The Indique — Restaurant in Berlin

I usually never give reviews for restaurants, but I have to say that I was extremely disappointed with a dish I ordered at this one.

First, the good part: I liked the ambience and the cozy atmosphere of the restaurant.

Now, about the food itself:

I ordered a chef special which was a prawn dish, made with mustard seeds and coconut curry. The dish had one chilli sign on it so I assumed it would be spicy. I also personally asked the waitress if it was spicy and she said yes, however they couldn’t make it spicier when I asked and told me they will give me green chillies on the side. I found this strange for an Indian restaurant where an Indian asks for the dish to have the spice level that an Indian would desire. Giving a few green chillies on the side is the not the same as making the dish more flavourful or spicy. I cook Indian often at home and I know this can be done.

The dish itself was not at all spicy! Not even a little bit. It had no flavor, was entirely made out of mustard seeds and the curry was even yellow in Color. And saltier than expected. The dish was served with rice and dal and some fried potatoes. At first I was impressed. But when I tasted the dal (which was white in Color), it had zero flavour and was made with whole cumin and not “kreuzkümmel” which are the cumin seeds that we actually use in India. So the dal had no flavour but a very strong cumin taste. The potatoes were simply fried potatoes but again, with no spice or flavour. The combination of the dal with the curry and potatoes was nothing like I would expect in an Indian restaurant, especially if the dish costs 22 euros, which is a high end price. Not to forget that the curry was salty.

When I told this to the waitress, she went to the chef and came back to tell me that the curry was salty because of the mustard seeds, and the apparent, non existent spice is supposed to come from the mustard Seeds as well. This was quite a strange explanation given to a customer who has ordered one of the most expensive dishes on the menu. The problem is that such a dish shouldn’t be there on the menu. And if it was, the waitress should have explained the “unique” flavour to me before I ordered. Eventually they did dilute the saltiness by simply adding more coconut milk. It still didn’t change the bland flavour of the dish, which is nothing I have eaten in India.

Eventually the chef came to me… not to apologize, but to again give me an explanation about the dish that it was made for “westerners” and that he knows better how to make the dish because he is from “that part of India” where it is made . I don’t know why he came to me if the only option I had was to agree. I eventually mentioned that the dish was misleading and the least they could do was to thoroughly explain the nature of the dish before someone ordered. I found this experience unpleasant. India has many different cultures and flavours, agreed, but it’s important to manage price and menu descriptions with expectations especially in a high end, pricey restaurant.

It was nice that they served us some dessert as compensation In the end, but Sadly it did not make up for the disappointment and price...

My review (after 2 visits) is quite contradictory to most reviews here :

Ambience - interiors are Basic with 2 rooms with tables for two and four(tables are smaller in size and not comforting for sure ) Interiors Looks better when lit up after 9 pm , any time before that is kind of dark and uninviting . The outdoor seating with narrow wooden benches , is again difficult for accomodating 4 at one table.

Service- Unpredictable and mostly not very efficient .Serving time was also variable in both visits. They often forgot to provide cutlery with food and its difficult to grab attention of the staff in busy hours.

Food - I had high expectations after reading a lot of recommendations in Indian Facebook Groups but honestly i was majorly dissapointed.

Golgappa - some cubed potatoes with a sweet syrup which was far from anything i have tasted in India after having lived in different parts across India . ( i heard the chef is from Kolkata , but no clue where he picked up this recipe from). Well lets assume it's contemporary , hence different .

Rajkachori - taste was good , but the kachori was small and not well puffed.

Chicken 65 - could have been excellent but the Chef went too aggressive with Chilli powder , to the level that it was unconsumable. On complaining , we were told this is usually spicy ( unacceptable to indians , there is a difference between spicy and uncontrolled imbalanced used of chilli powder)

Prawn pepper Roast - Its a not a starter but served with curry and rice in a innovative look. Again there was way too much pepper than acceptable for a balanced flavour. The rice was dry and not fully cooked/refrigerated rice was served.

Fish roast - Thankfully this was roasted well , without the usage of excessive amount of anything. But nothing extraordinary to standout as a signature dish.

Chicken Tikka masala - Unfortunately this tasted something unlike Indian tikka masala. Not bad , but not close to the name.Had Lots of cumin for no good reason.

Prawn Thokku masala- Excess Salt, didnot like the recipe as well.

Biryani - We had this in multiple occassions. This is better than what usually Indian restaurants serve here and other things we had at this restaurant, however it can be more flavourful. The chicken is cooked to perfection and I loved the Raita.

Pistachio Kulfi Ice Cream - was Not impressive to us.

Dirty Mango lassi - It was good , but a little more flavour/taste of mango would do better .

Fresh Lime soda - they actually screwed up here. On complaining , sweet syrup and lime juice was separately provided to adjust according to our liking.

Overall A fine tuning of the recipes should be done although the presentation and portion sizes are good enough. There is huge scope of improvement from the chef's part.

We highly appreciated serving water to guests (as a part of Indian culture) and salted peanuts...

Very bad experience

Lets start from beginning, i was very excited to visit this restaurant from 2-3 months as I heard good about this restaurant from my friends. I am free on Tuesday from work but this restaurant is closed on Tuesday so Today i took special leave from my work to visit this restaurant . I was there with my wife and my friend. When we entered in this restaurant i was to excited. Firstly i talk about service,

Service- very bad and poor service. I never had this bad service . I tried almost all indian restaurants in berlin but i had never bad service like this . Firstly they took much time to take the order and after taking order , firstly we had starter that was ok but we have to wait almost 1 hour for our main course and after waiting 1 hour i went to the bar to remember them that we are waiting for food , the waitress who took our order may be she forgot our order , after that one waitress came and told us your food is preparing you had starter that why you food is getting late , Means who took 1 hour for main course after starter and after 1 hour they still preparing food , There was two table came after us and they had there food and paid the bill and went back to home but we still waiting for our food . After taking the order waitress never came on our table and ask that everything is fine we want something for Drink . No one came on our table . So very bad service very bad experience.

Now come to the food , after waiting 1 hour finally our food came , i was excited to try food , but after tasting the food 🥘 OMG , food was very spicy 🌶️ Means after waiting 1 hour we got such spicy food . We are four and we can’t even finish two naan. We order raita that never came . If food was tasty I forgot about service but both things are bad .

Overall very bad experience we will never come to this restaurant and never recommend to anyone. I regret that I wasted my day to eat in this restaurant better i...