This New Modern Indian Restaurant Has A Pani Puri Bar And You Have To Check It Out

A smart rooftop restobar, RockSalt, the newest enterprise of Chef Abhijit Saha, takes Indian food on a modern spin without messing with the core flavours.

Almost al fresco, green walls, a dominating bar and plenty of space between sofas–chair-tables, RockSalt works perfectly as a bar, a restaurant and a lounge bar. Perfect if you’re looking to impress someone, be it boss or bae. 

Kick things off with one of their signature cocktails. Coorg Espresso Martini is perfect for that light kick of vodka and caffeine, and the Kiwi Bellini is the perfect summer drink. What blew us away, however, was the Flaming Chocolate and Cinnamon Blazer. There was no flame on ours, but the marriage of whiskey, vanilla and chocolate was perfect. And it started the night on a high. 

A food menu different from Chef Saha’s usual, you’ll find all your familiar flavours like samosas and naans, but the former comes with chicken, almond, green peas filling and chutney foam while the naan takes on the form of a pizza. We liked the flavourful galouti kebab, which though not exactly melt-in-the-mouth, was demolished with glee. Mushroom Chilli Fry win points for not being deep-fried, and was cherry tomatoes and cashew nuts made it better. Avoid the dry {and possibly pre-cooked} wings. But skip it all in favour of the offerings from the RockSalt Pani Puri Bar. 

The signature, and our favourite aspect of RockSalt, the ‘pani puri bar’ has classic and exotic options. We recommend pepper crabmeat in the puri {the best of the lot}, with masala chaas, or the lamb hummus with a lightly spiced tomato gazpacho. But wait, how does Dharwad peda {made in-house and not quite authentic}, with aam panna sound? We tried, and won’t have it again! Maybe the moti choor will be better! There are boozy options too — Mango Chilli Margarita and Blue Kamakazi, if you want to do pani puri shots. 

The Dahi Ke Kebab is a great palate cleanser, so have this before hitting the mains. 

The mains don’t experiment too much, but are enjoyable no less. The Modern Indian Khadai paneer was not too robust, but great presentation. Smoked chicken korma is a signature here, and didn’t disappoint. Though we expected it to be more smoky, it was swiftly mopped up by naans and flaky parathas. We’re heading back to load up on the biryani and the coastal offerings — especially the moilee and Bengali curry options.

Don’t leave without having the Shahi Tukda for the drama involved in breaking the chocolate dome to get to your dessert. Do ignore that the tukda is made from garlic bread though. The RockSalt Jalebi is also divine, for its rabri foam {espuma, really} and almond crumble.

The cocktails and pani puri bar have won us over, and it will keep us going back, over and over.