For chefs, seasonality is no longer a trend but a framework. The idea is not just freshness, but relevance.

Two decades ago, Grasshopper was among the first in the city to experiment with a seven-course seasonal menu. Set on a farm, it
focused on balance, serving dishes aligned with what the body needed in a given season. Today, many other restaurants are taking this idea further.

Here are a few:

Waiting for the rains

For Chef Manu Chandra, seasonality is a natural route to creativity. At Lupa, the menu changes every three to four months, with the current summer menu set to transition into a monsoon edition by the end of June.

The summer spread includes dishes such as heirloom tomatoes and burratina - charred peach and kasundi-marinated tomatoes with elderflower-yuzu vinaigrette, passion fruit pearls, puffed black quinoa, pickled onions, jalapeño and arugula.

With the monsoon, the kitchen turns to ingredients brought in by the rains: mangoes in multiple forms, leafy greens, wild mushrooms, bamboo shoots and tubers, depending on availability.

Winter, in turn, brings its own palette: local berries, black and white carrots, ponk from Gujarat, avarekai from Karnataka, zucchini blossoms and a wider supply of molluscs. These ingredients, Chandra says, shape how menus are conceptualised and structured.

Working with local producers

At Nila, seasonality is tied closely to geography. The restaurant refreshes its menu every three months, each time focusing on a different region of India and its native ingredients.

Its current menu explores Northeast India, drawing from the biodiversity of the Naga region and its tribal food traditions. Dishes such as tree tomato custard with confit Naga wild garlic and perilla seed salsa bring into focus less-known ingredients, while a black soybean tart with a ragi base and a pickled persimmon kebab - using a 30-day pickling process - highlight indigenous produce and preservation techniques.

The next menu, launching in early May, shifts to the Kerala backwaters. Founder Chef Rahul Sharma notes it will include dishes such as a dolma made with pickled mulberry leaves, rice and locally sourced jaggery. "Our research begins several months in advance, though it is not entirely linear. Working with local producers helps us source ingredients at peak harvest," he says.

Sustainability mantra

At Farmlore, seasonality operates at an even more granular level. Originally called Lore, the restaurant was renamed when founders Kaushik Raju and chef Johnson Ebenezer rooted it within a 37-acre farm, making produce central to its philosophy.

Here, menus follow micro-seasons, shifting every few weeks as specific fruits and vegetables come into harvest, supported by crop rotation practices. "You will get sweet watermelons just before the monsoon, followed by muskmelons after the rains," says Ebenezer. The restaurant also builds menus around global observances such as World Aquatic Animal Day and World Bee Day.

Sustainability is the king in the kitchen. They cook over mango wood fire, use solar energy and source produce from surrounding farms. The lunch menu changes weekly, while dinner evolves monthly.

Something light and fresh

For chef and founder Pradyumna Harithsa of Circa 11, seasonality is as much about behaviour as availability.

"A set menu assumes ingredients behave the same way all year, which they don't. Seasonality is about composition, water content, sugar levels, even how quickly something oxidises," he says, adding, "A summer tomato carries more sweetness, more water, more life. A seasonal menu allows us to respond instead of control, by keeping the kitchen alert."

The restaurant's current menu, Besigey, launched on April 15, is all about summer's demand for lighter, sharper food. The melon and burrata is probably the most direct expression of summer on the menu. Mango is everywhere right now, but Circa 11 is trying to play with contrasting textures to avoid the predictable sweetness.