Mumbai Flavors
When Jagruti Devasthali arrived in Luxembourg in 2019, she thought she knew what her future looked like. She believed she was putting her legal career on hold, not leaving it behind.
Born and raised in Mumbai, she studied law at the University of Mumbai before completing a master's degree in Intellectual Property Rights. She spent around seven years working in law, handling civil and property disputes, compliance and insurance matters. She later took on a senior legal management role with the State Bank of India, covering legal matters across Maharashtra.
Then, two months before her wedding, her husband received a job offer in Luxembourg. The couple had expected to build their life in Berlin. "Everything changed on fairly short notice", she recalls.
Continuing her legal career in Luxembourg was not straightforward. Her Indian law qualification did not directly allow her to practise, and the legal systems were very different. "I had trained for seven years to become a lawyer, and suddenly that qualification wasn't something I could just take with me."
Then came COVID-19. Isolated, unable to travel home, she started cooking for friends. Their reactions surprised her. She also noticed a gap in Luxembourg's food scene: the Indian food she knew from Mumbai was difficult to find. She had grown up in a city where food changes from one neighbourhood to the next, and dishes that seemed ordinary to her were unfamiliar to people in Luxembourg.
When lockdown restrictions eased, she approached a food festival in Reckange with a pitch for an Indian street-food stall. Among the dishes was vada pav, the Mumbai staple she believes she was among the first to introduce to Luxembourg's food-festival scene. More festivals followed, then a tiffin delivery service, and eventually a food truck. She named it Mumbai Masala.
In December 2025, she opened her first restaurant, Mumbai Flavors, in Luxembourg.
She says accompanying spouses often face an invisible challenge: while one partner arrives with a job opportunity, the other has to rebuild their professional identity from scratch. "People often say, 'How lucky you are, you get to live abroad.' But rebuilding a career from nothing, away from your family and everything familiar, is not easy."
Seven years of law. A move that made those seven years useless. A pandemic that gave her time to cook. A food festival that gave her a chance to try. A food truck, then a restaurant. She still reads legal academic work alongside running her businesses. "My heart will always be Indian, but Luxembourg gave me the opportunity to rebuild my life and create something I never imagined."