Heritage India Dupont, Washington, D.C.

My friend Rachel and I went to lunch at Heritage India Dupont yesterday, after having to reschedule our plans made before the holidays and before I booked my travel plans. Heritage Dupont is the sister restaurant to the original Heritage India in the Cleveland Park neighborhood north of Georgetown. Naturally, they offer Indian cuisine (spot, not feather). Leo and I discovered this place rather by accident early this month during a Christmas shopping expedition, and we found it to be the best Indian place we'd tried in the D.C. area. I told Rachel about it at a cocktail party and she was excited; she's a vegetarian and loves Indian food. So, off we went.

Heritage is on Connecticut Avenue just south of Dupont Circle. It's beautifully decorated as a sleek, contemporary restaurant and bar, but with large, ancient, Indian artifacts and structural elements such as doors, windows, and lintels along the walls as decoration, and with colorful paintings of Indian royalty. As typical with Indian restaurants, they have a large, efficient staff tending to the tables. Part of the fun aspect of Heritage is that in addition to all of the traditional Indian restaurant dishes, they have an entire menu section of "contemporary street fare" that is very much like an Indian version of tapas, and even an Indian-inspired selection of pasta dishes.

Rachel and I started by sharing a pakora, an appetizer dish of battered and fried vegetables. An unusual combination of yogurt and spicy plum sauce accompanied the vegetables. The batter here is light and crispy without being oily.



For our main course, we shared the Begumi platter, an assortment of their vegetarian curries with pilau rice, presented on a huge silver tray. My favorite curry of the four provided was the palak makai, a creamed spinach and corn dish very reminiscent of saag paneer. Rachel and I had very different tastes....my 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th were her 4th, 3d, 2d, 1st! LOL That worked out well, though, so we could have second tastes of our favorites. Along with the curries and rice came a big plate of lettuce, cucumber slices, and tomato wedges (more like plain vegetables than a salad) and some of the best, thickest raita I've ever had with both cucumber and tomatoes in it with a little snipped mint on top. Raita is fresh, homemade yogurt with vegetables that often accompanies spicy Indian dishes, since the yogurt is great for putting out mouth fires. We also ordered some onion kulcha for our bread.



Rachel surprised me a bit and chose the "American" raspberry sorbet for her dessert. She got quite a large serving, and ate every bit, so I can only guess it was good.



I was more traditional and chose the kulfi, a pistachio-flavored, frozen, dairy dessert that is the ancestral precursor to today's ice cream and sherbets. I found their version to be very good.



I've been to Heritage twice now, and I can't wait to go back. The atmosphere and service are excellent and every time, the food has been top-notch. If you're looking for a nice Indian restaurant, I highly recommend this place.