NYC chef opens Banjara Indian restaurant in Bethpage

Banjara seems like a giant, cinematic restaurant — it's the kind of place that sets its chicken tikka on fire at the table and has its servers pouring curry out of seashells onto your plate. Nearly every dish has a theatrical component, even the ice cream. 

The new Indian fusion spot lives up to the social media hype, except for one key detail: It's not exactly a giant restaurant in the physical sense. Tucked into a Bethpage strip mall on the outskirts of Hicksville's main Indian restaurant neighborhood, Banjara looks like nothing from the outside. But the small dining room is cool and classy, with a mix of thatched basket weavings and sophisticated earth tones.

The menu is also not large, but still manages to encompass most of the regions of the Indian subcontinent. Scanning the two pages, you'll see lots of interesting titles, like shrimp malai curry ($26), crab sukkha ($26) and paneer pinwheel changezi ($18). This is partially because the five owners and longtime friends hail from different parts of India, representing Kolkata in the east, Kanpur in the north, the capital New Delhi and Punjab in the northwest. 

Brothers Sandeep Cheema and Fukhvir Singh are managers, while Shrey Saini and Rohit Jaiswal head up the kitchen. Rohit's brother Akash Jaiswal is the bar manager, creating a playful cocktail list that draws from Indian spirits and nostalgic flavors like Parle-G biscuits. The tart and beautiful Bombay Sour ($14) features Indian single malt whiskey and cashew-based brandy from the state of Goa, rounded together with a fragrant masala spice mix. 

"We worked in good restaurants in the city, in the U.S. and back in India. The places you go, either are fine dining with a few dishes on the menu. Or if they’re not fine dining, they have a menu which is really big. You can turn over the pages and pages and it won’t finish. People get confused what to order," Rohit said. "That’s how we came up with dishes from all over India. ... The food is authentic but the plating is progressive." 

One visit barely scratches the surface here, but initial highlights included a deeply spiced goat curry called laal maas ($26), which hails from northwestern state of Rajasthan. The succulent chunks of goat are smoked over charcoal and added to a sauce of Mathania chilis sourced from Rajasthan. (No tableside show here, but the dish is served in a bulbous white bowl that looks like a sea urchin.) 

The restaurant also makes a standout chicken biryani ($22) baked in a dome of bread, pierced tableside. This variety of dum biryani is already hard to find, but Banjara's is even more distinct as it's cooked in the Awadhi style rather than the more popular Hyderabads style. When the server cuts open the bread top, a plume of fragrant steam envelopes the room with the smell of saffron, rosewater, vetiver and ittar perfumes. It's less spicy, but twice as aromatic and delicate. 

Even so, the biryani might not be the showiest dish on this menu. That honor goes to the Alleppey fish curry ($24), which comes to the table as a simple, spiced sea bass fillet. But seconds later, another server appears with a large seashell and pours a creamy coconut milk curry on top. Love the dedication to the bit. And for dessert, stop and smell the rose kulfi ($8), a fresh-tasting Indian ice cream that's shaped into little edible roses that pop out of a steaming vase. It doesn't get much more romantic than that. 

Banjara, 390 N. Wantagh Ave., Bethpage, 516-998-1300, instagram.com/banjara_ny. Open to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 5 to 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, closed Monday.