New Delhi, Jan. 2 -- We are seated around a table and asked to pick olives off hooks placed on a prop that looks like an olive tree. What follows is a meal featuring fresh salads, pastas and Basque cheesecake. Another day, another meal, this time Japanese-inspired with sushi, soba noodles and katsu curry. These may sound like any other gourmet meal on a weekend outing in a metro, except that the former is at Atelier V, a casual fine-dining restaurant in Indore, and the latter at Yakitori, a Japanese restaurant in Virsa Baltistan in Turtuk, Ladakh.

India's culinary landscape is now seeing chefs choosing to root themselves in smaller towns instead of chasing F&B glory in tier-one cities like Mumbai, Delhi or Bengaluru. Chef Prateek Sadhu's...