Mayfair’s Gymkhana has £160 tasting menu and has hosted Selena Gomez – now its boss wants
It is the two-Michelin starred Mayfair restaurant beloved by stars including Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.
And now Gymkhana is cashing in on the growing trend of Britons opting to cook gourmet food at home, rather than ordering a weekly takeaway or going out.
The Indian restaurant has just launched its range of cooking sauces and marinades in Tesco, adding to well-heeled stockists Ocado and Waitrose, as well as Sainsbury’s.
Gymkhana’s chief executive Gulrez Arora, who partnered with restaurant owner JKS to launch the brand’s Gymkhana Fine Foods grocery range in 2023, says Britain’s dining-in boom is ‘definitely working in our favour.’
The restaurant opened in 2013 and is named after Indian social and sports clubs. It earned its first Michelin star in 2014, and a second one in 2024 – making it one of only four Indian restaurants in the world to hold two stars.
Its tasting menu costs diners £160 per person, but supermarket shoppers can now grab a jar of its Goan curry sauce for £6.75.
The company made £4.9million in sales for the year to 31 December 2025, more than doubling from £2.14million the year before.
Star power: The restaurant’s fans include Selena Gomez and Dua Lipa
Shoppers looking for little luxuries
As many middle-class Britons look to tighten their belts, Arora thinks high-end food to cook at home will increase its appeal.
He says: ‘There are a lot of consumers out there that are ready for stepping up their pantry staples, their cooking game at home, and they are very savvy.
‘If they’re cutting back, everybody wants that permissible, kind of accessible luxury, right? It’s that dose of feeling good about yourself and about feeding your family something delicious.
‘They do the trade-off in their head, and they realise, “Man, this is better than anything else I can get around my neighbourhood”‘.
The business is also reaping the rewards of more consumers wanting to host dinner parties, influenced by social media sites such as TikTok and Pinterest.
‘Supper clubs are the new clubs’ among younger consumers, Arora says.
Restaurant range: Gymkhana is cashing in on demand for premium home-cooked meals
Supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have been investing in their own offerings of ‘restaurant quality’ ready-meals and cook-at-home ranges over the past few years.
However, Arora thinks there is a gap in the market for quality Indian cuisine specifically.
He says that ‘for a very long time’ the Indian segment in supermarkets has predominately had ‘mass’ appeal with affordable price points and a ‘fairly kind of substandard, dilutive experience.’
He says he saw ‘a very clear gap, just purely on bringing what we thought was a whole another level of taste, flavor, consumer experience.’
Can Gymkhana crack the US?
Arora now has his sights set on expansion in the US, and hopes to fly the flag for British-Indian cuisine across the Pond.
He says that Indian food as a category in the US is ‘fairly young’ and ‘not this heritage cuisine, as it is in the UK’ but that this is ‘changing really fast.’
Arora adds that in the UK, he has to answer one question of ‘why Gymkhana?’ but in the US, it is two: ‘Why Indian food? Why Gymkhana?’
But he says the US consumer is ‘much more adventurous’, while the scale and size of the US is also beneficial for expansion.
Gymkhana opened a restaurant in Las Vegas at the end of 2025, and sells its grocery products in the US through Whole Foods.
‘Hopefully there will be a Gymkhana in every key city, be it LA, New York, Miami, over the next five years,’ he adds.
Its profile was boosted after pop star Taylor Swift and her footballer fiancé Travis Kelce took a trip to the London venue in May.
‘[The place] is phenomenal and now that I know there’s one in Vegas, everyone in America needs to go try it,’ American football player Kelce later raved on his podcast.
Arora says the restaurant is ‘very blessed’ to be admired by the likes of stars including Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, the Beckhams and Selena Gomez.
‘There are no PR invites, none of that. These are all organic, all people that genuinely love the brand, and come and embrace it. So, absolutely, it does help build awareness,’ he adds.
Will this star power filter down to the shopper picking up dinner in the supermarket?
Arora thinks so, saying: ‘It’s the kind of awareness that money can’t buy.’
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