Gymkhana

Two Michelin stars sit on a restaurant that still deliberately looks like a colonial era gentlemen’s club, oak booths, marble tables, ceiling fans turning slowly above framed cricket memorabilia, a design choice that has drawn its share of debate but undeniably creates a distinct mood in a city full of restaurants that look like each other.

Gymkhana opened in 2013, earned its first star within a year, and added a second in 2024, cementing its place among the most decorated Indian restaurants in the country. The kitchen focuses on Northern Indian cooking with a heavy reliance on the tandoor, chicken tikka and a venison biryani among the dishes most frequently singled out, alongside softshell crab and wild muntjac keema. Sides built around chapatis, dal and seasonal vegetables round out the table and are worth ordering even for diners who came purely for the grills.

Both a la carte and a longer tasting menu are available, the latter running well past a hundred pounds a head before drinks, and the wine list leans towards depth over breadth, well suited to the richer, spiced dishes coming out of the kitchen.

Service is polished and confident, staff clearly well versed in explaining dishes many diners will not have encountered in this form before, and the room fills with a mix of Mayfair regulars and destination diners booking weeks out.

The honest caveat, one that surfaces regularly even in otherwise glowing reviews, is that the two stars invite comparisons the kitchen does not always survive. Some diners have found individual dishes, a lamb shank rogan josh among them, underwhelming next to the reputation, and the gap between the best plates and the merely good ones can feel wide for a restaurant at this level. Order the tandoor dishes and the biryani, and the meal tends to land closer to its billing.