Why do Hyderabad’s restaurant menus look so similar?

At a private menu reveal at Tuya, I asked chef Suresh DC how he would react if he spotted his dishes on another restaurant’s menu. Having tasted his muntha masala in 2025 and encountered what appeared to be a reworked version, presented as a beachside mixture, in 2026, I expected his answer to come with a generous helping of indignation.

Tuya’s menu, he says, revisits and reframes South Indian cuisine through nostalgia, travel and regional favourites, many drawn from the villages that shaped his palate. Rather than restrict himself to a single state or the dishes typically found in restaurants, he builds menus around food he has loved.

Instead, Suresh shrugged it off. “I will take that as a compliment. These instances keep our culinary creations going,” he said. It was not quite the reaction I had anticipated. Suresh seemed remarkably unfazed by the prospect of his dishes finding new homes.

Hyderabad, long identified with its biryani, is expanding its culinary vocabulary. Fragrant pulaos, fiery gutti vankaya, kodi vepudu and tangy gongura pappu are finding their way onto menus that reinterpret Telugu and South Indian food with pride. Curries arrive in bubbling stone pots, regional snacks inspire chaat, and familiar dishes are being reimagined for a new generation of diners.

But as the city’s restaurants diversify their offerings, their menus can begin to look remarkably alike. A dish that gives one restaurant its identity may soon appear elsewhere, sometimes under a new name or with a different presentation, but with enough similarities to prompt a sense of culinary déjà vu.

Has Hyderabad’s restaurant scene discovered a new culinary philosophy: why invent a dish when you can borrow one, give it a new name and serve it as your own?

Welcome to the world of copy, paste, plate — where menus are getting longer, but ideas sometimes seem to be running in circles.

Imitation dressed up as inspiration

Chef Suresh, is quick to defend the idea of inspiration. “The dishes I select for my menu are definitely things I have tasted on my travels. The inspiration for muntha masala comes from the mixture sold on Vizag beach; I just happened to take the presentation a notch higher.”

There is, however, a distinction between drawing inspiration from a dish and reproducing it. “As a chef, I appreciate inspiration. When we begin to imitate, it reflects poorly on our knowledge,” he says.

Some of Tuya’s dishes that have since appeared on other restaurant menus include its sarva pindi avocado, Muntha Masala, Totha kura fry and curry leaf ice cream.

Could the growing reliance on food consultants partly explain this tendency to repeat what already works? When restaurants turn to consultants to develop their menus, diners can find themselves visiting multiple establishments without being able to tell one apart from another. Hyderabad’s café scene once seemed particularly susceptible to this sameness, with menus celebrating edamame wontons, sushi and anything flavoured with truffle.

The city’s bun maska boom offers another example. After Café Niloufer popularised its bun maska and chai combination, the offering began appearing across Hyderabad. All it takes is one establishment to introduce an idea for several others to follow.

The city’s coffee scene has seen something similar. Hyderabad embraced specialty coffee well before it became a national obsession, championing manual brews and cold coffee with near-religious fervour. Roastery Coffee House’s Cranberry Coffee, an iced coffee with cranberry juice, became one of its signature drinks. Today, similar combinations can be found across cafés.

True Black has faced its own version of this. Its Valencia orange coffee, True Mocha and True Vanilla have inspired imitators, says Rohit Rao of True Black. “When we chose to use real chocolate in our mocha instead of store-bought syrup, the change in flavour was evident. That led other cafés to redo their recipes. The inspiration, however, is not restricted to the menu; some places even take inspiration from the interiors.”

Other most inspired dishes in Hyderabad include Spicy Venue’s Apricot Delight and MLA Potlam biryani, Karimnagar wing fry from Telanaga Spice Kitchen the Ci Gusta’s Brioche sandwich.

For diners, the repetition can be frustrating. Spandana Kirthi, a consultant who often works from cafés around the city, says it drives her back to the place where she first encountered a dish or drink. Otherwise, she picks whichever version she considers the best.

Not every chef, however, sees imitation as a threat. Vignesh R, partner chef at Theta Theta Telugu, says he is not particularly worried about inspired recreations. His response is to move on and develop the next menu.

“Our dishes are the outcome of many trials and errors, corrections and improvisations that align with the philosophy of the place,” he says. His Chintapandu ghee prawns, served with curry leaf brioche, takes inspiration from the Spanish gambas al ajillo, reinterpreted through a South Indian lens.

“Honestly, imitations are in bad taste. However, they are also one of the best forms of flattery,” he adds.

In a city that takes immense pride in its food, the line between inspiration and imitation is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. After all, a dish can travel, evolve and find new audiences without losing its connection to the chef who first imagined it. The question is whether Hyderabad’s restaurants are building on one another’s ideas or simply serving up the same ones again.