Incubators: Where the City’s Next Restaurants Are Being Born

Around a decade ago, Priya M, a Bengaluru-based lawyer, was introduced by a friend to home chef Tresa Francis’s Travancore Tasties. The Kerala Syrian Christian food that Tresa cooked was just what Priya needed, at a time when she was juggling a hectic career and looking after elderly parents. Priya turned to Tresa for regular deliveries then, and soon, “… her food became part of all family dinners and celebratory events,” says Priya, who is especially partial to Tresa’s cutlets, appams, fish and kappa, the erachi ularthu, and the tender coconut soufflé.

For Tresa, such word-of-mouth references helped grow her business, encouraging her to take it to a cloud kitchen model in 2021. One thing Tresa was sure about, though, was that she did not want to open a restaurant.

That changed in 2024.

Facilitating conversations

Here is why. Bangalore International Centre (BIC) is a privately-enabled public space that facilitates conversations around the arts and culture. It has a captive audience comprising members and the general public who come in for various events.

“While innovating our programming on sensory-led mind and soul experiences, we wanted to integrate the aspect of taste and food as well. We thought of an incubation space for promising home chefs with an entrepreneurial spirit that would help them grow wings in three to five years to open their own restaurants,” explains V Ravichandar, Board Member.

BIC began with Nãvu in 2021, which went independent in just one-and-a-half years. Next came Podi and Spice with Divya Prabhakar, who handled the business aspect, and Tresa as the home chef. “After a while, Tresa decided to chart her own path, and BIC, wanting to stay true to the idea of being an incubation centre for emerging chefs, rather than business ventures, gave her the platform to test-run Coracle, which was born in July 2024,” says Ravichandar.

As an incubator, BIC provides the space and a fully-fitted kitchen. Payments to BIC are computed based on the monthly business generated by the restaurant instead of a fixed rental or overhead. This helps reduce risks for the first-time entrepreneur, believes Ravichandar.

For Tresa, working on Coracle was an eye-opener. From cooking on pre-orders, she grew to a restaurant where people could come in and order, and she could watch their reaction. And for old-time loyalists like Priya, “…Coracle opening at BIC, brought Tresa right next door. Now whenever I yearn for a Kerala fix, I head on over. I have introduced friends and family, and it is my father’s favourite ‘home kitchen’ and dining table experience!” she says.

The food at Coracle in BIC

A dynamic way to explore new ideas

Culinary incubation spaces may be few, but they are transforming how diners engage with food and drink. From test restaurants and residencies to pop-ups and test kitchens, these formats give both diners and innovators a dynamic way to explore new ideas and experience what is coming next.

“When the Smash Guys were planning their burger restaurant in Bengaluru, they did a one-month residency at The Conservatory. On offer were burgers such as the oyster mushroom karaage, the Oklahoma smash, the eight-hour braised brisket, the Flintstone with torched bone marrow and more,” explains Akhila Srinivas, founder, Courtyard and The Conservatory.

The Courtyard was always an incubation space for music, dance and theatre. However, during COVID-19 (and later), food took precedence, with the first experiments and home deliveries of Naru Noodle Bar, Nãvu, Klaa Kitchen, and creations by Chef Karan Upmanyu, all happening from the Courtyard kitchen. Soon came The Conservatory – a dedicated and popular culinary pop-up space that has hosted several chefs and has had people planning their weekend calendars around its food events.

The Conservatory

Learning about lesser-seen cuisines

Wine in Progress (W.I.P), a wine dive bar with Japanese small plates, and The Middle Room, a vinyl listening bar, are both Courtyard’s in-house properties that emerged from its incubation ecosystem. W.I.P grew out of a six-month, after-hours wine programme where regulars saw the concept evolve week by week, small plates were tested, cuisines and themes explored, and the format refined from floating crowds to fixed seating, time slots and wine pairings. Those experiments eventually distilled into today’s W.I.P.

As a customer, Abhishek Gupta, fintech professional and dining enthusiast, says, “I owe so much of my current love for exploring food to places like The Conservatory and Tijouri (at the Radisson Blu Atria). Tijouri hosts pop-ups once a month, with each edition curated around a specific micro-cuisine or theme with a home chef.

Abhishek recalls the Kongunadu pop-up by Chef Harshini, where the naati kozhi kolambu and the karupatti halwa were stand-out dishes. “The Uttarakhandi dishes at another pop-up were a revelation. Despite living in Uttarakhand for four years, I had barely heard of any, let alone tasted them. I learnt from Chef Kalyan Gopalakrishna’s naati cuisine pop-up about the value of simplicity and ingredients. His dishes featured one ingredient, like pepper or coriander, as the hero element instead of the masala-forward philosophy. These chefs may not have had such a platform earlier, and the confidence boost must do wonders for them!” says Abhishek.

Home chef Shelly Tripathy of Elaach experienced that confidence first-hand through her Tijouri pop-ups. “It gives us the leverage to understand what it takes to open a restaurant or a cloud kitchen,” she says. Her Banaras-style kachori, Delhi samosa matar chaat, Oriya vada ghugni and Kashi-style lachha rabri all became strong points of validation. “Diners connected with me, through my food,” she says, adding that the incubation has clarified her path — a cloud kitchen next, and eventually, a small café where people can read and enjoy old, traditional things.

The Middle Room

Night Shift, a 25-seater café, will soon be a new residency-led incubation space in Chennai. By day, it is a café, and by night, it transforms into a test kitchen. “Most people making the transition into the food space already have day jobs, which is why we decided to call it Night Shift and do this as a dinner-only thing,” says Sandesh Reddy, chef and founder of Secret Sauce Ventures Pvt Ltd, adding that the interest in signing up has been overwhelming.

For Sandesh, though, the café-as-incubator idea is simply a more structured continuation of what he has been doing for years. “Over two decades, we have created and operated more than 40 brands, of which almost 30 run today. About 10 have emerged from long-term mentoring or collaborative incubation, shaped by our desire to help the ecosystem in Chennai build off our learnings and experiences,” he explains.

Much of this work happened quietly inside his existing restaurants. To balance experimentation of potential new concept menus with familiarity, things were structured around a rhythm. “During these residencies, the restaurants would run the experimental menu for 15 days and the regular one for the remainder of the month. This way, there was both a new experience and some familiarity for the diner. All the main dishes served would be based on the concept that we were incubating then,” explains Sandesh.

Several popular brands in Chennai began this way. Pastry chef Janani Kannan, for instance, was supplying desserts to Beachville Coffee Roasters, one of Sandesh’s properties, in 2021. Through mentoring, her work evolved into a café, Maison Indulgence, in 2023, followed by Gelarto, a gelato shop.

Sandesh’s incubation model has always leaned towards residencies rather than pop-ups. “With residencies, you are getting paying customers and relevant feedback. Some of our failures are not because the food is bad — it is because we may be so far removed from what the market wants. This is usually the training chefs need,” he explains.

Yet even as the city’s incubation landscape grows, Chennai’s alcohol scene remains tricky. Night Shift, like most of Sandesh’s incubated concepts, will stay firmly food-forward.

But, going spirit-forward is The Good Craft Co. (TGCC), Diageo India’s first sensorial Experience Home in Bengaluru. On weekdays, it functions as an R&D hub for Diageo’s portfolio and as an open platform where start-ups, mixologists and other professionals can experiment with ideas, access equipment, and tap into technical guidance to refine or scale early liquid concepts.

On weekends, the Flavour Lab opens to consumers for a three-hour, on-the-house session that traces the history of Indian craft through a grain-to-glass journey of a chosen spirit. Each edition focuses on a different category. There have been sessions on gin, agave and whiskey, among others. This gives people a chance to understand how spirits are made and what sets one style apart from another. At a recent Mahua-focussed session, about 15 curious participants — took notes, asked questions, and later, headed to the bar to taste serves and link flavours back to what they had just learned.

“With India adding roughly 20 million new consumers every year and disposable incomes going up, people are far more discerning of what they want to consume, how and where they do it, and the experiences they want as part of the consumption story,” says Vikram Damodaran, Chief Innovation Officer, Diageo India.

A session at The Flavour Lab

For mixologists and bar teams, TGCC provides access to an equipped space and a depth of knowledge — from percolation and condensation tools to fermentology, Indian ingredients and flavour-building resources. Conversations with experts help shape ideas and move innovation quickly into real-world environments. Since its inception, TGCC has supported around 40 start-ups, engaged with 250 mixologists and interacted with nearly 6,000 consumers.

Not every great concept works — and now, not every one needs to begin with a large investment and a full-fledged restaurant. These incubation spaces give chefs the room to test, refine and, when needed, quietly drop ideas before the stakes get too high. For diners, it’s a win-win: the thrill of a memorable meal, and the bragging rights of having discovered it first.