Saffron NOLA is an Indian restaurant with a New Orleans accent. They make some of the best Indian food I’ve had anywhere.

Towards the more NOLA end of things is Saffron’s Oyster Bed Roast, with caramelised onions, garlic and curry leaf and naan, as well as lots of butter. It pools and soaks into the naan slice at the bottom of the pile – fight your friends for it.

Crab Pudha – pancakes made of lentils and crabmeat with two kinds of chutneys: mint and date tamarind

This cocktail is callled “Atonement” – a scotch with tomato-ginger chutney and roasted chilli pepper.  Got a good kick to it.

I didn’t order this cocktail that comes with a miniature clothes peg, but it looked frickin’ adorable

Here’s our bartender casually blowtorching a lime half on top of a cocktail

We ate at the bar, and this was our little spread for two. I’ll take you through it:

Khyber lamb chops with a Rogan Josh sauce

We ordered a trio of Roti Sathi. This one is royal paneer in tomato curry, with greens.

If you want to find out if an Indian restaurant is good on the basis of a single dish, get the daal. This was excellent – earthy and savoury.

The third dish in our Roti Sathi trio was probably my favourite: butternut squash with coconut milk, mustard seeds and curry leaves

Saffron’s bread options include a truffle naan with onion seeds.

Saffron also does a garlic naan with herbs – for my money, this is the one to get.

 

For dessert at Saffron, a dark chocolate brownie with coriander-spiced pistachioes and a naan-flavoured ice cream.

The team at Saffron had some restaurant recommendations for me. I’ve still got a few to get to, but it’s a pretty great list.

You can check out the kitchen through the picture window at the back of the restaurant.