Headliner

Bungalow

The chef and cookbook author Vikas Khanna, whose New York debut many years ago was at the Michelin-starred Junoon, now has a place to call his own here. He and his business partner, Jimmy Rizvi, who owns GupShup and other restaurants, settled on the East Village. “The space is so unassuming but unforgettable when you walk in,” Mr. Khanna said. He could not resist the flight of steps going down from the street level, which reminded him of the entrance to the famous Golden Temple in Amritsar in his native Punjab in the north of India. “It makes the entrance surprisingly majestic,” he said. Then why call it Bungalow? In the India of the Raj, bungalows were aristocratic dwellings. First there is a bar area with tables, then a semi-open kitchen and beyond that a spacious dining room, the rear portion of which has greenery and a skylight. The menu trawls Indian cooking from Kashmir south to Kerala, with dahi puri stuffed with lentils from Varanasi, a Kashmiri dish made with lotus roots, a tart Jewish-Indian chicken curry Chitranee, malai chicken with cheese, Muslim saffron bread called sheermal, Rajasthani pulled lamb, and spicy shrimp balchão, which has Portuguese roots. Classics like chicken biryani are also on the menu. Mr. Khanna, who lives in New York, plans to spend most of his time on the premises. “It’s my dream,” he said.