India, Nov. 8 -- Ten years after betting on tasting-menu-only dining in Mumbai, Masque has taken itself apart and put itself back together. Now, we get a darker room, a bolder menu and a restaurant that still has India as its starting point.

There are restaurants you revisit for nostalgia, and there are those that never stay still long enough to inspire it. So, when I walked back into Masque, expecting traces of the restaurant I had known, I instead found myself looking twice at almost everything, awkwardly grinning like a kid in a candy shop. The address in Mahalaxmi is unchanged. The ambition, however, seems to have developed a second wind.

UN-MASQUE-ING

Masque began in 2016 with an absurdly simple question: What does India taste lik...