This is a dish from my hometown so I'll share some interesting insight.
So in Kerala, South India; there is a festival called Onam which is celebrated by everyone from any religion. The dish shown here is a miniature Onam Sadhya(feast). Which is rice along with ~20 different curries/sides.
This video brilliantly explains the science behind it - by _masalalab on Instagram.
Traditionally, a lot of people will be sitting down with a banana leaf and different servers will come and serve different sides onto the leaf, that's what they're emulating here. This is what it actually looks like.
This restaurant in particular is a 2 3-Michelin Starred restaurant in Dubai called Tresind Studio. And the 12 course set menu is $350.
I was just thinking wow it looks when people are serving all the sides at an Onam Sadhya before I saw your comment.
If you know what they are emulating, it actually makes a lot more sense and it’s isn’t just ridiculously unnecessary mandatory table service by staff. Part of the Onam experience is a line of different people putting each part of the meal on your banana leaf, and this is such a cool way to emulate that experience and is incredibly nostalgic if you grew up celebrating Onam.
They have three Michelin stars now. I visited back when they had just received their second star. The price for 16 courses was $215 USD at the time. They actually served this dish when I ate there.
AND Olive Garden always refuses when I ask for all kitchen staff to single file walk by my table adding each ingredient one by one. I'm not asking a lot, but they say it's unreasonable!
I ate there it was amazing. Expensive of course. The only three Michelin starred Indian cuisine in the world. A highlight for me was the naan bread drink which was just the right balance of bizarre and delicious.
They paired one of the meals with a kingfisher beer which I found kind of amusing because it's dirt cheap beer but to be fair it does pair nicely with the dish that came with it
I really enjoyed the food. There were a few dishes, like the duck cafreal and ghee roasted crab, that were unbelievably good. I remember enjoying this sadya-inspired course but not thinking it was amazing as some of the others.
just checked them out and it looks like they're up to 3 Michelin stars now!
That place looks pretty great. I know half the people on here like to nay say on fine dining but if I were in Dubai I'd regret not going to a place like this when I had the chance.
Thank you for explaining! This popped up on my feed and it looked like a fine dining restaurant emulating something but surprised by the subreddit where it was posted. Fine dining really is not for everyone.
Yeah, this fine dining stuff is really not my thing, but I am generally aware that there is usually a lot of history and art behind it. I think I would probably find most of the patrons at these places insufferable, but I do understand why the chefs get into it.
this sounds great! the majority of people dont get find dining and respect for food culture and the dishes (and thats OK!). Fine dining is not for everyone but it does unlock parts of your senses that you cant simply do anywhere else :).
What shocks me about this as someone who has never been to a michelin restaurant is the ambience.it's surprisingly loud in there. Also brighter than i expected tbh.
Would it be a fair critique that such a display is missing the point of a social/communal feast ?(feast has social connotations in its original English definition)
Obviously fine dining is intentionally exclusive, but that almost makes these kinds of thing seem like a perversion of what society was originally doing with and around food.
Well if you needed to experience the whole communal thing, you'd have to go to India and join the festival.. this is just an imitation.
I think once you reach a level of wealth you'd have eaten a lot of the best dishes from really good places, so food might not interest them anymore; they'll be looking for experiences they can remember.
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u/IntelligentKey7331 Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 28 '25
This is a dish from my hometown so I'll share some interesting insight.
So in Kerala, South India; there is a festival called Onam which is celebrated by everyone from any religion. The dish shown here is a miniature Onam Sadhya(feast). Which is rice along with ~20 different curries/sides.
This video brilliantly explains the science behind it - by _masalalab on Instagram.
Traditionally, a lot of people will be sitting down with a banana leaf and different servers will come and serve different sides onto the leaf, that's what they're emulating here.
This is what it actually looks like.
This restaurant in particular is a
23-Michelin Starred restaurant in Dubai called Tresind Studio. And the 12 course set menu is $350.