My first-ever visit to Carnatic Cafe was all the way back in 2014. At the time they had only the one location: a small restaurant in the Friends Colony Market. It’s hard to imagine that now as they’ve expanded dramatically. I’m not sure if they’re still under the original ownership but they now have multiple locations in the Delhi NCR (National Capital Region), with the original location a thing of the past. I’ve reported previously on meals eaten in the GK-II Market and Lodhi Colony branches. They are inevitably also in Gurgaon. Their first location there is in the snazzy 32nd Avenue complex (whose future, I hear, is iffy). A more recent second location opened late-last year or early this year in the HQ 27 complex in Sushant Lok. This is located conveniently close to the part of Gurgaon in which my family lives and so in March a plan to go eat dosas etc. there for weekend brunch was hatched. Here’s a quick look at how it went.

I’m not sure if the GK-II Market location has been snazzed up since my lunch there in 2022 but I can tell you that this Sushant Lok location is quite snazzy, inside and out, as befits the HQ 27 location—a luxe office and retail complex. The restaurant is large and bright with lots of space between tables. We were there relatively early on a Saturday (Delhi eats very late) and it was not as busy as it would be at the prime time lunch hour. Still, it was far from empty. We grabbed a large table for our party of five and quickly got down to business. Here’s what we got.

The menu, by the way, has not changed since at least 2022. I want to say it has not changed since 2014 either but in those days I did not take pictures of menus (or interiors) for my restaurant reports and so I cannot confirm. Well, we started with some rasam and papad, both of which were quite good. The coffee drinkers got filter coffee to wake them up fully. We then shared an order each of the idli and vada plates. These featured two plump, soft idlis and two plump, crisp vadas respectively, along with bowls of sambar and a trio of chutneys. The idlis were excellent, the vadas were outstanding.

Next up: four dosas between the five of us. These included a Rava Onion Masala Dosa, their signature Malleshwaram 18th Cross Dosa, a Benne Khali Dosa and the Manina Maga dosa. It was my first time trying the Manina Maga, which is a thick, fluffy unfolded dosa whose top is liberally smeared with a peanut and Byadagi chilli chutney. It was a good one to share with a bunch of people—it was very tasty but would have been a bit much for me to eat alone. The others were all excellent, especially the Malleshwaram 18th Cross with its inside smeared with spicy podi, and the crisp-fluffy, butter-saturated Benne Khali. By the way, my nephews, who at the time had partaken of the frenzy around the Benne Dosa chain’s opening in Delhi, proclaimed Carnatic Cafe’s version of this dosa superior and swore off ever standing in line for Benne Dosa ever again.

For a look at the restaurant and everything we ate, launch the slideshow below. Scroll down to see what’s coming next.

I mentioned earlier that the menu at Carnatic Cafe has not changed with their expansion. Prices, of course, have risen, but it’s still a very reasonable meal. I couldn’t tell you exactly how much we paid for this brunch as I didn’t get a look at the check but you can work it out from the menu.

Alright, my next restaurant report this week will be from Minneapolis. I’ll have a write-up tomorrow of a recent dinner in Bucheron. After that, at least one more report from Seoul and another from Delhi. That’s what I have planned at any rate—let’s see how it goes.