Each year, the New York Times releases a comprehensive guide to the 50 best restaurants in America. This year’s list includes a familiar New Jersey restaurant.
The Times named Somerset County’s Chatpati Delhi one of the nation’s best restaurants. Only 28 states and D.C. were represented on the list, so it’s no small feat for the Garden State to make it.
The Franklin Township restaurant specializes in Northern Indian cuisine. NYT’s Pete Wells writes: “When Chatpati Delhi is busy, which is most of the time, almost every table will be working on an order, tearing apart golden balloons of bread the size of cantaloupes and dipping them into bowls of dark and thickly spiced chana masala.” In the two years since they’ve opened, Chatpati Delhi has already established themselves as one of the best Indian restaurants in NJ.
Their specialty is chole bhature, a Northern Indian fried bread stuffed with a complexly flavored chickpea curry called chana masala. Other house favorites such as tandoor-cooked meats and the decorative raj kachori—an ornately presented puri shell stuffed with potatoes, yogurt and chutney—remain popular options.
The strip mall restaurant is already packed nightly. Now, a table might be even harder to come by thanks to the newfound national recognition.
Peter Candia is the Food + Drink Editor at New Jersey Digest. A graduate of The Culinary Institute of America, Peter found a passion for writing midway through school and never looked back. He is a former line cook, server and bartender at top-rated restaurants in the tri-state area. In addition to food, Peter enjoys politics, music, sports and anything New Jersey.
