At Nisaba, Chef Manish Mehrotra is Serving Dishes That Taste Like The Food You Grew Up On

There are restaurants that announce themselves with fanfare, and then there are those that simply arrive, assured, unhurried, and quietly certain of their purpose and then make their name stand out. Nisaba, Chef Manish Mehrotra's first independent venture under his newly founded Manish Mehrotra Culinary Arts (MMCA) banner, is very much the latter. Perched on the first floor of the Humayun's Tomb World Heritage Site Museum at Delhi's Sunder Nursery, it occupies one of the capital's most coveted addresses, a space won through competitive bid, and one that carries the weight of centuries with characteristic grace.

Mehrotra, who spent nearly three decades redefining Indian cuisine at Indian Accent at Delhi, Mumbai, and New York, and Comorin at Gurgaon and Mumbai, parted ways with those institutions roughly eighteen months ago. The culinary world waited. And the answer, when it came this year in January, was not the spectacle many had anticipated, but something quieter and, arguably, more considered. 

Named after Nisaba, the ancient Sumerian goddess of grain and writing, the restaurant signals an intent that is rooted in sustenance rather than showmanship. "It won't be an Indian Accent," Mehrotra had said before opening. "But it will be more elevated than Comorin." In the months since, Delhi's dining fraternity has tested that promise thoroughly, with reservations stretching weeks into the future and the hype showing no signs of abating.

The interiors, designed by Via Design, embody the same restraint as the food philosophy. Soft greens and beiges complement the heritage setting. A sculptural installation by artist Dhananjay Singh, a meditation on grain, growth, and renewal, anchors the dining room. Books from Mehrotra's personal collection line a shelf nearby. The space transitions from light and open during the day to intimate and atmospheric in the evening. There is no loud music, no theatrical low lighting. "I want to focus on the food," Mehrotra told us plainly. "I don't want the kind of place that is opening up nowadays, loud music, low light. My eyes are on this only."

Starters And The Promise of Memory

The meal began with a dish that immediately set the tone: a Samosa resting in a bed of Moradabadi dal, scattered with Buknu spice and Everything Chutney. This is the kind of dish you lean over instinctively, the khasta crispness of the pastry giving way to the velvety lentil beneath, the chutney and Buknu tying it all together in a way that feels both ancient and original. It is a dish you would gladly return for.

A Beetroot Goat Cheese Dahi Vada, topped with fresh green tomatoes and nutmeg miso rice, followed, prettily plated and intelligently conceived, even if the dahi vada's flavour profile, one so deeply encoded in Indian memory, demands a degree of reinvention that is difficult to fully deliver in a fine-casual setting. 

More triumphant was the Mutton Seekh Kabab, glazed and dipped in blue cheese butter, served alongside baked naan. The pairing was extraordinary, a dish that, as Mehrotra himself intended, transports you directly to the galis of Delhi 6. The choice of accompaniments here is no accident. "The naan served with the seekh kabab, the butter buns with the crab, the hing kachoris with the mutton, these are intentional pairings," Mehrotra explained, "made to ensure the taste palate stays at its height."

The clear standout among starters, however, was the Barbeque River Sole, served with tamarind chilli miso and a mooli ginger lachha. Perfectly executed and startlingly refined, it functioned as the finest possible aperture to the meal, a dish that captures Mehrotra's singular ability to balance technique with restraint.

Mains, Drinks, and the Weight of Expectation

The main courses arrived with a generous ambition. The Zaveri Bazaar Dal, topped with birista and a baby hing tadka and accompanied by ajwain roti, was warmly spiced and deeply satisfying, a dish that quietly showcases how much skill is required to make simple food sing. The Clay Pot Motihari Mutton with hing sattu kachori was another highlight. 

Mehrotra has spoken at length about the mythology of "champaran mutton," a dish he considers a misnomer. Having grown up in Patna, he insists no such thing exists in Bihar's culinary lexicon, "There is nothing called champaran mutton. I was born and brought up in Patna, I have never seen champaran mutton in my life." The Motihari mutton, then, is his riposte, slow-braised, deeply flavoured, and paired with a kachori that holds its own.

The Chilli Tomato Crab Ghotala, served with butter buns, was a triumph of the main course spread, spicy, tangy, and generous, evoking the full lineage of India's many ghotala curries, from egg to chicken, now elevated with crab in a manner that makes the devoured quantity dawning on you only after the fact. The Signature Pao Bhaji, however, did not quite earn its billing. Despite the Dahi Mirchi and onion pao accompanying it, it lacked the edge and presence one expects from a dish so loaded with street-food nostalgia being reimagined at this price point.

From the zero-proof drinks menu, the Babuna, a blend of chamomile, passion fruit, mint, coconut, eucalyptus, and lime, was a revelation, evoking the Odia bel sherbet tradition, I grew up savouring, in an unexpected and entirely delightful way. The Thyme Paani, combining fennel-thyme tea, lemongrass, tonic water, and lemon, was similarly sharp and refreshing, a worthy counterpart to the richness of the food.

Dessert, the Chef, and the Baton That Passes

To close, the Baked Rasmalai, garnished with fried chironji and nolen gur makhana, arrived in a composition born, Mehrotra tells us, from his many visits and trails across Kolkata, deliberately echoing the city's iconic baked rasgulla. It is a beautiful dessert. And yet, here is where Nisaba's most honest challenge presents itself. 

Certain flavours carry an almost tyrannical hold over memory. The baked rasgulla, for those who know it well, from family kitchen experiments to Mullick's legendary original, exists in the mind's register with unyielding specificity. The question of whether any version, however skilled, can fully satisfy that expectation is not a criticism of the kitchen so much as a meditation on the ambition itself. Simple flavours, as Mehrotra himself acknowledges, are the most unforgiving canvas.

Throughout the meal, the chef moved through the dining room with a presence that was neither performative nor perfunctory, he arrived at the table, urging us to eat immediately, hot, without ceremony. "Just go in with your hands and dunk in," he said, gesturing at a dish still steaming. It is a philosophy that speaks to the restaurant's deepest instinct: food as experience, not exhibition.

He was candid too about the broader arc of his work. "Being a chef is a far bigger responsibility than being an entrepreneur," he said, describing how the Indian Accent and Comorin menus, that he heralded as the founding chef, continue to run at those restaurants represent a baton already passed, to contemporaries he has trained and worked with over decades. Nisaba, he hopes, will eventually represent a similar passing on, a living institution that outlasts any single chef's tenure.

A Restaurant Finding Its Moment

Nisaba is a very good restaurant, and a remarkable one given its age. It is only a matter of weeks old, yet already carries the conviction of something more seasoned. The rush, the full reservation books, the breathless praise from critics and diners alike, all of it is warranted. The location alone, perched above the heritage precinct of Humayun's Tomb, lends an atmosphere no amount of interior design could manufacture.

Where Nisaba is at its best, it is genuinely extraordinary: the river sole, the seekh kabab, the crab ghotala, the Babuna, the Motihari mutton all demonstrate a chef at the very height of his powers, working with a clarity of intent that lesser restaurants spend years trying to find. 

Where it encounters friction is at the intersection of ambition and memory: dishes like the pao bhaji and the dahi vada carry such towering flavour references in the Indian consciousness that their reimagined versions must contend with a very exacting invisible original. In these moments, more amplification, more invention, would serve the restaurant well.

Whether Nisaba is the sort of restaurant one returns to again and again will depend, ultimately, on what one is seeking, legacy, innovation, comfort, or spectacle. The answer, for now, is that it offers most of these things, and all of them with soul. For Delhi's culinary scene, that is quite enough of a beginning.

Where: First Floor, Humayun's Tomb World Heritage Site Museum, Sunder Nursery, Nizamuddin, New Delhi – 110013

When: Lunch service from 12:00 PM to 3:30 PM and Dinner service’s first seating from 6:45 PM to 9:15 PM and second seating from 9:30 PM to midnight