Asia • New Delhi

Indian Accent Restaurant Review – New Delhi (2019)

6 February 2019
5 Min Read

PUMPKIN SOUP!

Indian Accent offers modern Indian cuisine with Chef Manish Mehrotrain. I have visited the restaurant in New Delhi, but Indian Accent is also present in London and New York.

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Indian Accent was my first fine dining experience of Indian cuisine. It was a great experience and made me wonder why the number of Indian fine dining restaurants are so limited.

Ambiance

Indian Accent had an elegant ambiance. It had different sections for dining. I didn’t have a chance to see them all. Although the atmosphere was lovely, as a tourist you are willing to see more local elements at the decoration. I would be happier if the restaurant had more of a local touch.

Taste

There were two tasting menu options. One vegetarian and the other non-vegetarian. Since I’m not a vegetarian, I chose the non-vegetarian tasting menu. It started out with three amuse bouches. One of them is the famous oven-baked flatbread; naan. This was the best naan I ever had. It was filled with blue cheese that flows in your mouth as you keep chewing. The cauliflower and saffron sorbet was even more delicious. It was spicy but very well adjusted. The third amuse bouche was the mouth-watering mashed potatoes with chutney. The beginning was very promising.

The first starter was puchkas with five different juice; mint-corriender, tamarind, pineapple, pomegranate and buttermilk. Puchka – which is also called pani puri – is a deep fried crunchy piece of dough that’s hollow on the inside. It is a street food that is mostly associated with Kolkata. The puchkas were very delicious, especially with the buttermilk and pineapple juice. I definitely loved to see Indian street food in a fine dining restaurant.

The first main course was Kanyakumari pepper crab with crisp idiyappam. This was my first time eating a crab with a spicy sauce like this. The crab was from Kanyakumari, a coastal town in South India. It was very smooth and delicious. The crisp idiyappam served on the top of the crab is a rice noodle dish of Indian cuisine. To have a journey all over India with different foods from different parts of the country was a big joy.

The next course was smoked duck shami with barberry chutney. Shami kebab is a snack in India. The smoked duck shami was a tasty interpretation of this appetizer. The barberry, often referred to as tree turmeric, made a great chutney with coriander. The dishes, in general, were all spicy, but the spices were very carefully managed. They were very intense yet not uncomfortable for someone who is not used to Indian cuisine. The complexity of the spices was amazing. You can feel them in your mouth for a long time as you breathe even after you are finished eating.

The following dish was tawa (griddle) lamb cop with bharta (smoked eggplant) and smoked papad. This dish was my least favorite in the tasting menu. The lamb chop wasn’t tasty. The papad accompanying the lamb chop is Indian wafer which generally made from dried lentils. I couldn’t see the harmony with the lamb chop.

After the lamb chop, a palette changer was served. It was a spicy pomegranate sorbet. I wasn’t able to eat all of it since the taste was very intense and not compatible with my gusto.

There were two different choices for the main dish. I chose the fish with coconut curry instead of chicken tikka meatball. It was absolutely fabulous. The coconut curry sauce was the best sauce I ever had with a fish. There were also little shrimp crackers and peas poriyal. Poriyal is the South Indian equivalent of a quick, dry stir-fry. Duck and bacon stuffed kulchas was served with the main dish. Kulcha is a type of mildly leavened flatbread. It tasted amazing but was a bit heavy. You eat them by dipping into the black lentil (dairy dal) and avocado yogurt with pomegranate (anar and avocado raita) sauce. The garlic naan with coriander was served after the main dish was finished. I guess they were a bit late to serve it. Although tasty, I didn’t like oil dripping on the plate while eating.

Two different desserts were served together for the finale. Both of them were very delicious. Haji Ali inspired custard apple cream with butter biscuit and warm doda burfi treacle tart with vanilla bean ice cream was a success. Apple cream custard had saffron in it, which was very local and tasty. Warm doda burfi treacle tart was amazing, I could have eaten one more.

I loved this tasting menu; having a lot of local ingredients, spices and tastes all over India. It was a great restaurant for the tourists, who would like to try Indian cuisine in safe hands.

Creativity

Although most of the dishes were local, the spices and the ingredient combinations were very creative for someone who is not familiar with Indian cuisine.

I loved how the sorbet was served. It was like an ice cream presented in a very little saucepan. The other dishes looked mediocre.

Service

The service was friendly and attentive. However, the name of the dishes was really hard to understand for a foreigner. They must be explained in more detail.

I saw the chef visiting some of the tables. If the chef is to visit the tables, I think all of the tables need to be visited.

Value

The prices were modest for such a tasting menu. The same tasting menu would be double in price in Europe or United States. The wine menu was categorized very well. I definitely recommend this restaurant for anyone to visit New Delhi.