Nisaba

When Chef Manish Mehrotra parted ways with Indian Accent, the obvious question was: what next? The answer became Nisaba, his first solo restaurant, located in Delhi's increasingly buzzy dining pocket around Sunder Nursery. Housed on the first floor of the Humayun's Tomb Museum, the 4,200 sq ft space is the debut offering from Manish Mehrotra Culinary Arts, and going by the crowds, Delhi was, of course, more than ready. On a weekday evening, the 120-plus-seater dining room was full.

The menu carries itself with the confidence one would expect from a venture of Manish’s. And it doesn’t rely on liquid nitrogen theatrics or tableside gimmicks. Nisaba draws from roadside stalls, neighbourhood favourites, home kitchens, dhabas and his own culinary history.

There's no tasting menu. The food stays grounded, built on familiar flavours and references anyone who's grown up eating in India will recognise instantly. The current menu features 45 dishes, whittled down from nearly 125 trialled, split thoughtfully across vegetarian and non-vegetarian small and large plates. Think Lucknow white matar tikki, beetroot and goat cheese dahi vada, Belgian pork ribs with mango chunda and sour fennel, and tawa chicken dirty rice with palak-sesame raita. 

Old favourites keep showing up, wearing new clothes: the Samosa, Moradabadi Dal, Buknu, Everything Chutney pairs crisp baby samosas with a pool of dal Moradabadi, finished off with buknu masala's tangy, faintly digestive edge. The Beetroot Goat Cheese Dahi Vada, Fresh Green Tomatoes, Nutmeg Miso Rice does something similar to the classic dahi bhalla – a contemporary makeover that still lands as comfort food.

One of the standout dishes of the evening: a finger-licking chilli tomato crab ghotala, served with butter buns. Chef Manish's spin on Singapore's chilli crab gets its ‘ghotala’ – literally, ‘mess’ – from scrambled eggs folded through the sweet-spicy sauce, adding a layer of richness.

Among the desserts, the baked rasmalai was the one to beat. It's Mehrotra's homage to Kolkata's baked rosogolla, popularised by Balaram Mullick and reportedly a sweet he never leaves the city without. As a food-worshipping Bengali, I went in sceptical. One bite later, I'd cleaned the plate, fully convinced the chef may have outdone his own inspiration.