The accidental entrepreneur's fine-dining space Masque, in Mumbai, has been voted as India's No 1 restaurant thrice over; this year, it debuted on the World's 50 Best Restaurants list at No 78
For a year since 2016, when Aditi Dugar launched Masque, a fine-dining restaurant in Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi area, her father-in-law wouldn’t come in to dine. Dugar was born into a Jain family and married into another, where tradition mandated a strictly vegetarian diet. While the 41-year-old adhered to it (and still does), her restaurant served a robust non-vegetarian menu that would often include zany elements like rabbit and ant, and Dugar Sr registered his disapproval by staying away. “Our families took some convincing but now they’re our proudest patrons,” says Dugar. “My father-in-law dines here often and brings every guest who comes to visit him in Mumbai.”