On one wall of the Indian restaurant GupShup, which opened in New York’s Gramercy Park neighborhood in mid November, there is a lineup of silver disks. It looks like a design detail in what is overall a very bright, art infused, highly designed space meant to simulate a Bombay mansion but on closer examination, it’s an art installation of 3000 tiffins, the tin containers used to to deliver home cooked lunches to Mumbai office workers by the messenger dabba wallas. It’s a classic reference in what is otherwise a very modern place in both menu and décor. And even in its early, soft opening phase, with unusual dishes mixed with a few traditional ones, judging from the quality of those dishes, it’s already a success.
Smoked Salmon Puchkas are an unexpected first course.Noah Fecks
Dinners start with puchkas (a street food creation of crunchy fried dough) filled with an unexpected addition: smoked salmon on a plate of concentric sauce rings. Most of the dishes that followed were so inventive and delicious that we practically fought over every last scrap, particularly the rack of lamb on a bed of Hyderabad biryani and spare ribs in mango chutney with absinthe soaked micro greens. Even familiar dishes tasted vibrant and new: the spinach dish saag paneer bursting with a bright herb-infused flavor, the lentil dish black dal with layers of rich flavor, even chicken tikka and Delhi butter chicken tasted like new creations, the former with additional spice from smoked tamarind and tender chicken, the latter with a punchy, velvety sauce and similarly moist chicken, something rarely found in this dish. (The one miss was lobster tail in a bland creamy moilee sauce, a dish that didn’t seem to fit in on this menu.)
The main room of GupShup decorated like a Bombay mansion with a wall of tiffins.Noah Fecks
The quality didn’t surprise me. I’d experienced the chef Gurpreet Singh‘s food in his former restaurant Indian Accent in New Delhi (which spawned an outpost in recent years in New York.) There, his creative plating and ability to pull every bit of flavor out of an ingredient was dazzling. His creations are no less dazzling here.
Rack of lamb with Hyderabad biryani.Laurie Werner
Owner Jimmy Rizvi isn’t just aiming for a new addition to the modern Indian restaurant scene, though. “GupShup” means chit-chat or gossip in Hindi,” he says, “and this is something that I’ve been envisioning for years, a place that’s more convivial than what we’re used to seeing in Indian restaurants here. A place that I would go to and bring my friends for drinks, dinner or whatever the mood strikes. ” Within a few weeks that might also include listening to music: Rizvi is planning to add some other features to the bi-level space, notably live music performances on the upper level. Even without that feature, the crowd was larger than Rizvi expected on a Saturday night on a holiday weekend days after opening. That means that even though they accept walk-ins, reservations are essential.
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