Much like momos, this Japanese dish is now popping up across Indian menus

₹500 for a plate of six pieces.“Sushi’s vibrant colour palette and visual presentation make it particularly appealing to younger consumers, many of whom are drawn to dishes that photograph well for social-media platforms such as Instagram,” said Shravan Singh, manager of the two-year-old restaurant.In Kanpur, the dish is the highlight of the menu of another such small restaurant, “Oishi the temple of Wok”. It offers a variety of sushi, including Prawn Tempura, Avocado Cream Cheese, and Smoked Salmon.

The price ranges from anywhere between ₹325 to ₹525.“Most of our customers who walk into our restaurant are students from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Kanpur, and many of them also travel all the way from Jajmau, which is a small suburb in Kanpur, to have sushi at our restaurant,” said its manager Ram Pandit.The founder, who is currently in Dubai, wanted to start a dedicated sushi restaurant as there were no restaurants in Kanpur that served the Japanese dish, said Pandit. “Now in Kanpur, we can see several restaurants popping up that serve sushi, a wave, I guess, our restaurant has started.”The demand for the seaweed rice rolled dish isn’t restricted to the North, but can also be found in many parts of the country, including Coimbatore, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, and Madurai, signalling its spread beyond metro cities.Indian consumers are now experimenting with a far broader range of cuisines than before, ordering about 20% more unique cuisines and trying 30% more restaurants—a shift that has helped global dishes like sushi move from being occasional treats to being an integral part of everyday eating habits, said a 2025 Swiggy-Kearney report.The report also said digital ordering and