We had already begun our meal at Gymkhana — the two-star Michelin restaurant with a celebrity rolodex that could rival Nobu Malibu — when I decided to turn my phone recorder on.
This was not part of the plan. I’ve accidentally hijacked my past London vacations, writing about Gordon Ramsay’s bottomless pizza restaurant or Princess Diana’s favorite Italian spot when I should have been visiting the Tate Modern or finally seeing a show in the West End. This time would be different, I promised myself. On this trip, I would purely eat for pleasure!
Pleasure was all I could see as I looked around our table, where my fiancé and our friends were downright giddy as they reached for more naan, more butter chicken, more biryani, over and over and over again. But this was clearly a meal we would never forget.
How could I not write about that?
Gymkhana opened its jade-green doors in London’s Mayfair neighborhood in 2013 and quickly racked up rave reviews and famous fans.
It was the second restaurant from siblings Jyotin, Karam, and Sunaina Sethi, who have helped spread Indian fine-dining across the pond and into the US with their group, JKS Restaurants. Ambassador’s Clubhouse, their newest restaurant, opened in New York City in February, while Gymkhana’s second location opened at the ARIA resort in December 2025, becoming the first Indian fine-dining restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip.
Gymkhana’s British sister has also achieved a couple of historic firsts over the past few years. It’s the first Indian restaurant in London to receive two Michelin stars, and one of only four Indian restaurants in the world to hold the distinction. It’s also the first Indian restaurant that Kendrick Lamar ever dined at.
Travis Kelce, who visited for the first time with Taylor Swift in May, has also sung its praises.
“I would say it was one of the most surprising meals that I’ve ever had,” Kelce told his brother Jason on the May 13 episode of their “New Heights” podcast. “It is phenomenal. And now that I know there’s one in Vegas, everyone in America needs to go try it.”
Thirteen years on, Gymkhana is still one of the toughest tables to get in London.
Unless you’re Posh Spice (another fan), you’re probably not going to get a table for dinner at Gymkhana without booking two months in advance, when reservations open. I began looking about a month before my trip and never had any luck, no matter how many alerts I set or how many times I refreshed the website.
Just when I was ready to admit defeat, my friend Alex told me she had nabbed a lunch reservation after setting up a few alerts. I did the same and received an email confirming a four-person table for 12:30 p.m. the very next day.
The feast was on!
Our lunch began with the pappadum selection.
The first thing we noticed as we slid across the comfy red leather banquette on the bottom floor of Gymkhana’s two-story restaurant was the music. A soft mix of jazz, rap, and R&B floated through the windowless, wood-paneled room, adding to the lushness of the warm lamps, rich color tones, and modern artwork. It felt sexy, cool, and secluded.
“I could just sit here for hours,” my fiancé Peter said. “It’s a total time warp in here.”
The first dish to arrive at our table was the £12 (about $16) pappadum selection, served alongside a trio of chutneys: coriander and mint, sweet lime pickle yogurt, and Goan prawn. The order was a purely nostalgic demand from me. When I was a very broke journalist living in London a decade prior, my best friend Kelly and I would treat ourselves to two “splurge” meals a week: an Indian dinner special on Thursday, and an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet on Sunday. Pappadums were always how the meal began.
Gymkhana’s pappadums were addictively crispy, and I was spooning all three chutneys on various entrées throughout our lunch. As I played back the voice recording, I remembered just how much I loved the dish.
“I really hit the pappadums hard,” I told the table. “I’m papa-done.”
Next up were the Punjabi samosas served with an imli chutney.
The £14 (about $19) appetizer came with four bulky samosas served on a lovely silver plate alongside a tin of the deep mahogany-colored chutney.
Some samosas are wrapped in thin, small shells that shatter under your teeth. A Punjabi samosa is something you can sink into instead — it has a thicker, flakier crust, and is typically far more stuffed. I loved trying different bites with the selection of chutneys at our table.
Next time I go to Gymkhana, though, I’ll skip the samosas and try the kid goat methi keema instead. It’s considered one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, and I was kicking myself later for missing it.
The tandoori masala lamb chops were the first standout of our meal.
If it weren’t for the bones stacked up against each other, like medieval swords preparing for battle, you could have easily mistaken the £75 (about $100) lamb chops for meatballs. They were proudly plump and perfectly charred, wowing our whole table.
“Fantastic,” Peter said. “Phenomenal,” Jeff replied. “My favorite,” Tyler added.
The khatta meetha baingan was our server’s recommendation. It surprisingly became my favorite dish of the day.
Our server knew his audience from the moment we were seated.
“This is a very famous table,” he told me with conviction.
“Dua Lipa, she sits down over here whenever she comes with Callum,” he added, referring to her husband, Callum Turner.
So I had no problem trusting the captain of our two-hour lunch when he insisted we get the khatta meetha baingan, a £12.50 (about $17) eggplant dish.
Sweet and sour, tangy and spiced, the dish was full of depth — a medley of flavors that showcased Indian cuisine at its absolute best. I couldn’t get enough of it.
Our main courses had yet to arrive, but I could see the contentment in everyone’s eyes. Peter realized he had barely sipped his first drink.
“I got distracted,” he told me. “The food is so good.”
Gymkhana’s wild venison biryani is the restaurant’s most famous dish.
When you go to Gymkhana’s official website, the very first thing you see is the wild venison biryani in all its glory. The £50 (about $67) dish is topped with a delicate dome of pastry covered in black and white seeds, immediately reminding me of an everything bagel.
Armed with a knife and a spoon, our server began to delicately slice around the bowl’s edges, releasing rapid plumes of smoke into the air. The bowl was still visibly steaming as it arrived at our table, puffing like a cigar as “Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G. played over the speakers.
The biryani is anchored by tender, slow-cooked venison and fragrant saffron rice mixed with tomatoes and onions. It’s a rich dish, blooming with herbs and spice, that was nicely tempered by the accompanying raita sauce streaked with pomegranate and mint.
A warning: If you’re not a fan of mint, like my friend Tyler, then this biryani probably won’t be for you. It’s a prominent part of the dish’s flavor profile, especially when paired with the raita.
The biryani’s pastry lid is a small side in itself.
The pastry is soft, buttery, and delicate, with a nice crunch from the seeds. No matter how full I was, I couldn’t resist tearing off more pieces of it.
And the bread basket was fluffy perfection.
Gymkhana’s £13.50 (about $18) bread basket includes butter naan, garlic and coriander naan, and a tandoori carom seed roti.
All three breads were cooked beautifully — the naans were light and airy, the roti was flaky. At one point in my recording, I describe my favorite as a “garlic cloud of goodness.”
The chicken butter masala was a unanimous hit at our table.
At £36 (about $48), this was definitely the most expensive version of butter chicken I’ve ever had. It was also so good that we about licked the bowl clean.
You could argue that it’s hard to mess up the beloved mild curry, but there was a depth to Gymkhana’s sauce that kept pulling me back in. I laughed as I listened back to the recording, and my table kept discussing how full we were, only to begin contemplating the logistics of getting a second order before an afternoon of sightseeing.
“We could take it to go,” Jeff said. “I will hold it; I don’t care.”
“Hold it?” Peter replied. “I don’t think it’s going to make it. If that’s my dessert, I’d be happy.”
Gymkhana was a big splurge, but I know it’s a meal we’ll never forget.
Gymkhana was a very pricey lunch, but half of our bill came from the cocktails alone. Every drink we had was delicious — especially the Bhang Lassi — but at £24 a glass (about $32 each), they can add up quickly. If you’re not looking to splurge, stick to wine or save the drinks for a pub down the road.
But lunch at Gymkhana allows you to avoid the minimum dinner spend of £100/person, and there’s also a special five-dish prix fixe menu offered at £75/person (about $100) — a pretty great deal for a two-star Michelin restaurant.
Thunder cracked through the sky as we slowly rolled out of the restaurant, sending hail the size of tennis balls down Albemarle Street. Sightseeing would have to wait, but at least we could take a nap.
Pleasure had found us once again. Maybe next time, we’ll make it to the West End.
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