One of many eating rooms within the multilevel house.
Picture: Michael Kleinberg Studio
Jyotin Sethi first thought of constructing a restaurant in New York greater than a decade in the past, after Gymkhana opened in London in 2013 and have become successful. He flew to New York in 2015 to see about transplanting that success right here. “However we felt that New York wasn’t prepared,” he says, “and New Yorkers weren’t overly aware of the delicacies.” The pandemic solely slowed issues additional. Sethi’s firm, JKS Eating places, runs 35 institutions across the globe, together with Trishna, Hoppers, and Sabor. He credit the wave of Indian eating places which have come up prior to now 5 years, resembling Dhamaka and Semma, for laying some groundwork right here. “New York does Italian, Japanese, Korean, and steakhouses amazingly nicely,” he says, “however with different cuisines, there’s a chance for individuals like us to return in and broaden out what’s already a extremely nice basis.”
Sethi is doing that with Ambassadors Clubhouse, the spectacular Punjabi spot that shares an tackle with A24’s Manhattan headquarters and can open its doorways subsequent week. In its ambition, dimension, and theatricality, it calls to thoughts the grand midtown spectacles of a earlier period — Joe Baum’s 4 Seasons and Discussion board of the Twelve Caesars, the Russian Tea Room — in addition to this metropolis’s historical past of Indian fine-dining spots, like Nirvana, which sat 16 tales above Instances Sq. within the Nineteen Seventies, or Madhur Jaffrey’s Dawat throughout Reagan’s second time period. However whereas Indian cooking is extra inventive than ever in New York, and regional cooking shines, Punjabi eating places stay uncommon.
“Different Indian eating places are nice with meals and beverage,” says Karam Sethi, Jyotin’s brother, co-founder, and the Ok in JKS (Sunaina Sethi, their sister, is the S). He believes atmosphere units his restaurant aside, and the inside, unfold over two flooring, is a imaginative and prescient of generational wealth within the subcontinent. The siblings re-created components of their grandfather’s Nineteen Sixties summer time home, with some furnishings and different fixings shipped from India. A velveteen paisley carpet runs throughout two flooring. A silver bar is modeled after the homeowners’ grandparents’ Delhi dwelling. Material resembling Kashmiri cashmere traces the partitions, and the flatware is silver-plated brass imported straight from, sure, India.
In true Punjabi style, “abundance” influences every little thing. Of the few hundred workers, lots of them native, everyone seems to be skilled to recollect whether or not regulars favor nonetheless or glowing water. “In London, workers conferences begin at 9:30 a.m.” Sunaina says. “In New York, individuals confirmed up at 8:15, excited to get going.” Additionally they introduced two full-time halwais — generational sweet-makers who often work inside households — over to Manhattan.
The sprawling menu is full of regional specialties, together with satpura, an accordion-shaped, seven-layer pastry full of samosa filling, and butter rooster chops evoke the well-known Aslam Rooster store in Outdated Delhi. The entire cooking is impressed by recipes from the palaces of Punjab, dhabas, dwelling recipes, and road meals. (The setup includes two charcoal tandoors and conventional sigdis for bread and kebabs. “It took us 9 months to get the licensing for the tandoors,” Karam says, noting that these will likely be used for breads.)
Every set meal begins with a rainbow assortment of papad, or crackers, the staff buys from a 200-year-old store in Amritsar, Punjab, with an array of chutneys. Right here chef Karan Mittal spotlights lesser-known produce of Punjab’s winters like methi, or fenugreek, with plump pink shrimp, or a mooli, or radish salad with a grilled entire turbot. There’s additionally an achaari (pickle-spiced) duck over matthi, a savory shortbreadlike biscuit, and a zingy chicken-tikka-filled taro basket, a tackle raj kachori, or the “king of chaat.”
Atta rooster.
Picture: Evan Sung
As in Punjab, barbecue is a giant deal right here. New York exclusives embody a lamb seekh kebab wrapped in gauzy warqi paratha and a lush veal-cheek korma perfumed with saffron. “These are Punjabi dishes visitors may need eaten tons of of occasions,” Karam says. “Right here, they’re served of their highest, most scrumptious type.” The large-ticket gadgets at Ambassadors embody raan, a roasted entire leg of lamb that’s laborious to return by within the U.S. Atta rooster, in the meantime, is commonly a country dish of entire rooster encased and cooked in wheat dough. The Ambassadors’s model stuffs a heritage poussin and covers it in a bird-shaped, edible pastry shell, which arrives with a sidecar of almond curry and egg pilau.
All the pieces is working at a equally excessive degree of showmanship. One private-dining house, the Jungli Room, attracts from India’s searching tradition; it seats 14 and has animal-print curtains to demarcate it. A second PDR, named the Raja Rani Room (“King and Queen”), feels extra formal, studded with blue Jaipuri tiles. They’re each within the lower-ground flooring, which may seat 75 extra or be transformed to its personal occasion room. All through, a playlist of Punjabi hits, from Panjabi MC’s 2002 hit “Watch out for the Boys” to songs by newer artists like Yung Singh, thumps. “We’ve received a DJ patch,” Karam says. “We will fly out Panjabi MC, able to go, if you need.”
The siblings have been doing loads of flying on their very own as of late. The trio opened Gymkhana on the Aria Resort & On line casino in Las Vegas in December (Teyana Taylor and Brooklyn Beckham had been in attendance). They’ve been making weekly journeys forwards and backwards to the States in shifts forward of the launch. The best way they break up their tasks, Sunaina explains, displays the way in which they grew up: “Karam within the kitchen, Jyotin doing the schmoozing,” she says, “and me working round, making drinks.”
Siblings Karam, Sunaina, and Jyotin Sethi.
Picture: JKS Eating places
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When you favor to learn in print, you may as well discover this text within the February 9, 2026, situation of
New York Journal.
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