:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/49036865/indian_paradox.0.0.jpg)
Indian food and wine pairings are de rigueur these days in San Francisco. Just look at The Company, the Mina Test Kitchen’s latest iteration of Indian food paired with mainly rieslings and syrahs. Now open in that category is Indian Paradox in the Lower Haight from owner Kavitha Raghavan. Raghavan is a certified sommelier, and she came up with a menu of Indian dishes like fenugreek leaves dumplings, lamb shish kabab and dabeli, a sort of Indian burger. Executing the menu is Brenden Darby, who had a four-month stint at Noma in Copenhagen.
Each dish comes with a pairing suggestion, usually with lesser-known varietals. "There's a heavy influence of European wines. We're trying to introduce a lot of unique grape varietals, like verdil, which only exists in Valencia, Spain," Raghavan told Eater. "There are these obscure grape varietals that are not well known, but pair amazingly well with Indian food." You can see the menu and pairings in full below.
As for the space, Raghavan went for a very fun vibe. The walls are painted purple, bobbleheads line the shelves behind the bar and the walls are decorated with Bollywood posters ripped up into designs of the streets of India. The 20-seat space is open Monday through Saturday from 5 p.m. to 12 a.m. and Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
