Our Story
Born in Cyber Hub, Gurgaon in 2014. Twelve cities, two continents, more awards than we can hang. Now lighting up Rajpur Road from a rooftop above 222, Dhakpatti.
What is "Farzi"?
In Hindi-Urdu street language, farzi means an illusion, a sleight-of-hand, something that looks like one thing and turns out to be another. That, in a word, is our cooking.
We take India's most familiar dishes, dal chawal, butter chicken, ras malai, pani puri, and reimagine them through Western technique, foam guns, smoke domes, dehydrators and freeze-drying. The first bite always knows where it is from. The second bite makes you smile.
Indian food, no apology, all wonder.
Our menus are built on three rules. One: the spice must always lead. Whatever the technique, the dish must taste recognisably, defiantly Indian. Two: the plate must move you, visually, emotionally, theatrically. Three: nothing on the menu can take longer than 20 minutes from order to table.
Behind those rules sits a 12-strong kitchen team led by Chef Aman Bisht, formerly of Indian Accent and Bukhara, who moved home to Uttarakhand to open the Dehradun kitchen in 2022.
Zorawar Kalra and the idea that changed Indian dining.
In 2014, Zorawar Kalra walked into Gurgaon's Cyber Hub with a singular conviction: that Indian food deserved to stand alongside the great bistro cuisines of the world, not in apology but in absolute confidence. The result was the original Farzi Café, part theatre, part laboratory, part love letter to the subcontinent's larder.
Zorawar grew up in the shadow of his father, the legendary chef Jiggs Kalra, whose command of classical Indian cuisine defined a generation. Where his father codified tradition, Zorawar chose reinvention. Through Massive Restaurants, the group he co-founded, which today operates Farzi Café globally alongside Made in Punjab, Pa Pa Ya and Dragonfly Experience, he built a portfolio of concepts that treat Indian hospitality as a world-class creative endeavour.
The Dehradun chapter is among his most personal. Bringing Farzi to the foothills of the Himalayas was never about expansion for its own sake; it was about proving that modern Indian cooking belongs everywhere India is beautiful, and Dehradun, with its orchards and mountain light and unhurried grace, is precisely that.
Farzi, milestone by milestone
The First Farzi
Founders Zorawar Kalra and Massive Restaurants open the original Farzi Café in Gurgaon's Cyber Hub. Modern Indian cuisine for a generation that wants nostalgia with a wink.
Mumbai & Hyderabad open
The concept rolls out to Lower Parel and Hyderabad. Wins the EazyDiner award for Best Modern Indian Cuisine, two years running.
Crossing borders
Farzi opens in Dubai's City Walk, the first of an international rollout. London, Bangkok and Toronto follow.
Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Goa, Kolkata
The Farzi map expands to twelve cities. We're now one of India's most-loved modern Indian dining concepts.
Hello, Himalayas
Farzi opens its first rooftop in the hills, on the top floor of 222, Dhakpatti. Floor-to-ceiling Mussoorie views, an onyx-lit bar and six private cabanas under brass canopies.
Awards on the wall
EazyDiner
Best Modern Indian Cuisine · 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024
Times Food Awards
Best Innovative Restaurant · 2020, 2023
Condé Nast Traveller
Top 50 Restaurants in India · 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
World Culinary Awards
India's Best Restaurant Brand · 2023
A bistro that belongs to the foothills.
Dehradun is where India's hills begin. It's a city of literature and lychee orchards, of crumbling cantonments and a new generation of restaurants. We came here because the people who walk into our doors aren't tourists, they're locals who know Robber's Cave, Char Dukan, and which paranthe-wallah opens earliest on Rajpur Road.
We came here to feed them dal chawal arancini in a glass of Mussoorie air. And, occasionally, the visiting honeymooners.
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