To meld tradition with modernity, there are champagne laddoos and tiramisu barfi, and instead of bhujia, lavish cheese and cracker grazing platters. If cooking is your guest’s sweet spot, how about a large—never-ending—box of gourmet ingredients? For every kind of gourmand, here’s a round-up of food gifts to eat well.
Couture chocolates
Storytelling and surrealism converge in this Diwali chocolate collection from the Japanese brand ROYCE and fashion designer Gaurav Gupta. The gift boxes have been designed, with a touch of whimsy, to look like vintage leather-bound fairy-tale books. They contain indulgent treats such as pure chocolate bars, chocolate wafers and coffee chocolate. To take forward the ethos of thoughtful gifting, the box includes a poem on hope.
Price: ₹1,995 onwards
Available at: RoyceIndia.com
Say cheese
The indulgent cheese grazing platter from Graiz India is perfect for card parties that go on till the wee hours. Known as the Fromage Feast Round, it contains a mix of hard and soft cheeses, shortbread cookies, baked crackers, French baguettes, dried and fresh fruits and more.
Price: ₹6,000+GST
Order: Graizindia.com
Gin meets ‘mithai’
The Delhi-based luxury mithai brand NAME is known for its innovative, boozy laddoos. For Diwali, they have introduced two new variations—sambuca with grapes and gin with cranberry. For teetotallers, there are gujiyas stuffed with an apple pie filling or alcohol-free tiramisu stuffing. They can also whip up no-bake mithai cakes on order with a base of your choice: be it mava, rabdi or motichoor. The colours, says co-founder Subha Aggarwal, are plant-based and they use no artificial essence.
Price: Starts from ₹400 for a box of four. Order: @nihiraandco, Instagram
The gourmet pantry
There are home cooks who believe that their fridge is empty without Parmesan, a kitchen incomplete without Himalayan pink salt, and teatime meaningless without biscotti. The Cook With CAARA Gourmet Hamper is for them. Apart from the cheese, salt and biscuits, there’s a tea towel, z vanilla bean candle and playing cards.
Price: ₹9,500+shipping
Order: Caara.com
