroad, in 11 cities across 7 countries: 1 three-star, 5 two-star and 17 one-star restaurants, with London home to 8 of them. Below are the Indian Michelin star chefs behind the best known, described as their own interviews and biographies describe them, with the price of dinner at each and a table of every starred Indian restaurant and its head chef.

Michelin star Indian chefs to know

Himanshu Saini: Trèsind Studio, Dubai ★★★

Himanshu Saini grew up in Sui Walan, in Old Delhi, helping his mother cook for a joint family of about fifty, and started his culinary training in Delhi at 18 (Global Indian, Phaidon). He says what he learned at Indian Accent, under Manish Mehrotra, is the basis of everything he cooks now. He moved to Dubai in 2014 to run Trèsind, then opened Trèsind Studio, its 20-seat tasting-menu room, in 2018.

Michelin gave Trèsind Studio one star in its first Dubai guide in 2022, a second in 2023 and a third in May 2025. No Indian restaurant had held three before. The long menu reworks dishes Indian diners grew up with: chaat shrunk to a canapé, curd rice served as a course of its own. Dinner costs AED 1,350 (about $370) for the tasting menu; see our Dubai page for the city’s other starred restaurants, including two more Indian ones.

Garima Arora: Gaa, Bangkok ★★

Born and raised in Mumbai, Garima Arora studied journalism before training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, then cooked at Noma in Copenhagen and with Gaggan Anand in Bangkok (Global Indian profile). She opened Gaa in Bangkok in 2017, and it won a star about 18 months later; a second followed in 2023. The MICHELIN Guide itself calls her the first Indian woman to earn one, and then two, Michelin stars (MICHELIN Guide). Her tasting menu pairs Thai produce with Indian techniques. Dinner is ฿6,200 (about $185), plus service and VAT. Our Bangkok page lists Gaa beside the city’s two other starred Indian restaurants, INDDEE and Haoma.

Gymkhana, London ★★

Gymkhana is the Mayfair restaurant of JKS Restaurants, the group siblings Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi founded with Trishna in 2008; Karam leads the food side. Gymkhana opened in 2013, won a star a year later and a second in 2024, making it London’s first two-star Indian restaurant. Its menu leans on game, kebabs and biryani. Sid Ahuja ran the kitchen as chef director for nearly ten years until March 2026, and since June 2026 Chet Sharma, the chef behind BiBi, has overseen it as global culinary director (The Caterer). The tasting menu costs £155 (about $205).

Aktar Islam: Opheem, Birmingham ★★

Aktar Islam was born and raised in Birmingham by Bangladeshi parents and was working in his father’s restaurant by 13 (Great British Chefs), so he is a British chef rather than an Indian one, though Opheem is one of the world’s starred Indian restaurants. It opened in the Jewellery Quarter in 2018, won its first star in 2019 and now holds two, the first restaurant in Birmingham to do so. Spices are ground and ingredients pickled and fermented in house. Ten courses cost £195 (about $260); see our Birmingham page.

Surender Mohan: Jamavar, London, Doha and Dubai ★

Surender Mohan was born in Delhi and raised in Amritsar, and learned to cook by watching his mother (Jamavar). He opened the first Jamavar at The Leela Palace Bengaluru in 2001, moved to London in 2018 to run the Mayfair restaurant and won back its star in 2022. As culinary director he now oversees the group’s restaurants in Doha and Dubai too, and both hold a star; Purushottam Naidu runs the Dubai kitchen day to day. Dinner in London is £130 (about $170) for the tasting menu, in Doha QAR 395 (about $110) and in Dubai AED 450 (about $125).

More chefs behind starred Indian kitchens

• Vijay Kumar, Semma, New York (one star). Born and raised in Natham, a small town in Tamil Nadu, he cooks the southern Indian home food of his childhood (Fine Dining Lovers). Semma has held a star since 2022, and he won the James Beard award for best chef in New York State in 2025.
• Sachin Poojary, INDDEE, Bangkok (two stars). Before Bangkok he ran the kitchen at Wasabi by Morimoto in Mumbai (Masala). INDDEE won its first star in 2024 and its second in November 2025, two years after opening.
• Mano Thevar, Thevar, Singapore (two stars). A self-taught chef born and raised in Penang, Malaysia, he opened Thevar in 2018 with a menu drawn from his Indian roots and his childhood in the Malay Peninsula (Tatler Asia). The MICHELIN Guide counts it among its starred Indian restaurants, though it labels the cuisine “Innovative”.
• Sajeev Nair, Trishna, London (one star). Executive chef since 2017, after joining as sous chef in 2012; Trishna has held its star since 2012 (The Chefs’ Forum).
• Shantibhushan Lal, Ambassadors Clubhouse, London (one star). He began with Taj Hotels in New Delhi, joined JKS in 2017 and became chef director in 2025; the restaurant won its star in 2026, which JKS calls the first for a Punjabi restaurant in the UK (The Staff Canteen).

Every Michelin-starred Indian restaurant and its chef

All 23, from the three-star kitchen down, with each restaurant’s head chef and the price of its main dinner menu. London has the most by far; for its restaurants with lunch prices too, see Michelin-star Indian restaurants in London.

Every Michelin-starred restaurant serving Indian cuisine, from the current MICHELIN Guide editions (2026 or the latest before it). Names open each restaurant’s prices on The Starred Bill, cities our full price lists and arrows the MICHELIN Guide. Head chefs are as the MICHELIN Guide or the restaurant names them, else recent press. Prices are the main dinner tasting menu per person in local currency, before service and drinks, with US dollars at recent exchange rates. Last checked October 2026.

Vikas Khanna: Michelin star or not?

Yes, though not today. Vikas Khanna was the co-founder and executive chef of Junoon in New York’s Flatiron District, which opened in late 2010 and won a Michelin star in the guide published in October 2011, within a year. By the restaurant’s own count it kept the star for eight years in a row, until 2019. A star belongs to the restaurant rather than the chef, and Khanna has since left Junoon, which the guide now lists without one.

His current restaurant, Bungalow in the East Village, opened in 2024 and holds a Bib Gourmand, the MICHELIN Guide’s award for good cooking at a moderate price, rather than a star (MICHELIN Guide). For how the two differ, see Bib Gourmand vs Michelin star.

Why there’s no Michelin star chef in India yet

Michelin only awards stars where it publishes a guide, and it has never published one for India. In September 2026 India’s tourism ministry said a deal was in its final stages, which would put the first Indian stars in 2027 at the earliest; our guide to Michelin stars and India explains what’s planned.

Michelin firsts for Indian cooking

• 2001: Tamarind and Zaika in London become the first Indian restaurants with a star, under chefs Atul Kochhar and Vineet Bhatia.
• 2018: Garima Arora becomes the first Indian woman to win a star, at Gaa in Bangkok.
• 2023: Trèsind Studio in Dubai wins a second star, and Garima Arora a second at Gaa.
• 2024: Gymkhana becomes London’s first two-star Indian restaurant.
• 2025: Trèsind Studio becomes the first Indian restaurant with three stars.

For the chefs who hold the most Michelin stars of all, whatever they cook, see Michelin star chefs. Or compare dinner, lunch and wine pairing prices at every starred restaurant in London, Dubai and Bangkok.