I am a home cook, not a foodie.
My wife, son, and daughter-in-law enjoy a good “event” meal. Over the years, I’ve come around to it too. I’ve especially grown to appreciate chef’s tasting menus. There’s something appealing about a meal that asks you to slow down and treat eating as an event. 
My palate, however, has remained unsophisticated. On a tasting menu, without the server’s explanation, I couldn’t tell what was in many dishes. And even then, I sometimes wonder if I’m actually tasting what they’re describing.
For my wife’s birthday this March, we went to Indian Accent and tried the vegetarian tasting menu.
Indian Accent Approach
Indian Accent takes familiar regional Indian dishes and presents them in new ways. Manish Mehrotra spent two decades building it into one of India’s most decorated restaurants. In mid-2024, Chef Shantanu Mehrotra took charge.
The Delhi Meal
The vegetarian tasting menu is ₹5,500 plus taxes, placing it at the top of the Indian fine-dining bracket. We arrived with high expectations. For the most part, the meal met them.
It opens with a blue cheese naan and a carrot-cumin shorbet to wash it down. I’m no fan of blue cheese, but this was good. The kind of thing you wish came in larger portions. It has been on the menu for years, and you understand why. 
The snacks map everyday food from across India: Gujarati kachori with kadhi, chole bhatura, and dahi vada. I wouldn’t have identified the chole bhatura without the server’s explanation. That could mean a bold reinterpretation, a limitation of my palate, or the bite-sized portions. Probably all three.
Then the meal ventures toward less traditional combinations. A pumpkin take on the Dutch bitterballen has sharp mustard notes. A Kashmir-inspired lotus root dumpling with water chestnut in yakhni follows—authentically Kashmiri in its elements, but unlike anything I have tasted as a regular consumer of that cuisine. I am unsure whether that distance from the familiar is a reinterpretation done right or a loss of something essential.
Then came a Nagpur orange and tulsi sorbet—essentially an ice gola, the kind we ate as children, with a churan-like khatta-meetha edge. The contrast between the fancy name and the familiar childhood flavor was the most enjoyable moment of the meal.
The main course, black dairy dal, anar avocado raita, and kulchas, is straightforwardly North Indian, rich and satisfying.
The pre-dessert is clever: a motichoor ladoo shell that gives way to a creamy, almost cheesy center. It mirrors the meal’s larger idea: a familiar exterior concealing something unexpected within.
The main dessert, a warm treacle tart with doda burfi and vanilla bean ice cream, is overly sweet. The sole misstep.
For my wife’s birthday, the restaurant also served a complimentary daulat ki chaat—a nod to the airy winter delicacy of Old Delhi. The presentation, however, leaned toward the gimmicky, with faux currency (daulat) notes attached to the bowl. 
The meal was excellent, overall. But for me, it didn’t offer enough novelty. An international diner less familiar with India’s regional cuisines would likely find it fresh. For someone already steeped in these flavors, the menu revisits familiar ground without truly reimagining it.
We were attended by three different servers, whose levels of professionalism, confidence, and engagement varied noticeably. While service variability is a problem for any restaurant, at this level it becomes a glaring flaw.
The New York Meal
The Delhi meal was our most recent visit, but it wasn’t our first time at Indian Accent. Last year, we had lunch at the New York Indian Accent, widely regarded as among the city’s top Indian restaurants.
Unlike Delhi, New York offers more affordable three- and four-course options alongside the tasting menu. We had the four-course meal, which included several dishes common with the tasting menu.
I do not remember every detail of that meal, but the overall impression remains clear: the portions felt larger, and the meal felt more experimental, perhaps simply because it came first. The second visit, even at the flagship location, offered less surprise.
For what you pay in New York, the meal is great value.
A Different Kind of Tasting Menu
Thinking about both Indian Accent meals kept bringing me back to a tasting menu at Gramercy Tavern, a traditional American restaurant, which left a stronger impression.
I’ve eaten the dishes Indian Accent draws from hundreds of times. No matter how skillfully reimagined, there’s only so much novelty left.
If given the choice between tasting menus at equally well-regarded restaurants—one Indian, one non-Indian—I would choose the non-Indian. Only because it offers me a greater sense of discovery, the aspect I value most about a tasting menu.
None of this is a criticism of Indian Accent. It delivered.
My own familiarity was the limiting factor, not the food.
Still, sitting across from my wife as she sampled the mouth fresheners, I was glad we went. Some meals are for discovery. This one was for her.
