Announcing the launch of Masala Trails, my new baby!

Ever since I began foodwriting, I have used my profession shamelessly. It was the perfect cover to be greedy without appearing like a slob! You salivate, gorge on platefuls of tasty treats, gossip about the best place to find spices, or eat local specialities.... And every time I returned from exploring the gastronomic underbelly of a place, I would dream of creating a food itinerary of India. India’s culinary scape is so vast that the cuisine changes every fifty kilometres and yet some of its most delicious culinary secrets are undiscovered. Almost as if the food gods were listening, my sister, Himanshi, set up a branch of my mother’s company Beacon Holidays a company synonymous with niche travel, in Australia. I now had the strongest partner I could make culinary tours of India happen.

And so they were concieved. And then we spent the last year or so rushing about discovering India! Not an easy task since most of the stuff we were looking for was not available anywhere. Most times we would arrive somewhere and then begin to look for the sort of experience we wanted. We have eatien, checked out hundreds of hotels big and small, reikied thousands of rooms, eaten some more, slept in a different bed for days on end, eaten, explored all sorts of lanes and little lanes, eaten a lot more and finally brought together an experience we believe will be satisfying to a foodie like me. 

Called Masala Trails, these tours will wind through some of India’s most vibrant cities such as Kolkata, Hyderabad, Cochin, Goa, Mumbai, Delhi, Agra and Rajasthan and aim to take the food traveller off the eaten track into lesser known regional cuisines of India. On the menu are dozens of carefully-selected experiences designed to bring out the full flavor of India and feature culinary experiences that will span the spectrum from street food, home kitchens and fine dining experiences to market tours and demonstrations with expert cooks and chefs, local food artisans, and intimate contact with local regional cuisines, foodways and traditions.

Masala trails has been simmering for a long time, it just needed the right ingredients to become a perfect offering and through it, I hope to realise a lifelong dream of showcasing the rich culinary heritage of my country.

Thank you for your support and encouragement thus far. i hope you will continue to extend it as I take this new venture forward. 

To learn more please click through to the Beacon Holidays website