There is a particular kind of restaurant Delhi has been craving for a while now. Not a loud bar that happens to serve food, not a fancy tasting-menu temple where you feel vaguely nervous the whole time, not a place where the Instagram opportunities outpace the actual eating. Something in between: genuinely good food, a room that feels considered rather than costumed, and a pace that belongs to the guest rather than the kitchen. GRAMMIE, tucked into the quietly excellent Sangam Courtyard in RK Puram, is exactly that restaurant. Tanveer Kwatra's venture is the kind of place you plan to spend two hours in and leave three and a half hours later, slightly dazed, very happy, and already wondering when you can come back.
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The Space: Quiet Luxury That Actually Earns the Word
Walk in, and the first thing you notice is that GRAMMIE does not announce itself. Headlight Design Studio has created something that feels genuinely residential in the best possible way: marble floors that catch the afternoon light and hold it, an elliptical dining bar at the centre of the room that becomes the natural gravity point for the whole space, and a warmth that is neither too dim nor trying too hard. Frida Kahlo looks down at you from one wall, entirely unbothered and entirely at home.
By evening, the room shifts. Soft projections move across the walls: birds in flight, wisps of smoke, the kind of visual texture that registers in your peripheral vision without demanding your attention. Arjun Rathi's candy-shaped lights throw a glow that flatters everyone at the table. Rohit Chawla's wearable art installations add a playfulness that prevents the space from tipping into stuffiness. The overall effect is of a room that has been designed by people who actually eat in restaurants and know what makes you want to stay.
The cocktail programme comes from Storm Evans' Ponté bar team, and the drinks menu sits on the table looking both approachable and ambitious. Open noon to 1 AM daily, GRAMMIE is designed for the long afternoon that becomes an evening, the business lunch that turns into a conversation that neither party wants to end. Delhi has plenty of places that say this. GRAMMIE actually means it.
How the Evening Unfolded: Dish by Dish
We went deep into the menu across a long, unhurried evening and worked through most of it. Here is what happened.
The Openers
Things started with a bellpepper and corn kataifi that was genuinely unexpected. Kataifi pastry, those thin vermicelli-like strands usually associated with Middle Eastern sweets, wrapped around a sweet corn and pepper filling and fried until crackling. It was light, texturally exciting and the kind of thing that sets the tone for the rest of the meal: familiar ingredients in a form you did not see coming.
The arancini nigiri arrived next and was the kind of dish that makes you stop and think about what just happened. A nigiri-shaped presentation, but the rice component reimagined as a crispy risotto bite, sitting in the place of fish with a topping that brought the whole thing together into something genuinely clever. It is the dish that best represents what Kwatra is doing here: global references, executed with real skill, without any of the showing-off that usually accompanies that kind of cooking.
The Yellowtail Hamachi Crudo was the composed, quiet counterpoint to the two bites before it. Buttery, delicate slices of hamachi dressed in a citrus-yuzu ponzu that understood its one job: to let the fish be the point. It is a confident dish precisely because it does not try to do too much. Then came the tuna torta with caviar, which leant into a similar philosophy but with more richness, the caviar adding brine and elegance to what could have been a simple preparation. Together, the raw dishes made a strong case for Kwatra's restraint with premium ingredients.
Baked Brie and the Grills
The baked brie and bread deserves its own sentence: warm, yielding, salty-creamy and completely, comfortably indulgent. It arrived at just the right moment in the meal, before the heavier courses, and the table fell temporarily silent.
The grill section was where the kitchen stretched its legs. The barbecue sweet potato was smoky and yielding, the kind of vegetarian dish that does not qualify itself as vegetarian because it does not need to. Chicken wing gyoza was a brilliant piece of fusion logic: the flavour of a well-glazed chicken wing but in the delicate parcelling of a dumpling, with the crispy bottom of a pan-fried gyoza. The charred black cod was the standout of the grill section, carrying that deep, slightly sweet char that requires both good technique and good fish. Grilled shrimp were clean and precise. The Mediterranean meatballs were herby, tender and the most classically comforting thing on the table all evening.
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Pizza and Bowls
The pepperoni and pickled peppers pizza with agave honey was the dish that made the table go quiet and then immediately argumentative about why more pizzas do not do this. Fire-kissed dough, genuinely crispy at the edge, with the sharp hit of pickled peppers cutting through the fat of the pepperoni and a drizzle of agave honey tying everything into something sweet, salty and acidic at once. It is exactly the kind of pizza that makes you wonder why you were eating any other kind.
The bowls were the evening's gentle third act. The fettuccine arrabbiata was honest and well-made, the sauce carrying real depth and the pasta cooked with the confidence that comes from not over-explaining itself. The udon pesto was the more surprising of the pasta dishes: thick udon noodles carrying a basil pesto with more body and richness than you typically expect, and the combination worked better than it had any right to. The tofu and bok choy donburi rounded things out with clean, umami-forward flavours that made a good case for the kitchen's range.
Desserts: The Part That Earns Your Return Visit
This is where GRAMMIE ends the evening with serious intention. The housemade gelatos are the real thing: four flavours, all of them worthwhile. Smoked almond was the most interesting, with a quiet smokiness that deepened rather than distracted. Dark chocolate was deep and not too sweet. Spicy guava was the surprise of the four, the heat arriving just after the fruitiness in a way that was genuinely clever. These are gelatos that remind you what gelato is supposed to taste like when someone actually cares.
The dark chocolate mousse cake with honeycomb was the proper finale: airy but rich, the honeycomb adding a textural crunch and sweetness that lifted the whole thing. It was the dessert equivalent of a well-placed full stop.
The Cocktails: Precise, Playful, and Better Than Most
Storm Evans' bar programme at GRAMMIE is doing something thoughtful. These are not the usual suspects.
The passionfruit vanilla, a vodka and prosecco combination, was bright and celebratory without being cloying. The lychee and sesame was the most memorable of the four we tried: a tequila sour that balanced the floral sweetness of lychee with the nutty, savoury depth of sesame in a way that should not work and absolutely does. The miso and caramel highball was an elevated, slow-sipping drink for the part of the evening when conversation slows and deepens. But the grapefruit and makrut lime was the one that made the table genuinely excited: a drink garnished with kala khatta flavoured shaved ice that melts slowly into the glass, changing the drink as you go. It is fun in the most intelligent sense of the word.
Low-intervention, high-intention, as the brief puts it, and that description is accurate. These are drinks that reward your attention.
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The Verdict
GRAMMIE is a confident, well-considered restaurant that has firmly earned its place among the better dining options Delhi has to offer right now. The cooking under Kwatra is ingredient-led and technically assured without ever becoming cold or mechanical. The room is beautiful without being intimidating. The cocktail programme is genuinely exciting. And the pace, that unhurried, unrushed quality that lets lunch become dinner and dinner become a long conversation over gelato, is rare enough in Delhi to be worth noting on its own.
It is not a cheap evening, but it is a fair one. You pay for the quality of what arrives on the table and the thought that clearly went into all of it. RK Puram's Sangam Courtyard has been quietly building a serious food neighbourhood for a while now. GRAMMIE is one of its strongest arguments for making the trip.
Come hungry. Order widely. Stay unhurried. Delhi has been waiting for this one.