India, Jan. 16 -- Put yourself in Manish Mehrotra's shoes. You are, by common consent, India's greatest chef. At a time when modern Indian food was mostly about the Frenchified presentation preferred by chefs at expensive Indian restaurants abroad you (along with one other chef, Gaggan Anand, in Bangkok) changed the paradigm and transformed the way chefs think. A genuinely different but still authentic Indian cuisine finally emerged.

But now, after so many years at the top and many other successful restaurants (Comorin, for example) you think you have reached a crossroads in your life. Indian Accent is still the best restaurant in the country. Your fame has spread globally even though you have refused to play the influencer/ paid PR game...