Indian eateries now New York’s gastronomic toast

My credentials as a culinary contrarian may have peaked three summers ago, when I argued that New York had better Indian restaurants than London. The piece provoked outrage in the British capital, where I was then in residence, and in India, the land of my birth. When I moved back home to the Big Apple, uncharitable friends asked if I had been chased out of London by cleaver-wielding locals. Inevitably, on my first visit back last month, some of these friends asked if I was now ready to recant.

My response: If anything, New York has extended its lead in the quality Indian food department, with an even broader range of regional diversity. In the intervening years, Semma opened and garnered a Michelin star for chef Vijay Kumar’s brilliant South Indian cooking, and Masalawala & Sons has brought best of Bengal to Brooklyn’s Park Slope.

They are among the notable, far-ranging Indian dining spots around town, many at the higher tiers of the price spectrum. Collectively, Indian restaurants are becoming something of a power dining scene, drawing customers from the upwardly mobile population of New Yorkers with roots in the subcontinent.

To this already impressive list, you can now add Kanyakumari, which dishes out delicacies from India’s 4,700-mile coastline at the more easily accessible Union Square. The latest from restaurateur Salil Mehta, it has already earned a Michelin recommendation. Chef Dipesh Shinde produces dishes from every state along the Indian peninsula; there’s a special nod to his native Mumbai with the street-food classic vada pav.

But arguably the most exciting entrant is Bungalow, which marks chef Vikas Khanna‘s long-awaited return to the New York dining scene. What all these restaurants have in common is a commitment to authenticity. Unlike in years past, when recipes at Indian eateries were routinely watered down for timid American palates – or, in some instances, hyper-spiced up for the benefit of daredevil diners – the chefs at these restaurants make no concessions.The recent efflorescence of authentic Indian eateries suggests there’s now a critical mass, within the desi community, of people who will gladly pay a premium for the real thing. “There are Indians on Wall Street who want to celebrate their latest multimillion-dollar deal by taking friends to an Indian restaurant,” Mehta says. “And if they’re paying top dollar for dinner, they’re going to insist on everything being like they remember it from their favourite place in Delhi or Mumbai.”

For chefs, this is liberating. Khanna says he was able to craft Bungalow’s menu with a freedom and confidence he didn’t have earlier.

He recalls a conversation with Anthony Bourdain in 2013: “He had just returned from a trip to India, and he said, ‘You guys are white-washing Indian food in New York.’ I couldn’t deny it.”