Dravida NYC: 7 must order dishes from Chef Aarthi Sampath
Dravida NYC doesn’t explain itself, and it doesn’t need to. Chef Aarthi Sampath’s new East Village restaurant serves an evolving Indian and South Asian diaspora menu – dishes that trace through Trinidad, Guyana, and Bhutan as much as they trace through India. The space is built around a 100-year-old wood-fired oven. It’s Chef Aarthi’s first permanent restaurant, a plan she’d been building since 2019, after a career that ran through the Taj in Mumbai, Junoon, and The Breslin, plus a Chopped win and a win over Bobby Flay along the way.
We went in expecting a few standouts. We left without a single dish that missed. Here are the seven Dravida NYC dishes to order first.
Pillow-soft, fermented, torn open and pooled with house-made white cultured butter.
Fried flatbread, curried channa, tamarind – Trinidad’s most recognizable street food, built for the hand
Char-grilled, bone-in, curried, paired with coconut rice. Guyana’s Indo-Caribbean kitchen on a plate, and one of the heartier stops on the menu.
A hollowed loaf doing the work of a bowl – slow-cooked oxtail, melt-in-your-mouth tender, paired with brioche instead of the traditional bread.
A classic reworked with one unexpected herb running all the way through it. Familiar shape, unfamiliar flavor, and proof that Dravida NYC treats “classic” as a starting point rather than a rulebook.
Smoky through the center, creamy, cheesy – Bhutan’s national dish meeting a fire-roasted sweet potato.
India’s favorite celebration cake, reworked into something that belongs on a restaurant menu, not just a birthday table. The right way to close out a meal this varied.
[Photo Credit: Dravida NYC]
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