Latest news with #KaramSethi
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
JKS Restaurants, Famed London Hospitality Group, Expands Stateside
Some of London's most acclaimed Indian food is making its way across the pond. JKS Restaurants announced on Wednesday, August 6 that the group will expand overseas with new outposts of two beloved Britain-born Indian concepts in New York and Las Vegas. This fall, The Ambassadors Clubhouse will open at the new A24 headquarters near Madison Square Park in New York City. Later this year, Gymkhana is set to open at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas Founded in 2008 by siblings Jyotin, Karam, and Sunaina Sethi, JKS operates 35 restaurants internationally — including Gymkhana, Ambassadors Clubhouse, Trishna, Brigadiers, Sabor, Kitchen Table, BiBi, Berenjak, Hoppers and Speedboat Bar. These projects will be their first in North America. 'We have had our sights set on the U.S. for the last ten years, wanting to make our entry with the right brands, in the right cities, at the right moment. Ambassadors Clubhouse and Gymkhana are expressions of who we are and we are excited to connect with a new community of guests," said Karam Sethi comments. "We join the market at a time when the interest in Indian cuisine and culture is growing rapidly, and we look forward to contributing to this momentum by raising greater awareness of regional Indian cuisine.' Once both restaurants are up and running, JKS also plans to launch Gymkhana Fine Foods, a premium range of at-home Indian cooking sauces and marinades, in the U.S. Here's what to expect from JKS' duo of new restaurants opening on each coast: Ambassadors Clubhouse New York Named in honor of the Sethi sibling's grandfather, a former Indian Ambassador, the interiors at Ambassadors Clubhouse will be inspired by his summer house in Dalhousie and the abandoned party mansions of Northern India. Details including carpet patterns, ceiling features, marquetry and inlay details will pay homage to the Ambassador's seasonal residence, aslong with original artwork from Punjabi artists. Punjabi music will play in the dining room for a lively atmosphere while guests enjoy the splendor of a bygone era in Punjab's opulent royal kitchens. To drink, the cocktail program will focus on tequila and mezcal blended with regional ingredients; large-format cocktails designed for tables to share, playful shots, and interactive service. The original Ambassadors Clubhouse opened in Mayfair, London in 2024 at 25 Heddon St. New York's Ambassadors Clubhouse is slated for fall 2025 at 1245 Broadway in Manhattan. Gymkhana Las Vegas This winter, Gymkhana will open at ARIA Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Currently the only classic Indian restaurant worldwide to hold two Michelin stars, Gymkhana is known of London's most sought-after dining destinations, by culinary enthusiasts and celebrities including the likes of Dua Lipa and David Beckham. Inspired by private clubs in India, Gymkhana Las Vegas plans to offer another level of exclusivity to the Strip. The Las Vegas menu will feature many of Gymkhana London's signature Indian dishes, broadly focusing on tandoori-grilled specialties, classic curries, fragrant biryanis and chaat-style sharing plates. New dishes exclusive to the Las Vegas location will also be offered. The bar will feature Indian-inspired cocktails, including regional punches served tableside, and an extensive gin and tonic selection. "The culinary landscape of Las Vegas is constantly evolving and with that, MGM Resorts is primed to change and adapt through a forward-thinking lens," said MGM Resorts Chief Content, Hospitality and Development Officer Ari Kastrati. 'We have witnessed Indian cuisine continue to grow in popularity in the United States and as hospitality leaders, along with the JKS family, felt now is the right time to bring Gymkhana to ARIA. We have incredible respect for the brand's culinary excellence and feel the restaurant will perfectly collide with the fun lifestyle experience the Las Vegas guest knows and loves.'
Forbes
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Gymkhana Las Vegas, Ambassadors Clubhouse New York
London's opulent Ambassadors Clubhouse will be opening a location in New York's NoMad neighborhood later this fall JKS Restaurants It was through the late Richard Vines—one of Britain's foremost food critics and a dear friend—that I first heard about Ambassadors Clubhouse. On August 25, 2024— the same month the restaurant opened on Mayfair's bustling Heddon Street— he wrote, 'I have a new favorite London restaurant, Ambassadors Clubhouse. It scores, for me, on food, service and ambience, with beautiful designs and a menu full of possibilities. It's the best of JKS restaurants. I was sorry when Momo closed, but Ambassadors Clubhouse is a worthy successor. Five stars.' Naturally on my next trip to London, it was first on my list of places to visit. Like Richard, its menu celebrating the food of undivided Punjab— India and Pakistan— and the shared food heritage (I still think of the velvety Ranjit Shahi prawn curry served with flaky ajwaini warqi naan) blew me away, as did their opulent interiors inspired by party mansions from the region. Now, JKS— the celebrated London-based hospitality group founded by siblings Jyotin, Karam, and Sunaina Sethi— is bringing two of its most popular restaurants to the United States. In the fall, Ambassador's Clubhouse will make its debut in New York, opening at 1245 Broadway Street in Manhattan's NoMad neighborhood—a few blocks away from Madison Square Park. Named after the Sethis' grandfather, a former Indian Ambassador, the restaurant's interiors take inspiration from his summer house in Dalhousie and the abandoned party mansions of Northern India. As in its original London location, it will feature dishes from Punjab's royal kitchens and street and roadside eateries, with a cocktail program centered on mezcal and tequila. In the winter, London's two-Michelin-starred Gymkhana will open at Las Vegas' Aria Resort and Casino JKS Restaurants In the winter, JKS' notoriously hard-to-book two-Michelin-starred Gymkhana will open at Las Vegas' Aria Resort and Casino. Inspired by the private clubs of India, Gymkhana Las Vegas will bring this tradition to the Strip with polished dark timber and printed textiles inspired by the Sethis' childhood trips to Delhi's gymkhana clubs, and grand residential mansions from Kolkata to Pondicherry. Gymkhana Las Vegas will feature menu of the London outpost's signature dishes including their tandoori specialties like the classic tandoori lamb chops JKS Restaurants Its cuisine takes influence from Indian classics, building on bold flavors and layered spices, and the Las Vegas menu will feature many of Gymkhana London's signature dishes, including tandoori specialties, curries, biryanis and chaat-style sharing plates. The restaurant's bar will feature Indian-inspired cocktails, including regional punches served table-side, and an extensive gin and tonic selection. Following the opening of the Las Vegas restaurant, JKS will also launch Gymkhana Fine Foods in the US— a premium range of at-home Indian cooking sauces and marinades crafted by the same chefs and using the same recipes. JKS Restaurants' Karam, Sunaina and Jyotin Sethi JKS Restaurants 'We have had our sights set on the US for the last 10 years — wanting to make our entry with the right brands, in the right cities, at the right moment,' Karam Sethi says in a statement. 'Ambassadors Clubhouse and Gymkhana are expressions of who we are and we are excited to connect with a new community of guests. We join the market at a time when the interest in Indian cuisine and culture is growing rapidly, and we look forward to contributing to this momentum by raising greater awareness of regional Indian cuisine.'
New York Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
London's Blockbuster Indian Restaurants Are Coming Soon to America
It has always felt like a given: Indian restaurants are better in the United Kingdom than here. But Karam Sethi, the co-founder of JKS Restaurants, which runs several acclaimed Indian restaurants in London, doesn't believe that's true anymore. On a recent trip to New York, he found the Indian food '100 percent' on par with London, he said. 'There has been a huge shift in quality in the last five years.' Mr. Sethi is more than just enthusiastic about this shift. This year he's bringing two of his group's most popular restaurants to the States: Ambassadors Clubhouse, a full-throated paean to Punjabi food, will open in the Flatiron district of New York in October, and Gymkhana, inspired by India's elite social clubs, will open at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas in November, joining outposts of the famed restaurants Carbone and Din Tai Fung. London may be a global capital for Indian restaurants, but those same establishments are now setting their eyes on the United States, motivated by their own large American customer bases (30 percent of Gymkhana and Ambassadors Clubhouse's customers are American, Mr. Sethi said) and the dynamism of the Indian dining scene here. The America-bound list comprises a veritable who's who of Indian restaurants in London. Alongside Gymkhana and Ambassadors Clubhouse, Dishoom, a beloved chain inspired by the casual cafes started by Zoroastrian Irani immigrants in Mumbai, will open in Lower Manhattan as early as next year. The chef Asma Khan, who runs the home-style Indian restaurant Darjeeling Express and was included on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2024, is dreaming up a restaurant in New York that'll serve food from Kolkata, on the eastern tip of India, and open 'at least a year' from now, she said. Kricket, a more modern Indian small plates restaurant from the restaurateurs Will Bowlby and Rik Campbell, will debut in Manhattan, likely at the end of next year. London has a long, complex history with South Asian restaurants, which have evolved from the inexpensive curry houses of the 1970s and '80s to the fine dining kitchens of the '90s and 2000s to today's establishments, many of which are sophisticated but not white-tablecloth. A similar shift is occurring in the United States, Mr. Sethi said, with restaurants like Bungalow in New York and Copra in San Francisco that balance regional cooking with an ambitious cocktail menu and feel more personal than the butter-chicken fare of a decade ago. These restaurants are also winning prestigious awards and becoming difficult tables to get, showing just how much perceptions of Indian food have changed, he said. 'And it's not just cuisine. It is fashion, it is music,' he said, pointing to the success of musicians like Diljit Dosanjh, and Prada copying Indian shoe styles. 'Everything is thriving out there.' But Indian food is not nearly as embedded into American culture as it is in Britain, a country that violently colonized India for years, and where chicken tikka masala is now considered the national dish. Mr. Sethi hopes to change that, 'to make it like one out of every seven days of week, you are going to be eating Indian food.' Ambassadors Clubhouse will occupy two levels in a 22-story building on Broadway and 31st Street and is modeled after the glamorous mansions that dotted Punjab before the partition of India in 1947, with a large veranda, mirrored tables and patterned carpets. The menu of Punjabi fare includes shahi lobster curry and chile cheese pakode with tomato chutney. Mr. Sethi compared Gymkhana, coming to Las Vegas, to the stylish and tough-to-book New York restaurant Polo Bar. The American version will have that old-world social club feel, with low lights and rattan and cane finishes — and instead of burgers and shrimp cocktail: tandoori lamb chops, wild venison biryani and pork cheek vindaloo. Possibly even more famous than Gymkhana is Dishoom, where tourists from around the world flock for the luxuriously creamy black dal and crispy vada pav. Dishoom ran a two-week breakfast pop-up last summer at the French restaurant Pastis, and reservations filled up in less than five minutes, said Kavi Thakrar, one of the founders. In London, he said, about 20 percent of Dishoom's customers are American. The private equity firm L Catterton, backed by LVMH, also recently acquired a minority stake in Dishoom to support the American expansion, and the deal valued the group at 300 million pounds. Mr. Thakrar has been looking at spaces in Manhattan since 2016, but feels that now is the right time to land in New York. The number of South Asian American residents has ballooned, he said, and the population and the food are more deeply integrated into the city's fabric. 'There are so many young professionals, second generation, third generation people running businesses,' he said. Ms. Khan, of Darjeeling Express, hadn't even considered opening a restaurant in New York until a trip last March, when she hosted a sold-out pop-up at the regional Indian restaurant Dhamaka. Seeing the sheer range of Indian dining in the city, she decided to open a restaurant focused on Kolkata, where she is from, with dishes like chicken chaap and jhal farezi. She plans to start scoping out spaces in a few months. 'Ten years ago if I came in with Darjeeling Express' to New York, she said, 'I would have spent so long explaining to people what is prawn malai curry and kosha mangsho. Now a lot of the work has been done.' Several Indian restaurants in London, including Dishoom and Gymkhana, have faced criticism for creating an atmosphere that some say feels nostalgic for the era of Britain's occupation of India. Those owners said their restaurants don't celebrate colonialism — Dishoom's King's Cross location, for example, tells the story of India's independence, Mr. Thakrar said, through portraits of Indian freedom fighters and slogans from the independence movement covering the walls. As for gymkhana clubs, which were mostly exclusionary spaces created by and for the British, Mr. Sethi noted that they were repurposed as social clubs for Indians — including his family members — after independence. Jonathan Nunn, a British Indian writer who founded and coedits the British food magazine Vittles, wasn't sure how that aesthetic would translate, wondering if an American audience that's less familiar with British history may simply read it as luxe. 'I will tell you this,' he said. 'It hasn't stopped Indian Americans going there when they are in London. There are always Americans at JKS restaurants.' Unlike Mr. Sethi, of JKS, he doesn't think the Indian food in both countries is on equal footing. 'The U.S. is about 10 to 15 years behind us,' he said. But these London imports could help change that. 'What places like Dhamaka and Semma have shown is that those scene-y Indian restaurants work in New York,' Mr. Nunn said. 'I feel like the time is right.' Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
