This Indian eatery has been named New York's best new restaurant

“There’s nothing gray about the food at Dhamaka, though. Every dish comes at you as if it wants to either marry you or kill you,” restaurant critic Pete Wells writes.

Shylaja Varma

December 16, 2021 / 18:36 IST

Dhamaka was opened in New York in February this year. (Image credit: Photo Instagrammed by dhamakanyc)

An Indian restaurant has topped the list of The New York Time’s top 10 new restaurants in New York in 2021. Dhamaka describes itself an as “unapologetic Indian” restaurant serving provincial Indian cuisine, or, “the other side of India, the forgotten side of India”.

2021 was also the year when actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas opened an Indian restaurant, Sona, in New York’s Flatiron.

It was on Valentine’s Day this year that Chintan Pandya, a well-known Indian chef in the United States, and restaurateur Roni Mazumdar opened Dhamaka in New York City’s Essex Market on the Lower East Side.

“There’s nothing gray about the food at Dhamaka, though. Every dish comes at you as if it wants to either marry you or kill you,” restaurant critic Pete Wells writes. Calling the food unfussy, Wells has given tantalising descriptions of Dhamaka’s goat neck dum biryani and chicken pulao made in the pressure cooker.

Other dishes in the menu include Champaran Meat, Macher Jhol and the good old Ajwani Paneer Tikka.