The 5 red flags a chef looks out for when dining at a high-end Indian restaurant

These days, almost everyone can hype a restaurant or a particular dish through FoodTok or Instagram. But just because a restaurant or dish is trending on FoodTok or Instagram doesn’t necessarily mean it’s worth a trip, Bhardwaj shared.

The best way to decide if a place is worth your time and money is to make these decisions the old-school way: by asking around in your social circles.

“I look for more word-of-mouth places where people have actually been,” Bhardwaj told BI, adding that he prefers direct recommendations from friends or people who have been to the restaurant and will advise him on what to order and what to skip.

That way you get a first-person account of the spice levels, if the restaurant got the classics right, and what’s unique to their menu.

Many people think expensive ingredients equate to fine dining, but Bhardwaj believes this could work against some restaurants if the ingredients stray from their native cuisine. Bhardwaj admitted he learned this the hard way because he’s guilty of doing it.

“We’ve had foie gras on our menu in the past, and I’ve loved cooking with it, but then there came a time when I realized this isn’t something we do.” By “this,” he means fois gras is not native to or popular in India.

He then reworked the menu to feature an Indian specialty instead.

“So, I thought, ‘Why don’t I make a dish with goat brain instead?’ It’s fatty, an organ, and more of a delicacy in India,'” Bhardwaj said.

Adding, “I think bringing it [dishes] back to your own culture is important.”

As someone constantly cooking new ways of serving existing popular dishes, Bhardwaj said he understands the need to innovate, but also, the importance of not messing with a dish’s original flavors.

According to him, if a restaurant reinvents classics, such as the chicken tikka masala, but does so to appeal to Western tastebuds rather than innovate, it’s usually a bad sign.

“You could easily lose sight of maybe making something a little too Western in terms of the flavor or the dish itself. So I would say that’s probably the main thing that we try to stay away from,” Bhardwaj told BI.

“Make sure that the dish itself has that authenticity to it, and then try to elevate it through a fusion of techniques and ingredients.”

One of the things that sets apart the butter chicken at Jazba from most other places is that Bhardwaj and his team make everything in-house.

“We get the whole spices ourselves, roast them, and then blend them into the powders,” Bhardwaj told BI.

This speaks to the quality and freshness of food, which Bhardwaj said is all the more important to maintain at an expensive fine-dining haunt.

So, if you’re at a restaurant, ask the servers about how food is sourced and what items are made in-house versus store-bought. This will indicate whether the restaurant takes shortcuts or really goes above and beyond to serve quality food.

“This might sound funny, but the restrooms are always very important,” Bhardwaj told BI, adding that this is a rule of thumb among most chefs and restauranteurs, who make mental notes on how well-kept the restaurant, especially the restroom, is.

“When you walk into a good restaurant, you’ve got to see that they’re taking care of their spaces. That’s No. 1,” Bhardwaj emphasized.

This, of course, applies to any fine-dining haunt you visit.