Adda — Restaurant in New York

Do not come to Adda if you want the Butter Chicken Experience. It turns out that if not everyone in your party is eating it, it would be an “insult to the chef,” to serve it.

I took my dear friend to this restaurant for her birthday for one reason only: the Butter Chicken Experience. She had heard about it and was very excited to dine here, just to try something so hallowed and sacred.

How involved could it be, you ask? She had to make the reservations weeks in advance. No problem. A late night table was the only one available. Still, we pressed on undeterred. We had to warn them in advance we wanted the Butter Chicken Experience. Oh, we did.

When the night arrived, we were ready to receive the full glory of the Butter Chicken Experience. One small problem: I am a vegetarian. This hurdle we had planned for. My friend would eat all of the Butter Chicken Experience she could handle, while I ordered something meatless. If there were leftovers, she would take them home. No Butter Chicken Experience left uneaten, none gone to waste.

We informed our server of this, and they said it would be no problem. So, imagine our surprise when the manager came by several minutes later and informed us that there was a problem: we both had to be ready to receive the Butter Chicken Experience, or neither of us would bear witness to its savory delights. We informed him of our plan to pay for the full price for two orders of the Butter Chicken Experience, though we could not fathom a price tag to put on such a delicacy. No, he said. It would be an INSULT TO THE CHEF if we did not both eat it.

We stressed again that we would be paying for it. We swore none would be wasted. The Butter Chicken would be fully Experienced. It was my friend’s birthday, I told him. She only wanted to Experience the Butter Chicken. This was the sole reason we were dining at Adda. I even offered to pay more to ensure that she could have her birthday wish.

No, he said. No Butter Chicken Experience for you.

Fine, we said. We will leave. No Butter. No Chicken. No Experience.

Fine, he said. So, we left.

I was particularly shocked. I frequently dine at Indian restaurants because they are typically much more accommodating of a vegetarian diet than the usual eatery. Not in this case. Vegetarians beware.

Pay heed to our cautionary tale. Even if you scheduled this with Adda weeks in advance, even if you are willing to pay for something, even if it is your friend’s birthday:

Adda bears the right to refuse the Butter Chicken Experience to you over the chef and...

Can’t be overstated how rare it is to be wow-ed by Indian food in NYC and get the whole family to rave about both the creativity of the dishes and the bold, authentic flavors created. Huge fan of Chef Chintan / Unapologetic Foods for how clearly passionate they are about Indian cuisine and how they’ve endeavored to bring modern indian food to NYC - truly think they have another winner on their hands (frfr).

Ordered a TON of food, but to me the standouts were the goat biryani (insane), butter chicken experience (cooked and served tableside by the goat himself - has to be reserved in advance!), and paneer (SO fresh). NOTE that they have a separate limited quantity veg menu (which I appreciate that they keep kinda under wraps, in an effort to keep locally sourcing ingredients and preserve food for vegetarian customers), which has fantastic items too.

Can tell the restaurant is still finding its legs, but dishes are awesome, service was warm and impeccable (shout out to our server and Chef Pandya, tho back of restaurant was a bit cramped), and while pricey, this is up there with the best indian I’ve ever had. you’ll def leave full and happy (also rec desserts!!) - small side note to be cautious while eating tho given the liberal use of ghee/butter

appetizers: papad with chutneys / pickles (really unique that they had different flavors of papads and interesting pickles, but hilarious that we had to buy them - avoid corn papad and def get date chutney) papdi chaat (solid, cool how there was a chaatwala walking around) sigdi prawn (unexpectedly so fresh and good, not as much of a fishy taste which I appreciated) lamb parcha (very buttery but tasted fantastic) bhatti kumbh mushroom skewer (tasted so good, my sister who hates mushroom loved it) soya roll (maybe the only miss, just was too buttery)

mains: butter chicken biryani (comes with paratha, dal and rice - chicken smoked tableside with choice of wood and then butter chicken curry cooked tableside with your choice of butter while you chat with the chef = such a fricken dope experience, but do need to watch out for the sheer amount of butter used) baby goat biryani (this dude makes a MEAN biryani) paneer khurchan curry (just unreal - paneer was so fresh and you can tell the effort put into this - my dad who hates paneer couldn’t get enough) gucchi and kumbh mushroom pulao (incredible, once again my sister was floored)

desserts: tiny kulfi pops served with choice of dips (super cute and tasty) butterscotch cake (so...

It's a really pretty restaurant. There's a gang of hostesses to greet you at the head who are so lovely and nice and make you feel super welcome - and it's a trendy place. That's about where the excitement stops here.

Is it authentic indian food? No, not even close. My issue with this place is the same that I have with all unapologetic food restaurants - the taste isn't authentic, and there's a gross overuse of ghee and butter to add flavor.

I tried a lot of things - the chicken tikka appetizer, the keema rolls, two chaats, their lamb entree, their biryani, parathas, and two mocktails.

I'll start with what I personally found to be most offensive. There's a huge show about presentation - the chef came by and said this is a 12-layer biryani. Any south asian has had multiple biryani experiences in their life. This was not a biryani. It wasn't even a pulao. It tasted extremely bland, no flavor whatsoever. If someone has biryani for the first time and tries THAT, I mean I feel bad for them that they think this is what biryani is.

Mocktails were essentially not drinkable. The service is really kitchy? "Complimentary" papad and achar.. the chaats - all same flavor profile that you'd get at an americanized indian restaurant.

Chicken tikka was whatever, the lamb and daal makhni were actually good but again, not outstanding to warrant the crazy pricetag. I'll even say the daal was maybe excellent? The best daal in NYC that I've had? It's funny that it's the least expensive dish on their menu.

The parathas were not good - I also find it bizarre that given the extreme overuse of butters and ghees that they then ONLY offer fried bread as an option to eat with. To cut through the fattiness, a non buttered/friend option like roti or naan would've made more sense but it's not even a bread option.

Overall, I felt kind of embarrassed taking my parents here given we all knew what an imposter of a...