The New Delhi-NCR Hotlist: 11 Restaurants, Cafés and Bars to Know Now

The feeling of wanting to just sit with your friends, have a chilled beer or a good whisky post-work is universal. A new crop of bars, restaurants and cafes in Delhi-NCR seem to do justice to that. From the ambience to the unconventional drinks, there are plenty of restaurants worth a try, whether you are after something small with a cocktail or sitting down for a full dinner. Here are the new Delhi-NCR openings to know:

Esquire India has put a hotlist together of 11 bars, cafes, and restaurants in Delhi-NCR this month. Bookmark these places if you're in town!

Delhi finally got its Gaggan Anand restaurant on August 26. At 21A Janpath, in the space that once housed Masala Library, Raga brings Anand back to India after two decades away, with longtime collaborator Rydo Anton and restaurateur Zorawar Kalra joining him on the project. The dinner runs to 22 courses and costs ₹11,111.

The menu is built around Indian food, though the dishes rarely arrive looking the way you expect them to. There is Golden Egg, Pyaz Kachori, Cold Curry, a lighter Nalli Nihari, Gaggan’s signature yoghurt explosion and a jhalmuri-inspired course. When Esquire visited, the dining room was dark and theatrical, with heavy curtains and an open kitchen, while the service team brought each course without revealing the menu beforehand. Gaggan has described the food as “a symphony in my head”, and the meal moves from familiar flavours to elaborate reinterpretations of them. 

Meherchand Market’s newest opening is Therefore, a coffee and cocktail bar with a menu that changes character as the day progresses. Specialty coffee takes up the earlier hours, with drinks including a burnt brown butter latte, and the bar programme comes into play later. The room is compact, with the coffee counter and bar forming the centre of the space. It is another useful addition to a market that has steadily accumulated places to eat and drink over the past year.

Above Café Loco in GK-1, Loco’s Den has divided its 18 original cocktails according to the time of day. The morning list includes the 9 AM Club and Breakfast Bloody Mary; later there is the Vinyl Spritz and Community Table, followed by drinks such as Midnight Loco and The Last Record. Nine classic cocktails sit alongside the signatures. They specifically mentioned how they aren’t and never wanted to be a speakeasy- just your friendly neighbourhood bar serving some funky cocktails 

The food includes bar snacks and larger plates, while the programming covers sports screenings, karaoke, quizzes, movie nights and guest DJs. The space is designed to start early, with the drinks list changing as the day goes on.

At Worldmark Aerocity, Selva brings regional Mexican cooking together with Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei influences. Restaurateur Sarthak Sidana spent more than a year researching the cuisine before opening the restaurant, and the menu reflects that work in dishes such as Tlayuda, Nori Tacos, ceviches and tiraditos, alongside seafood cooked over robata.

Tatemado, the Mexican technique of cooking over an open flame, features across the menu. There is also Selva Maya, a darker cocktail room within the restaurant, where the drinks use South American botanicals and other less familiar ingredients. For food, the Tlayuda and robata seafood are good places to begin, particularly if you want to see what Selva is doing beyond the familiar Mexican restaurant repertoire.

Off Mrkt is a new specialty coffee shop in Green Park Market, with a short drinks menu that includes a burnt brown butter latte and cranberry espresso with vanilla cold foam. There are more straightforward coffee options too, along with a small selection of food.

The café is compact and deliberately simple, with the coffee taking up most of the attention. It is a useful stop for Green Park regulars who want something beyond the standard cappuccino-and-croissant combination.

Odd Culture in Gurgaon is an all-day café and bar from Sunaina and Himanshu Makhija. Coffee and tea dominate the morning menu, while cocktails and mocktails come in later, with the founders also planning workshops, bar takeovers and collaborations at the space.

Scrambled egg rolls come with dashi butter, bang bang prawns are served in donut form and khagina is finished with fermented chilli paste. There is single-origin hot chocolate from Manam Chocolate, along with smoothies and cold-pressed juices. The room is finished in bright red and icy blue, with vinyl playing through the day.

Inside The Ashok in Chanakyapuri, Dodicci takes its design from an imagined European home. The name comes from the Italian word for twelve, which appears again in the bar’s twelve signature cocktails, each attached to one of the fictional residents of the house.

Chef Gurdev leads the kitchen, bringing experience from Le Cordon Bleu Paris, Le Taillevent and Le Chateaubriand. The menu includes hand-rolled pastas, pizzas, crispy artichoke and avocado salad, parmesan tapioca sticks and pistachio-crusted fish, with Italian and French techniques appearing throughout. The tableside tiramisu is one of the more theatrical desserts on the menu.

Freddy Who is the new Vasant Vihar restaurant from restaurateur Bhavuk Verma, whose other restaurants include Dear Donna, Hikki and Dirty Good. The menu focuses on contemporary Asian cooking with a strong Japanese influence, beginning with sashimi and carpaccio before moving into gyoza, robata, noodles and wok dishes.

The salmon carpaccio comes with yuzu kosho and ponzu, while the black cod is served with yuzu chilli miso. Hokkaido scallops, caramelised chicken and a selection of robata dishes make up the larger part of the menu. At the bar, the Clooney combines gin, green apple, olive, saline and white wine. Renesa has designed the room with oxblood lacquer, burl wood and bronze, with a large bar at its centre.

Under Nadoo in GK-3, Let’s Kiss has done away with the cocktail menu. The bar works on an omakase format, with guests telling the bartender what spirits and flavours they prefer before a drink is made specifically around those preferences- and the trusted bartenders take it from there. 

Sahil Sambhi, who is also behind Japonico and Yyaki, is part of the team. The bartenders have a repertoire of more than 100 cocktails to work from, while the food is limited to a few bar snacks, including kataifi prawns and lamb toast with pesto and burrata. It is a good place to hand over the ordering to someone who knows what they are doing. If you love a dimly redlit bar, this is the one for you. 

Lodhi Colony’s new all-day café and wine bar, Lizzu, brings Sicilian and Levantine cooking into the same kitchen. The morning menu includes çılbır, specialty coffee and baked goods, followed by manakish, hummus with warm saj, fresh pasta and chicken shawarma cooked over an open fire. The kitchen bakes its own bread throughout the day.

There are nine lemonades made with Japanese yuzu, alongside wines by the glass and cocktails. The food list is substantial enough to cover breakfast, lunch and dinner, while the wine selection gives the later part of the day a different focus.

Oro is a new specialty coffee café in Gurugram from founder Tisha Aggarwal. The all-day menu includes the Italian Job, a burrata sandwich served in crisp schiacciata, as well as the Chili Crisp Tamago Sando, inspired by Japanese konbini food, and a Katsu Chicken Sando.

The coffee programme is the other half of the restaurant, with specialty brews alongside the food. Oro is the first Gurugram opening in Aggarwal’s planned Delhi-NCR expansion, and the menu gives it a clear focus on coffee and sandwiches with influences from Italy and Japan.