Upper Crust

About Upper Crust

Overview

Upper Crust is an Indian quarterly magazine devoted to food, wine and travel, published in English from Mumbai. It describes itself as India's first and only food, wine and travel magazine, and it is published and edited by Farzana Contractor. The magazine was launched on January 14, 2000, at a poolside event at the Oberoi hotel overlooking Marine Drive in Mumbai. Each issue combines food writing, restaurant and travel features, and wine coverage, and it is sold on newsstands across the country in addition to its digital editions.

Upper Crust appears four times a year, with its publishing calendar divided into quarterly issues covering January to March, April to June, July to September and October to December. The magazine is positioned in the food and beverages and lifestyle categories and is aimed at readers with an interest in restaurants, cooking, wine, and domestic and international travel. Its official website is uppercrustindia.com, where issue archives, features and subscription information are hosted.

History and founding

The magazine was conceptualised and founded by Behram Contractor, the celebrated Mumbai journalist and columnist better known by his pen name Busybee. His byline on the magazine's own pages credits him as the person who conceptualised and founded the title. Behram Contractor was widely described as the country's first food writer, received the Padma Shri in 1990 and the Goenka Award for Excellence in Journalism in 1996, and wrote popular columns for Mumbai newspapers including The Afternoon Despatch and Courier, a daily he helped launch in 1985. He died in 2001, and the magazine's later editions honoured him with a collection of his quotations.

Editorial leadership of Upper Crust was taken up by Farzana Contractor, Behram Contractor's wife and herself a journalist, who serves as editor and publisher. In an editor's note published after the magazine completed its first year of publication, she recounted that a food critic had doubted whether there would be enough to write about to sustain a food magazine, and she noted with satisfaction that the issues for the following year were already planned. The magazine's early archive records how the first anniversary issue looked back on a year of culinary journeys in word and picture.

Editorial team and advisory board

The masthead as published on the magazine's official site lists Farzana Contractor as editor and publisher, Asit Chandmal as wine consultant, Arun Sawant as art and production consultant, and Rozina Gaziyani as advertising and business strategist. Rozina Gaziyani also serves as the primary contact for advertising and business matters for the magazine.

Upper Crust assembled an advisory board drawn from India's culinary and hospitality world. Its members included restaurateur-chefs Farrokh Khambatta and A.D. Singh, chef and television personality Sanjeev Kapoor, industrialist and food enthusiast Harsh Goenka, hotelier Dinesh Khanna of the Holiday Inn group, society hostess Sabira Merchant, author and journalist Shobhaa De, and Madhu Nair of the Leela group of hotels. The composition of the board reflected the magazine's ambition to be embedded in Bombay's restaurant and hospitality establishment rather than operating as a distant observer.

Content and editorial focus

The magazine's coverage spans restaurants and eating out, home cooking, wine and spirits, and travel destinations. Recurring features include the "Gourmet City" series, which has devoted entire sections to cities including Bombay, and cover stories built around well-known chefs, restaurateurs and personalities. Archived issues show covers featuring chef Pooja Dhingra, chef Smita Deo, and chef Prateek Sadhu of the restaurant Masque, alongside travel features on destinations such as Mauritius, Laos and Africa, and pieces on artisanal producers in places like Panchgani.

Wine writing is a standing component of the editorial mix, consistent with the magazine's tagline. Its archives record features on Indian wines and the country's early vintners, including profiles of winemakers such as Sham Chougule and Kanwal Grover and their vineyards at Narayangaon and Dodballapur. Food festival coverage is another recurring element, with the magazine reporting on events in India and abroad, including food festivals in London's Regent's Park. The magazine also runs lifestyle features beyond the plate, such as stories on tableware designers like Adil Writer.

Publication frequency and format

Upper Crust is published quarterly, meaning four issues per year. Listings on digital newsstands such as Readwhere and Magzter carry the quarterly issues, with single-issue pricing shown at around Rs 150 on Readwhere's platform. Media-kit and advertising listings describe the magazine's category as food and beverages and lifestyle, with language listed as English.

Because the magazine publishes only four times a year, its production cycle is built around seasonal themes, with the October to December issue timed to coincide with the festive season and with the magazine's own annual food and wine exhibition. The print edition is distributed across the country through book stores and magazine stalls by India Book House, the magazine's distributor named in its early web archives.

Circulation and audience

Advertising and media-planning listings quote figures for the magazine's reach. SmartAds, a media-planning service that lists Upper Crust as a bookable advertising property, cites a cover price of Rs 200, a circulation of 98,500 copies and a readership of 665,000. These figures are reported by the advertising intermediary rather than by the publisher, and should be read as media-kit estimates rather than audited figures.

The magazine's own positioning describes its audience as food lovers, wine enthusiasts, hotel owners and hospitality professionals, along with general lifestyle readers. Its content mix of restaurant reporting, home-cooking features and travel stories is designed to serve both the industry reader and the consumer reader.

Digital edition and online presence

Upper Crust is available in digital form through platforms including Readwhere and Magzter, which distribute its quarterly issues to readers on mobile and tablet devices. The digital editions carry the same quarterly schedule as print, with issues such as July to September 2021 and January to March 2021 documented on these platforms.

The magazine's official website, uppercrustindia.com, functions as its public archive and promotional hub. Archived versions of the site show issue indexes, feature previews, subscription and advertising pages, and a contact section. The site describes the magazine as India's food, wine and style magazine and carries the editor's notes and team information.

The UpperCrust Food and Wine Show

Upper Crust organises the UpperCrust Food and Wine Show, a multi-day food and wine exhibition held in Mumbai. The show is staged at the World Trade Centre in Cuffe Parade, Mumbai, and brings together food and wine stalls, cookery demonstrations by top chefs and home chefs, tastings, premium kitchen equipment displays, and a food court with music. Event listings describe the show as a culinary gathering for food lovers, with more than a hundred food and wine stalls and free entry for visitors.

The exhibition has a long history connected to the magazine. Archived material refers to the 6th edition of the show in 2008, and a later edition was described as the 20th UpperCrust Food and Wine Show, inaugurated by film producer Sajid Nadiadwala and his wife Warda. Trade-show listings have billed the event as India's first and finest gourmet exhibition, and it has been held in early December in recent editions, with shows announced for December 5 to 7, 2025, and for December 4 to 6, 2026.

Advertising and business

Upper Crust operates as an advertising-supported publication with subscription revenue. Advertising bookings can be made directly with the magazine's advertising team, led by Rozina Gaziyani, or through authorised media planning and buying agencies, with platforms such as The Media Ant and SmartAds listing the magazine as a bookable property. Because it is a quarterly, booking and material deadlines fall several weeks before each issue's cover date, and premium positions such as the back cover and inside front cover are typically reserved well in advance.

Website and contact

The magazine's official website is uppercrustindia.com. Contact details and advertising information are published on the site, and the magazine's social and event profiles on platforms such as AllEvents identify UpperCrust India as the organiser of the Food and Wine Show. The magazine remains published from Mumbai.