Hotel Kinara's Maratha Darbar — Restaurant in Pune

This spot genuinely sprung a surprise. I went in on a friend's insistence on a Sunday afternoon.

I think we walked in a little early. Although we went in around 12 and they said they opened at 11.30 am, they were still in preparation mode. The food took a little time to come and only one other table was occupied.

We ordered the Mutton Fry Thali and the Chicken Thali.

The Mutton Fry Thali was packed to the brims. There was ofcourse the Fry Mutton and the rassa along with tambda-pandhra and dahi-kanda. Similarly, the Chicken Thali had Chicken Masala and the rassa along with tambda-pandhra and dahi-kanda. We opted for Chapatis and Indrayani Bhaat in both thalis. The meat in both the thalis was well cooked and the favourful masala was coating every bit of it. The tambda and pandhra rassas acted as the perfect accompaniment to the food, and dahi kanda was a great to balance the spice.

The serve was a little lacking, and that may have been because we walked in early. The serup is old school and seems like the furniture is pretty old too. But all that takes a backseat once your food arrives because the food here is an absolute winner.

Warning: The place has ample free street parking but be careful where you park. While lots of vehicles were causually parked in a line outside the restaurant, someone across the street warned us to keep an eye on our vehicle lest a towing vehicle picked it up.

All in all, fantastic, value for money food that more than makes up for everything else. They'll be undergoing redevelopment later this month, and I hope they return because I...

OK if you've no other choice, went to try their chicken thali as couple of weeks ago my wife had been there ordered the same thing and she loved it. It was okay because chicken didn't looked fresh but kind of frozen, which normally is the way of hotels these days, we ordered extra chicken sukkha (2 plates) which took almost 30mins and was delivered when almost your stomach was full. To my surprise, the chicken was not properly cooked, on taking the first bite, I noticed this along with the redness that you might have experienced if you try eating half cooked chicken or not cooked chicken. We reported this to the manager and he asked if we wanted a replacement. As stomach was already full, we asked for the bill and he already charged for only 1 chicken sukkha instead of two. Thanks for that. Also the service was way too slow. Hence deducting 2 stars, 1 for slow service and 1 for chicken...

The food was alright. They can't quite nail the South Indian preparation although they are a pure veg restaurant (How hard is it to make a decent sambar ? 🤔). The veg sandwich was too hard and bland. The usual North Indian stuff is decent enough. Veg noodles are alright as well. From the number of times I've been here, I'd recommend coming here for the North Indian dishes and the staff who are really nice (Good service = good experience). If you are a north Indian , I think you wouldn't mind the South Indian dishes but if you're South Indian I'd recommend ordering the north Indian stuff. Overall it's a decent place to eat with family, not a great hangout spot...