Farmlore

I usually refrain from reading too much about a restaurant before visiting – the charm of discovery and all that – but I must confess, word about Farmlore had reached me well before I scheduled a visit, all the way from Delhi to Bengaluru.

One of Asia’s most talked-about restaurants and certainly among the country’s most distinctive dining experiences, I’d been warned about not managing to nab a seat. And indeed, I didn’t on that first trip, but a few months later, I received an invite to experience the restaurant’s Best of Five Years menu – a retrospective of sorts that brought together dishes from Farmlore’s first five years. Of course, I accepted. 

Farmlore: The making of a dream

Long before Farmlore became one of India's top restaurants, it was simply a family farm on the outskirts of Bengaluru. Today, those same 33 acres of coconut palms, mango orchards and vegetable patches have become the foundation of one of the most original dining experiences, where chefs don't begin by planning a menu and then sourcing ingredients to match. Instead, they walk through the farm, see what nature has provided, and allow the harvest to lead the way.

For founder and owner Kaushik Raju, the story started years before the restaurant was even a dream. ‘As far back as 2012, I imagined a place where stories could become icebreakers and food could start conversations,’ he says. 

In 2019, Chef Johnson Ebenezer joined him, and with a small team of four, they began work on ‘Lore’, a concept built around custom stories on a plate. They started with a series of pop-up dining experiences where menus were specially designed and customised around birthdays, anniversaries, and even games of Dumb Charades. Then, the pandemic brought Kaushik back to the family farm where he had spent weekends with his grandfather, and suddenly, the idea found its home.

‘Somewhere between the mango trees my grandfather knew and the vegetable beds we were tending, we found the story we wanted to tell every day,’ he says. ‘We wanted humble, local produce to receive the same respect usually reserved for imported luxury ingredients.’

That philosophy remains at the heart of Farmlore today. That means you can forget about asking what's on the menu weeks in advance, because nobody knows. The menu changes constantly, first every week, and now every month, depending on what's growing, what's thriving and what local fishermen have managed to bring ashore. 

So that means veggies come directly from the farm, seafood is sourced from India's coastline, including Rameshwaram and Kochi, while indigenous ingredients and regional produce shape every meal. 

The farm at Farmlore

Needless to say, the farm itself is every bit as important as the kitchen. Swati, Kaushik’s wife, tells us that he’s quite a farm-geek in a sense. Raised beds protect the soil, vermicompost enriches it naturally, and crops are regularly tested for nutrient density. We tasted the freshest mint, chilli flowers and stevia off the plants during our farm tour. 

Six varieties of mangoes already grow here, while a developing fruit forest will eventually include around 150 different species, from mangosteen and longan to dragon fruit and miracle fruit. Equally telling is what hasn't been planted. Around 12 per cent of the land has deliberately been left untouched, allowing native plants and wildlife to thrive, reflecting the team's belief that good farming is sometimes about restraint as much as productivity.

The same thoughtful approach defines the cooking. Every dish is prepared over wood fire, a decision that came about almost by accident when pruning the farm's mango trees during the pandemic left an abundance of timber that proved too valuable to waste. Today, fire has become one of the kitchen's defining ingredients, adding depth and character while creating a natural connection between the farm and the plate.

The dining experience at Farmlore

My meal at Farmlore beautifully captured the core philosophy. It opened with the Trio of Bites: a pop-in-your-mouth jamun sphere with chillies and salt (this is one of their signatures); meringue topped with ants (!) from the mango tree; and, umami-laden moringa milk with soy served in a baby’s milk bottle. This sets the tone of the meal to follow – bombastic flavours, adventurous fare.

We then moved onto Mutta Puffs, a playful reinterpretation of Bengaluru's much-loved Iyengar bakery egg puff, combining a perfect egg, curries espuma and crispy buckwheat. Ducks & Roses paired aged duck with fragrant gulkand and Mandya butter, while Seataphor was literally art on a plate with a very important message: depicting ocean weaves made with spirulina, sea life in the form of delicious red mullet, but then there was the edible 'plastic' made with yam flour and oil spill made with squid ink in a subtle reflection on marine pollution. 

I had opted for the non-vegetarian tasting menu, but at some point, the towering sunflowers that we had seen during the farm tour prior to our meal also made their way to our plate. Chef Johnson deliberately didn't disclose what we were eating to keep us guessing, but it turned out that the central part of the sunflower was not only edible, but rather tasty and had a meaty texture, much like shiikate mushroom. 

Karnataka's culinary traditions were revisited through Mudde, where ragi mudde, karamani and saaru appeared in a completely new form, before the menu shifted towards the coast with LOL, featuring Rameshwaram lobster, kokum gassi and the most delicious lycopene leather. Haleem, built around prized Bannur lamb, celebrates one of Karnataka's indigenous breeds, while desserts continuedto champion regional produce through Vazhakulam pineapple, pandan, Halikar milk, honey and seasonal blossoms.

The verdict

No two meals here will be identical. The food is inventive, technically accomplished and often surprising, but it never feels like innovation for its own sake. Every dish remains connected to the place it comes from, whether that's a variety of mango growing a few metres away, a native breed of lamb from Karnataka or seafood landed on India's southern coast that very morning. And there’s also all the fun along the way: with menus designed around themes like Hollywood, music trivia and even a treasure hunt through the farm.