The best Indian restaurants Delhi

The vegetarian or carnivorous grill temple welcomes its guests in a pleasant retro-character frame. The restaurant, with its buffet formula, will vary the dishes, but you will always find chicken, shrimp, fish, paneer or roasted peanuts. On tables, sauces and condiments are ready to accompany your dishes. Some evenings, servers and chefs invest the scene and sing some songs to entertain customers. Ambiance club, but in the restaurant!

Impossible to miss the door of the entrance of this restaurant with the doorman proudly displaying a majestic glossy moustache and a suit worthy of the greatest Rajput warriors. Inside, the setting is kitschy. A dark pirate cave atmosphere, a tree planted in the center of a pasteboard rock, 3D murals, shards of mirrors and adobe walls decorated with naïve paintings mix genres. However, the restaurant serves excellent North Indian cuisine with tasty curries and spicy kebabs.

The Taj Mahal, with its image of luxury and excellence, is going all out. The setting mixes sumptuous pieces of ancient art with modern furniture and lighting. The clash of eras and flavors also occurs on the plate. If the menu seems to propose classic dishes, the visual, olfactory and gustatory reality is quite different. The name chosen refers to the edible gold leaf, struck so finely that it can barely be felt on the tongue. And when it comes to finesse, the chef knows how to do it.

The Parsis, who came from Persia many centuries ago, settled in Bombay. Until the opening of the "Soda Bottle Opener" it was here that one could enjoy the best Iranian influenced cuisine. But now Delhi is trying to steal the spot from its enemy sister. You can try the berry pulao, a rice served with meat and berries or the roast mutton with Parsi spices. We also loved the setting, which revives an old cafe with bistro tables, woodwork and mirrors.

This legendary restaurant has the reputation of serving the best biryani and kebab in Delhi. And it's been going for 40 years! The setting has been recently renovated and Delhiites are flocking to the place which is vaguely reminiscent of American diners. A bench runs along the wall of the room, while on the other side there are "corners" for 6. A must to get acquainted with the cuisine of the country or simply to enjoy dishes that have been forgotten elsewhere. The service is efficient, but you often have to be patient.

Not so easy to find a nice restaurant around Connaught Place without loud music. Fortunately, a few nostalgic Hyderabad biryani lovers have opened this canteen on the outer circle. No fuss for this little address, but a setting that follows the codes in vogue at the moment: a touch of industrial, school chairs and old tiles. The biryani, tasty and fragrant, is steamed, as tradition demands, and comes in a vegetarian or meat-based formula. It's often full, and it's best to reserve your table.

The reputation of this restaurant is well established, and the queue on Sundays is as long as a traffic jam on Ring Road at rush hour. Specializing in South Indian cuisine, the short menu features mainly idli (steamed buns made from black lentil flour and rice) and dosa (crunchy pancakes), the two mainstays of Dravidian Indian breakfast. While the chain has 26 establishments in Delhi, this one has the best reputation and is the most popular. And you can visit at any time of day!

Daryaganj claims credit for butter chicken and dal makhani, two iconic specialties of Indian cuisine. The restaurant was originally founded in the Daryaganj district of Delhi, which was home to a large number of refugees fleeing Pakistan at the time of the partition of the country in 1947. Kundan Lal Jaggi was one of them and imported to Delhi his culinary knowledge inherited from the great Mughal tradition in Peshawar, where he was originally from. Daryaganj has several shops in town, which belong to the descendants of Lal Jaggi.