The Review: Three Hot, High-End Restaurants Are at the Heart of an Indian Boom in Vancouver

For a long time, Vij’s had the market cornered on high-end Indian food in Vancouver. A mention of the foodie landmark (Michelin Bib Gourmand for the last three years, by the way) would elicit daydreams of juicy, tender lamb popsicles, chaat salad and goat curries. And, as much as the multi-hyphenate Vikram Vij (chef, restaurateur, TV personality, author) has my heart, a welcome new crop of contenders has entered the upscale dining scene, each of whom are pulling inspiration from their hometowns and childhoods to remind us that Indian cuisine has so much more to offer than takeout butter chicken.

So who’s behind the big Indian boom? We visited three new spots to find out.

1. Desi Indian Lounge

Colourful floral wallpaper, gold plated shelving and a glittering wall of tealights all draw my eye to downtown’s Desi Indian Lounge as I’m standing on the corner of Hornby and Pacific streets. The dazzlingly decorated room is where former chef at Sula (winner of Best Indian Restaurant in the 2025 Vancouver Magazine Restaurant Awards) Bal Ajagaonkar has been calling home since it opened in January 2025, creating elevated versions of Indian street food. Ajagaonkar also won bronze at the Great Kitchen Party in Vancouver in the last year, so as much as I’m delighted by my visit to Desi Indian Lounge, I’m not surprised that his dishes are knockouts.

Though the main menu boasts a sampling of popular happy hour mainstays, it’s the chef’s tasting menu that leads me to his culinary heart. The chickpea sago cassava tikki (part of the spot’s $45 five-course tasting menu), for example, is drizzled in sweet yoghurt and seasonal chutney in a dazzling psychedelic display of greens, oranges and whites—the colours of the Indian flag.

Spotlighting local ingredients through Indian technique, the tasting menu also serves up a Malabar salmon made with a creamy spiced tikka, quinoa pilaf and a fennel cream sauce, topped with a delicate pickled ginger flower. The bhareli vangi, meanwhile, comes in two options: lamb or vegetarian. The idea stays the same: a stuffed baby eggplant that delicately falls apart when forked, swimming in a coconut sauce (which can also be mopped up with millet roti).

Capping my meal is the fragrant ukadiche modak dumpling, sitting in a bath of cranberry rice pudding with a medallion of mango ice cream. The Maharashtrian dish is made with steamed coconut jaggery, delicately sprinkled with gold flakes to reflect—at the time—the season of light, Diwali.

While the menu also comes with wine pairings for an additional $25 (including a selection of B.C.-based wines), the cocktail program continues the taste tour around India. Each of the six signature cocktails on the menu travels to a different region of the country. Golden Shores takes drinkers to Kerala (known as “God’s Own Country”); City of Dreams places you in the electrified city of Mumbai and Crimson Beach sets you on the shores of Goa—and that’s just half of your options.

As the meal comes to an end, so too does my transportive trip to India through Chef Bal’s tasting menu. I savour my last moments of the lush surroundings, punctuated by botanical design and plush, velvet chairs, before landing back out in the rain again—but it won’t be long before I’m back for another trip. 1355 Hornby St., desilounge.ca

 

2. Kavita

Storytelling and personal history is at the root of restaurateur and chef Tushar Tondvalkar’s new concept, Kavita, and that’s clear on my arrival at the new Olympic Village restaurant. The 1,500-square-foot space is airy and brightly lit and features clean lines and a beautiful open kitchen (which I peer into as the chefs make and plate my food). The open-kitchen concept might also be an allegory for the nature of Tondvalkar’s cooking—when it comes to his recipes, he’s an open book.

From any of the 46 seats in the restaurant you can keep your eye on the bar, where mixologist and bar manager Kabir Sehgal (formerly of Chupito) mixes up inventive and beautiful cocktails.

The Amma Panna ($22), for example, is a Patron and mezcal drink with mint and green mango cordial, lime and butter-washed milk punch that Sehgal tells me was inspired by the mango tree in his backyard growing up in India. Complete with a tart rice crisp, the cocktail is a blend of gastronomic science and storytelling—and that’s much the case with the rest of the cocktail menu.

The name Kavita comes from Chef Tushar’s own mother (and is also the Marathi word for “poetry”), so it makes sense that many of these dishes, like Sehgal’s, come from his own childhood memories, in his case, in Mumbai.

Stories and senses also intertwine on the food menu—a small plates and a large plates mix—that can be ordered “amma kase” style (both an ode to the Japanese serving method and a nod to the word “mother” in several Indian languages).

The chili cheese garlic naan ($9) made with black garlic and a chutney, also topped with freshly scraped garlic, whets my appetite for what’s about to come. Though I previously hadn’t connected India with beef dishes, Kavita’s beef tartare ($26) feels like a mouthful of poetry: podi masala and crispy curry leaves intertwine with a runny egg yolk on top, as a bowl of colourful tapioca crisps lies on the sidelines.

A beautifully spiced jumbo prawn rechado ($28) is made with spicy sour chili paste and kachumber and bursts with flavour on my tongue, while the sunchoke chaat ($21) with smashed chickpeas, spiced yoghurt, tamarind and mint chutney and goat kebab stuffed morels ($32) tastes like a dialogue between B.C. ingredients and contemporary Indian flavours, bathed in a korma sauce with green peas.

Moving on to the large plates menu, the paneer nettle saag ($34) with a Himalayan mustard and chili tadka and corn puree round out the warming vegetarian options I was hoping for, while a dry-aged Fraser Valley duck curry ($49) in a kerala coconut sauce with heirloom rice turns the idea of Indian ingredients on its head.

The beauty of it all is the delicate dance between Tondvalkar’s favourite childhood dishes and B.C. ingredients—the wild morels and the nettles had been wild-foraged by the chef and team earlier in the summer—in dishes that display a personal and precise mastery of culinary art. 250 W 3rd Ave., restaurantkavita.com

 

3. Peya

There’s lounge-y French music playing, pink-velvet upholstery wrapping bench booths mid-restaurant and tall bar stools with brass legs resting under a warm, walnut-toned bar. Everywhere else there are rattan accents, and brass pendant lights are dropped over tables—it’s clear that Peya is a vibe.

The French-Indian brasserie has a  rabbit and elephant motif, evidenced by the cartoonish drawings on the wall—giving a nod to the restaurant’s mixed fusion culinary sensibilities. I see the motif extending into their drink offerings as cocktails in many exciting vessels whizz past me (including the Sassy Lassi, $20, in an elephant-shaped cup; the trunk, of course, is the handle).

The unique beauty of the restaurant matches the menu offerings: both clean and layered, not overly complex, and yet novel.

Where many Indian restaurants offer up tandoori-style menu items, Peya has an actual tandoor—a traditional, high-heat cylindrical clay oven that often gives its dishes a smokey and charred quality. And that’s exactly where I start my meal, with a steaming hot cheese spinach naan ($15) fresh from the tandoor.

The pull-apart naan comes with a herby and fluffy crème fraîche with chives to dip it in (with an option to glam it up with a spoonful of Northern Divine caviar). From the petit chhota menu, I order the rabbit kebab ($24), which arrives sitting on a bed of bright green pistou. The house-made skewer is both juicy and light, herbaceous with zippy grape and cumin relish on the side.

Then, to embrace the French techniques that are partnered with the Indian ingredients, I opt for the spiced duck kulcha ($25), made with pineapple raita and hints of coriander. But the main event is the fish à la saag ($42), a seven-ounce halibut cooked saag-style sitting in a pool of smoked tomato coulis and sprinkled with pickled shiitake mushrooms. A crunchy crust forms at the top of the fish, but forks away in perfect, flaky striations.

Not wanting to stray too far from tradition, I choose to end my meal with chai. But here that means chai tea crème brulée ($15) with coconut macaroons and edible flowers—a tasty reminder to expect the unexpected at this French-Indian spot. 2101 E Hastings St., peya.com