Please make the dish less spicy’, ‘Less oil please’, ‘Please use tofu instead of paneer’.... The list of customisation requests in food orders, especially online, keeps growing with changing palettes. But during the December-end festive week, a majority of Kolkata restaurants and cloud kitchens had to prioritise service over customisations. “The volume of orders and the fast-paced nature of operations make it difficult to accommodate individual, highly customised instructions. Teams work with tight timelines and standardised processes to ensure smooth service, so prioritising efficiency becomes essential,” says restaurateur Rajiv Paul.
What can’t be customised- Spiciness
- Oiliness
- Crispiness of the vegetables in dish
- Change in taste of pre-prepared or batch-cooked items such as gravies, curries, sauces
- Requests like no onion, no garlic, or less oil
- Structural changes to dishes such as turning a non-veg dish vegetarian, replacing paneer with tofu, or changing the base sauce
I’ve learned not to expect customisation during festive rush hours. I don’t blame restaurants either; they’re swamped with orders
– Sonali Chakraborty
We try to customise as much as possible, except for dishes pre-cooked in bulk, or if a customer asks for, say, leg pieces only
– Chef Ranjan Biswas
What can be customisedPackaging instructions
Consistency of gravy
Request for a certain piece of meat
Quantity of rice, if the request is to pack less of it
We always cater to customisation requests, though during the festive rush, it’s challenging. We still try to fulfil all requests
Shiladitya Chaudhury, restaurateur
99% of our customers prefer to have the dishes the way we prepare them. But about 1% request customisation
Siddharth Kothari, restaurateur

Delivery executives said they had no way to make restos fulfil customisation requests given the festive rush