Culinaryisation of urban India: The rise of food hubs in cities

This change is familiar in other cities. Bengaluru’s Indiranagar, Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills and parts of Pune’s Koregaon Park have, over the years, evolved from residential enclaves into food hubs that attract tourists from their cities. Even established commercial districts like Kolkata’s Park Street, Delhi’s Khan Market and Connaught Place are increasingly being defined by restaurants and cafes.

Architect Manit Rastogi, founding partner of the architectural firm Morphogenesis, calls it “the gastronomification of our urban fabric.”

While cities around the world have seen similar “restaurantization” – from New York’s Brooklyn to Seoul’s Hongdae, urbanites say the Indian story is different in both pace and scale. The worrying change, he says, is that in Indian cities, food is not just one element among many but a major business force that is reshaping high streets, neighborhoods and public spaces.

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The restaurant boom began after the renovation of the Colonial Arcade in 2014. By 2017, dozens of restaurants, bars and cafes had opened, many of which took over first and second floor space that had long been vacant.

Atul Bhargava, president of the New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA), says, “Till about 20 years ago, there were barely ten major restaurants and bars in Connaught Place. Today there are over a hundred, and new ones keep opening every year.”

But this change came at the cost of a much more liberal commercial mix. Once home to piano shops, curio stores, bookshops, grocery stores and independent retailers, Connaught Place, which was developed by the British as a Georgian-style high street to serve as a premier cultural, high-end retail and culinary destination for the elite, is today primarily a food and beverage destination.

“Restaurants simply paid higher rents,” says Bhargava. “You can’t blame landlords for choosing tenants who give better returns. After all, it’s demand and supply,” he says.

Aditya Jain, who opened QBA in Connaught Place in 2004, says economics have strongly favored restaurants. Rising incomes encouraged eating out, while eateries could operate profitably from upper floors where rents were much lower than ground level.

He says, “Over time this reduced the diversity of businesses. Bookshops and music shops struggled with rising rents, while online shopping made it even more difficult for them to survive.” “There is a certain allure associated with owning a restaurant or café, which continues to attract new entrants.”

For architect Manit Rastogi, this trend exposes a deep gap in the way Indian cities think about cultural infrastructure. He points out that the urban planning framework in India largely regulates land use, but rarely addresses what might be called life use: the diversity of cultural and intellectual activity that sustains urban life.

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“As a result, spaces that once hosted bookstores, galleries, craft shops or independent cultural enterprises are gradually being replaced by high-yield cafes and restaurants. This creates what can be described as urban monoculture,” he says.

“When neighborhood economies become overly oriented toward food and lifestyle consumption, cities risk losing the quieter forms of engagement that nurture ideas, creativity, and cultural exchange,” says Rastogi.

Dikshu Kukreja, managing principal of CP Kukreja Architects, says: “Many global cities deliberately protect bookshops, galleries, performance venues and independent retail. But Indian planning frameworks rarely give priority to such cultural ecosystems.”

Historian Aloka Parashar-Sen states that India’s historical markets were never organized solely around food. “Walled cities combined crafts, trade and commerce with cultural activities like qawwali and mushaira. “Food was part of a very rich ecosystem,” she says. “Markets were mixed spaces where economic, cultural and social life co-existed.”

“People come to Indian cities for the food, not the museums or galleries,” says Vibhor Jain, founder and CEO of Carbon Guardians and formerly with Cushman & Wakefield. He points to the closure of Madame Tussauds in Connaught Place as evidence that restaurants generate sustained visitor traffic in commercial districts. As a result, he says, food outlets are increasingly being used as anchor tenants in new developments.

That success reshapes the economics of the neighborhood. “Once an area becomes known for restaurants and nightlife, rents start reflecting the economics of evening business,” says Anuj Kejriwal, CEO, Retail Leasing, ANAROCK. “Businesses with low margins or only daytime activity gradually lose value, turning the centers of mixed neighborhoods into leisure districts.”

Restaurants also appeal to landlords because they attract repeat customers, allow customers to stay longer and are largely untouched by e-commerce, he said. “Their expensive fit-outs encourage long leases, while established brands are often willing to pay premium rents for signage and frontage. Successful restaurant clusters then consolidate themselves as more operators move in to take advantage of an established customer base.”

The numbers reflect that change. According to ANAROCK, the share of food and beverage in leasing in malls and high streets is expected to increase from around 8% in FY2019 to around 12% in FY2025 and is projected to reach 16% by FY2030. “F&B continues to be in the top three leasing categories,” says Kejriwal.

“In many ways, the rise of restaurant districts reflects this void,” says Rastogi. “Indian cities built housing, roads and commercial infrastructure, but they created relatively few civic spaces or informal gathering places where people could easily spend time together.”

In the absence of such venues, cafes and restaurants often serve as substitutes.

“They become what urban theorists call “third spaces” – informal environments where people meet outside of home and work,” says Rastogi. But, he adds, these spaces remain transactional and participation is linked to consumption.

Kukreja agrees that commercial spaces cannot replace civic spaces. “Cities need a wider range of civic spaces – parks, pedestrian streets, libraries and cultural venues – where people can gather without commercial constraints.”

“When neighborhood economies become dominated only by food and lifestyle consumption, cities risk losing their diversity and depth,” he says.

A healthy urban culture, he says, depends on a mix of experiences – places where people can read, create, debate, perform and encounter new ideas. “Planning policies should ensure that cultural institutions and small creative enterprises continue to exist alongside restaurants and cafes in city centres,” he says.

However, Professor Sidney Rebeiro, former dean of culture at Delhi University, cautions against viewing the change as complete. He says art galleries, bookstores and other cultural institutions have not completely disappeared. “For example, in Delhi, many people have moved to smaller cultural clusters away from expensive high streets”.

The rise of food-centric urbanization in India also reflects broader changes in the way cities are organised, experienced and imagined. Restaurants, cafes and food districts are increasingly influencing where people spend time – and even how neighborhoods develop.

Rastogi says, “Most residential districts in our cities were never designed to absorb the logistical pressure created by restaurant clusters. The concentration of food establishments fundamentally alters the spatial logic of neighborhoods.”

The road starts changing on its own.

He says, “Sidewalks have become extensions of dining areas, delivery traffic has intensified and valet parking operations are taking over public streets. Streets that once supported neighborhood movement are increasingly serving as service corridors for hospitality activity.”

“Yes, food districts are strangely similar in all cities,” says Rajiv Goyal, founder of India Food Tour.

Urbanists argue that the challenge is not the rise of restaurants but their dominance. “Food districts should be part of a broader urban vision,” says Dikshu Kukreja. “Cities need mixed-use neighborhoods where restaurants coexist with bookstores, galleries, independent retail and public spaces.”

Rastogi believes the plan could help restore that balance by requiring developers to provide publicly accessible seating and gathering space as part of new commercial developments.

Kejriwal says, however, that retail patterns are rarely permanent. “The current dominance of food and beverages reflects changing lifestyles and the younger generation increasingly socializing outside the home,” he says. “But changes in regulation, resident pushback and new retail formats may force some districts toward a more balanced mix of businesses.”