With five tables or less, the XS eatery is everywhere

Barely 250 sqft in size, there’s always a queue to get into Bengaluru’s Wine In Progress (WIP), a snug space known for pouring premium wines by the glass that can seat just 12 people. A year and three months since it opened, the demand for a seat in this XS eatery hasn’t ebbed.

WIP isn’t a one-off; it seems the tiny eatery is now the most coveted space for local gastronomes to gather. In Mumbai, chef Seefah Ketchaiyo’s latest chicken-and-rice joint, Khao Man Gai, is widely different from her eponymous eatery. For one, it only serves one main, in three iterations, and always has a small, gentrified crowd outside hustling for a table. With just four tables, this micro restaurant’s authenticity somehow shines through its no-frills approach—no handmade cutlery here, only stainless-steel forks and knives to pick. The one hero dish around which Ketchaiyo’s menu is built makes Khao Man Gai look more like a labour of love, and easier to run on her own terms.

While consistency is what brings people back, Kanishka Sharma, chef and co-owner of Bengaluru’s Nāvu, confirms it’s also a lot more “easier to manage” a smaller enterprise. Her chef-partner Pallavi Menon swears by the creative autonomy and “complete control” that such intimate spaces offer. “We’ve always wanted a space that had the vibe of a dining room if Pallavi and I shared a house—and only small makes sense then,” adds Sharma. 

Of course, everybody wants what’s hard to get. Reservations at these hot venues are hard to snag. Papa’s, Mumbai’s most sought-after table today, accepts reservations only by diners who compete their online form once a month at 11am, when their website opens slots for the 12-people eatery that is only open four nights a week. Speciality ramen shops—Bengaluru’s Naru Noodle Bar, Chennai’s Tokyo Diner and Delhi’s Zuru Zuru—seat 20 people and no more, so don’t even think of bringing your second cousins to slurp brothy bowls with you. Nāvu, tucked into a bylane of an Indiranagar-adjacent Bengaluru neighbourhood, serves up a seasonal menu in a dining room no larger than a baguette. And yet, there’s a constant queue, the online reservation link often crashes because of the avalanche of demand, and one gets in when one gets in—there’s no flex, pull or charm to get past these velvet ropes. 

You’d think a crammed culinary establishment would be a recipe for disaster, but its appeal to diners (intimacy, interaction with chefs and hard-to-get seating) and chefs today (lower rent, controlled menu and creative focus) is undisputed. You don’t need big financial backing or crazy investment portfolios to open a good eatery anymore.

In Bengaluru’s F&B landscape, Akhila Srinivas, founder of The Courtyard, a social hub that houses tiny eating spaces like Naru Noodle Bar, WIP and The Conservatory, says this trend of XS eateries can’t just be attributed to rising real-estate prices but is determined by “concept and cuisine”. A little over two years ago, when Srinivas started working with Kavan Kuttappa, the chef-owner of Naru Noodle Bar, its extra-small size was a prerequisite. “He was particular that Naru be an eight-seater noodle bar to remain ‘authentic’ to a Japanese ramen place,” says Srinivas.

In cities like Delhi and Mumbai, where rents are inflated, small-footprint establishments are a more common route for emerging chefs. But for Ketchaiyo, the size of the restaurant determined her limited menu. “A small kitchen meant limited storage and prep space,” she says, which reflects in a menu that is “focussed and efficient”. Like her frequent diners who never tire of ordering the same chicken and rice every time, Ketchaiyo would rather have “a small selection done exceptionally well”, which also “simplifies execution, reduces waste, and builds a strong identity”.

The small, hyper-focussed eatery, however, is not new or ground-breaking. In Bengaluru, the darshini—small-impression, big-impact eateries from the 1980s—transformed the city’s F&B industry. The darshini dates back to 1983, when, after a visit to the United States, restaurant consultant R Prabhakar figured that a selection of South Indian all-day breakfast items could be served up as quickly as burgers and fries at a McDonald’s. He helped open the city’s first darshini, called Cafe Darshini (now Upahara Darshini), in Jayanagar, and since then darshinis have mushroomed across the city (over 5,000 in Bengaluru alone) and mutated into similar versions across the country.

Naru Noodle Bar’s Kuttappa has always looked towards these still-thriving darshinis as great examples of successful, streamlined systems of service. “I want Naru to be like these places: they haven’t branched out or expanded, have a fixed menu, and are known for delivering consistency on the daily,” he says of legacy establishments like Rameshwaram Café, Malleshwaram’s Central Tiffin Room, and Gandhi Bazaar’s Vidyarthi Bhavan, which have been around for decades.

But today’s XS eateries are not as fuss-free as the darshinis of the past—their uniqueness lies in the creativity they bring to the table for a discerning crowd with time on its hands. “Here, diners know exactly what they are going for; there’s no confusion. And the kitchen delivers a tightly edited range of consistent, high-quality dishes,” explains Srinivas.

Chatting with the chef about his tattoo sleeve, scoring the contact for a specialty ingredient vendor, sampling a test dish or even finding a pickleball partner after a couple of glasses of wine—the real pull of such XS establishments is that they afford a refreshing sense of informality within their compact four walls.

For Mexican eatery Comal’s chef and partner Varun Periera, it wasn’t just “the possibilities for personalisation and interaction” that made him an ambassador of a small-footprint enterprise but also the increased chances of finding a good location (Comal is on MG Road in Bengaluru). Within three months of opening, Pereira says he has the flexibility to change up items on his menu “in response to his customers’ reactions” without overhauling it. “With a smaller menu, the process of adjustment or additions is just easier, faster, and simpler,” he adds.

In 2025, diners don’t want to be just another warm body in a restaurant the size of a whale’s belly. They crave thoughtfully presented experiences and cutting-edge cuisine.

“The consumer has stopped wanting to go to places where sab ke liye kuch na kuch mil jayega,” says Navika Kapoor, chef and co-owner of Zuru Zuru, a cosy little ramen spot in Shahpur Jat. “Instead, they want an experience and are willing to eat what the chef is excited to make.” At Zuru Zuru, between seasons they introduce a menu called Intermission (“like a break in a movie”), which allows for the chefs to innovate beyond the commercial constraints that need you to retain certain items on the menu. “These menu experiments, sprinkled throughout the year, also keep the regulars happy by giving them consistency but also that sense of aur kya chal raha hai,” Kapoor adds. 

This is to say, a small restaurant allows for a balance to be struck between standard items, specials and surprises. “Our small menu can reflect seasonal offerings easily; buying five kilograms of an ingredient will run us a week,” concurs Nāvu’s Sharma on operating a 10-seater space. The same thing can also be a problem: “There are some ingredients that I still want to bring to Naru’s menu, which at my scale becomes difficult. I may want to use a fatty tuna belly, which is priced upwards of ₹12,000 a kilo, and I’ll have to sell it within a day or two, but what happens if no one comes then?” posits Kuttappa on the challenges of running a compact space.

Most chefs helming these micro restaurants agree that this trend of XS eateries sprouting across the country is a sign of a maturing industry. “When an industry matures, diners start valuing quality, authenticity, and specialisation over just trends or big-name establishments,” says Ketchaiyo in an email interview. Small restaurants, which come with a small menu of the greatest hits and a community of regulars, often focus on niche concepts, craft, and personal storytelling.

Ketchaiyo has experiential advice for those eager to ride the wave of this success. “A small restaurant might have lower costs, but margins too are tight, so be realistic,” she warns. “And workflow must be carefully planned. Without a strong customer base, even great food won’t sustain the business. Running a small restaurant requires hands-on involvement, long hours and sacrifices.”

Restauranteurs should also beware of the tsunami of public backlash from hungry customers who never get a place. “It is heavy and it is everyday. People constantly demand reservations or are surprised that we’ve sold out again,” says Nāvu’s Sharma. “Make peace with public expectation or have your therapist on call,” she advises. 

Most XS eateries follow the same online booking system “because it is the only democratic process available” but there are numerous stories of rigging it. Naru Noodle Bar—still the toughest table to book in Bengaluru—has a whole subreddit called “Impossible to book Naru Noodles” filled with conspiracies from “running scripts” to aquire a booking to planning a trip to Japan, which somehow seems more viable than getting a place, or gathering 20 friends (real life or internet friends) and booking out the whole place for under a lakh. My advice if you aren’t the fastest finger around? Stay alert, improve your reflexes.