The Capital Connection: A new eatery recreates Great Britain in the heart of Delhi

The restaurant’s interiors.

Lutyens Delhi has always been the jewel of Delhi. And hoping to add to that glimmer is the brand new Lutyens Cocktail House. Taking its name from the celebrated architect, the cocktail bar and restaurant is set in Janpath. Paying tribute to its progenitor, the interiors are classy neo-Victorian, all gleaming wood and polished brass with leather-bound seats, while tables are scattered around as they would have been in the gentleman’s clubs of old. There is a long bar where the bartender is happy to mix you your particular concoction while the menu is Continental. There aren’t as many English dishes as one would imagine, but then we live in more cosmopolitan times.

We begin our meal with the Poached Pear Salad. The pear is more drunken than poached, redolent in red wine. Attended to by al dente baby carrots, the crispest asparagus, garden fresh spinach leaves and other flora, the lashings of mustard complete the picture. For our mains, we encounter Two Ways, which is duck prepared, wouldn’t you know it, two ways. With both duck breast and a confit of duck leg, served with red cabbage, vanilla mash and berry jus, this is the belle of our particular ball. Crackling on the surface but tender on the inside and sumptuously marbled with bits of fat, the breast, leg and our mouth make for a happy menage a trois. The red snapper, on the other hand, is far more staid, like an English governess. While flaky and accompanied by a darling (there is no other word) potato mash, we can’t help wishing the flavour had been more emphatic. But then given our decidedly British surroundings, when in Rome we suppose. Or Great Britain rather.

Our dessert is rather appropriately The Chocolate Box, a rectangular wooden receptacle that looks like it has come straight out of a Roald Dahl novel. We make like Charlie and dive in.

Meal for two: Rs 2,500 (with taxes, excluding alcohol)
Address: 22, Janpath, Delhi