Born in Mumbai, influenced by the diversity of India and fully committed to product cuisine: Varun Totlani represents a new generation of modern Indian gastronomy. As Head Chef of Masque and Bar Paradox, he combines regional ingredients, exploratory curiosity and contemporary techniques to create a cuisine that tells the story of India in a new and precise way.
Varun Totlani grew up in Mumbai and discovered his passion for cooking at an early age. After completing his training, including at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, he returned to his home city and joined the Masque opening team as Commis Chef in 2016. He became sous chef in 2021 and has been responsible for the restaurant’s kitchen as head chef since 2022 and now also shapes Bar Paradox.
Under his leadership, Masque has further established itself as one of India’s most important culinary voices. The restaurant, housed in a former textile mill in Mumbai, works with a ten-course tasting menu that focuses on season, provenance and produce. In 2026, Masque was awarded the Art of Hospitality Award at Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants and ranked 15th on the list, having previously been ranked 68th on the extended list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants in 2025.
Totlani’s cuisine is consistently driven by ingredients. He works exclusively with products from India, travels the country, collects wild ingredients and maintains close partnerships with producers and farms. Ingredients such as ponkh, seaweed, star fruit, sea buckthorn and cacao fruit are exemplary of his style: powerful in taste, deeply rooted in their origins and always designed to transform familiar Indian flavors into a new form.
This is precisely the strength of his dishes. Whether seaweed and ponkh bhel, sea buckthorn pani puri or a dessert of cocoa fruit and gondhoraj lime: Totlani’s approach to Indian flavors is not nostalgic, but forward-looking. His cuisine shows how great the diversity of the subcontinent is and how modern, precise and surprising Indian flavors can be interpreted today. For guests in St. Moritz, this is an invitation to rediscover India beyond all clichés.
