In Goa’s Changing Landscape, Modern Chefs Reckon With Their Relationships with People and Place

Goa is in the midst of a culinary renaissance. This summer, the grounds along the river Mandovi in the capital city of Panjim were booked for food and culture festivals that spotlighted seasonal produce such as cashews and mangoes, and brought together music performances, local vendors and produce from farmers’ markets. Around the same time, Wild Otters Research, a conservation-based research organisation, teamed up with the brewery Great State Aleworks to create an innovative seaweed sour beer called ‘The Ridley’. Part of the proceeds from the beer sales went towards research in Olive Ridley turtle conservation in Goa. Every winter since 2022, 100 people, many of them tourists, gather for Feast in the Fields, a Goan dining experience held in a rice field by local chef Ralph Prazeres, complete with Indo-Portuguese fare and feni cocktails.

This fever pitch in Goa’s culinary renewal and experimentation has been growing since the Covid-19 pandemic. When most state borders closed, Goa remained open to domestic tourism. Urban Indians—drawn in by azure waters, green rice fields, reasonable rents and the digital nomad culture—saw Goa as the promised land. Chefs from India's metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai and worked with seasonal menus, while in their gardens, serving up childhood lunches with the spirit of transatlantic travel. Even in the small village where I live, the shed that served rice-and-fish meals came to share its balcony with a new coffee shop where one could order matcha, or coffee with black sesame, if you could afford it.