Indienne was the most expensive Indian meal I've ever paid for. It was also one of the least memorable. As someone who grew up with Indian food and who genuinely wanted to love what this restaurant is trying to accomplish, I kept waiting for a course that justified both the ambition and the price. Sadly for us, it never arrived.
Dinner for four exceeded $1,000 before drinks. At that price, you're competing with Atomix, Jungsik, Per Se, Le Bernardin, restaurants that asks diners to trust that extraordinary prices will be rewarded with an extraordinary experience. Unfortunately, Indienne never earns that trust.
Located on the second floor of an apartment building just outside the main Hudson Yards corridor, the restaurant feels oddly hidden. Walking upstairs feels less like entering a destination restaurant and more like arriving at someone's condominium. Once inside, the room doesn't elevate the experience. The lighting is flat, the decor subdued, and the space lacks any visual identity. Nothing draws your eye. Nothing tells a story. On to the actual tasting menu...
The chickpea dhokla dissolved in your mouth almost instantly, leaving behind little of the nutty depth or airy fermentation that defines a good dhokla.
The oyster pani puri was creative, but once you strip away the novelty of putting an oyster inside a shell, very little about it actually evoked pani puri. It wasn't offensive. It simply wasn't memorable.
The avocado bhel looked more like an Oreo than bhel. Clever presentation, perhaps, but the bright acidity, crunch, spice and chaos that make bhel irresistible was a distant memory.
The yogurt chaat? I honestly struggle to remember it only hours later. That became the recurring theme of the evening. Almost none of the dishes left an impression, none.
Tiny portions aren't inherently an issue in tasting menus. But if you're serving two bites of something, those two bites have to explode with flavor. The lamb was restrained, the accompaniments sparse, and the entire course ended before it had a chance to become interesting.
By the time the Chicken Makhani arrived, the richness of the meal finally appeared but not its soul. Left behind perhaps in the cold Chicago winter where Indienne has its roots.
The accompanying dal was heavy. Garlic naan appeared almost as an afterthought. Rather than feeling satisfied, I simply felt weighed down.
Indian food is one of the world's great cuisines because it balances contradiction, heat and sweetness. smoke and freshness, acidity and cream. Indienne removes many of those contrasts in pursuit of refinement, rarely replaces them with anything else.
The petits fours were probably my favorite part of the evening, which says something when they're literally the last thing you're served.
Perhaps there are diners who appreciate this restrained interpretation (to the point of delusion) of Indian cuisine. I wasn't one of them.
At a time when Indian cuisine is experiencing a reinvention in NYC, I looked to Indienne to deliver on this conviction. If you're going to reinterpret pani puri, dhokla, egg curry, shammi kebab, and makhani, each reinterpretation should teach the diner something new about those classics.
The meal felt less like an evolution of Indian cuisine than its echo. Familiar names but by the time they reached the table they had become pale reflections of the original, as though someone were describing India from memory rather than from experience. read more