{"id":183320,"date":"2026-04-02T11:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183320\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T11:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T11:54:12","slug":"ambassadors-clubhouse-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/183320\/","title":{"rendered":"Ambassadors Clubhouse in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cOh, Ambassador, you\u2019re spoiling us!\u201d a Londoner I know likes to quip. In the U.K., it\u2019s a semi-famous line, a quote (a slight misquote, actually) from a \u201990s advert<\/a> for Ferrero Rocher called \u201cThe Ambassador\u2019s Reception.\u201d A glamorous, international do is being held in a London mansion with Champagne and chitchat, a fantasy of flute-clinking polyglot harmony. The catchphrase was coined to sing the praises of gold-foiled bonbons, but it works in so many off-piste circumstances.<\/p>\n

Oh, Ambassador, you\u2019re spoiling us! I thought on a recent visit to Ambassadors Clubhouse<\/a>, a stage-set and managed U.K. import that opened in February<\/a>. Ambassadors Clubhouse, both its popular Mayfair incarnation and this new outpost, takes its inspiration from a real house and a real ambassador, whose portrait hangs above the staircase in these fabricated digs. He is the grandfather of its owners, the Sethi siblings, and his summer home in Dalhousie, then part of Punjab, was a meeting place for the jet set and his three grandchildren. With Ambassadors Clubhouse, the Sethis, whose London restaurants include the upscale Gymkhana<\/a> and the more casual Sri Lankan chainlet Hoppers<\/a>, sought to re-create not only his \u201cparty mansion,\u201d as they call it, but the entire period before the British Empire divided the region into India and Pakistan at the end of the Raj. \u201cMany people dining at Ambassadors will not know that Punjab straddles a border,\u201d the Anglo-Punjabi writer Ciaran Thapar wrote last year<\/a>, nor know about its partition and attendant forced migration, \u201clet alone the remote British devil in its details.\u201d The Sethis certainly must, but they aren\u2019t inclined to spoil the party. This Clubhouse is a historical fiction, not a history lesson. The Ambassador is joined on the wall by framed portraits of Punjabi rajas; one is depicted in diplomatic confab with Ryu from Street Fighter.<\/p>\n

The Sethis have worked this kind of high-gloss magic to good effect in London, where their restaurants, including the original Clubhouse, are starry and starred destinations. So it is destined to be in New York. A month or so after touching down, Ambassadors Clubhouse has been unbookable, at least through official channels. Those with the in keep the place busy; luck and persistence take care of the rest. On a recent Friday night, people were getting turned away in groups, and the only stroke of luck fell to a young woman who\u2019d come to plead a case for her boyfriend\u2019s birthday celebration. She prevailed with a reservation for the next night. I watched her throw her arms around two hosts \u2014 and were those tears? Overhead, bhangra remixes of \u201990s hip-hop played.<\/p>\n

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\n The no-peeking restaurant entrance on Broadway; Instagram-friendly raj kachori chaat; kheer, a creamy dessert pudding with bananas, dark chocolate, and peanuts; the lower-level dining room, where the action is. Photo: Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

\n The no-peeking restaurant entrance on Broadway; Instagram-friendly raj kachori chaat; kheer, a creamy dessert pudding with bananas, dark chocolate, an… more
\n The no-peeking restaurant entrance on Broadway; Instagram-friendly raj kachori chaat; kheer, a creamy dessert pudding with bananas, dark chocolate, and peanuts; the lower-level dining room, where the action is. Photo: Hugo Yu.\n <\/p>\n

The restaurant has two levels with a large bar and small tables on the ground floor and a small bar and large tables down below. The action is downstairs, where whole areas of the dining room can be sectioned off for private parties. The dividing curtains are tiger print, the walls are black, and the bar is copper-colored thanks to an elaborate stained-glass display, or maybe that was just the light refracting through a bottle of Johnnie Walker the size of a healthy baby brought out for a birthday party taking place to our left one night. \u201cVery Indian,\u201d a Bengali friend at my table said.<\/p>\n

The modular menu \u2014 split into hors d\u2019oeuvre papads (sometimes called papadams) and chaat, appetizer-size \u201cbitings,\u201d full sections devoted to tandoori dishes (cooked in a charcoal-fueled clay oven), grilled dishes, dishes cooked in cast-iron tawa skillets or clay matka pots or iron karahi woks, and biryanis, breads, dals, and condiments \u2014 leads to endless combinations, though they add up. We made quick work of a basket of five types of papads, crisp, frilled, lentil-flour crackers served with a trio of chutneys and raita that were far better and craggier than the paper-thin freebies of cheaper restaurants around town; at $18 a basket, they\u2019re a case of getting what you pay for.<\/p>\n

Much of Ambassadors Clubhouse feels engineered to impress at least as much as delight. Gold leaf crowns lobster, and while the lamb Beliram \u2014 an \u201cosso buco\u201d variation on a Punjabi mutton dish \u2014 was very tasty, its innovation is in branding rather than form. The London restaurant\u2019s well-known butter-chicken chops reimagine the often oversweet curry as a cashew paste spackled onto thigh-meat lollipops to gobble-able ends, and a new\u2013for\u2013New York creation, aloo mattar satpura, alchemizes the components of vegetable samosas, the crisp wrapper and curried-potato interior, into seven-layer accordions, like deep-fried books, onto which diners ladle potato ki launji. Buffalo-milk paneer was sold out on both of my visits, so we settled for braised-goat sliders, whose sunny-side-up quail-egg toppings seem a bid for Instagram stardom. If you\u2019re in the market for content, skip them in favor of the raj kachori chaat, a globe of semolina ringed in yogurt whose interior hides a bounty of tandoori beets. The prices across the board ($60 wild prawns from the tandoor, $48 lamb biryani) are distinctly Brahmin.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly Ambassadors\u2019 fault that the menu feels like the highest-end extension of some familiar dishes. Much of what Americans think of as Indian food derives from Punjabi cooking owing to the influx of immigrants from the region at the beginning of the 20th century. That it\u2019s done well here is to the restaurant\u2019s credit; that it\u2019s done expensively is the restaurant\u2019s right. But cooking from across the subcontinent is enjoying a boom in this city, and Ambassadors Clubhouse arrives to face some compelling new competitors: Kashi in Downtown Brooklyn, Kidilum in Flatiron, and the Michelin-starred Houston import Musaafer in Tribeca, which caters to diners looking specifically for ultrahigh-end, perennially booked Indian cuisine.<\/p>\n

The Sethis must compete with their own success as well. One South Asian couple whispered conspiratorially that they weren\u2019t overly impressed with their meal. \u201cLondon is much better,\u201d the woman said. \u201cBut try the dal.\u201d To confidently discourse on international lentils is its own reward. But New York offers plenty as well. Oh, Ambassador. Here, we\u2019re spoiled for choice.<\/p>\n

\n Scratchpad\n <\/p>\n

Ambassadors Clubhouse<\/p>\n

1245 Broadway, at W. 31st St., ambassadorsclubhouse.com\/newyork<\/p>\n

Good to Drink
To fuel the party vibes, the bar goes long on complicated cocktails, like a \u201cmasala margarita,\u201d but the wine list is wide-ranging and well priced.<\/p>\n

Good to Nibble
The whispering woman was right: The earthy black-lentil dal is quite good. Among the breads, carom-seeded naan was a favorite.<\/p>\n

Good to Know
The Resy page warns, \u201cWe are limiting all guests to one restaurant reservation per month\u201d to combat \u201chigh demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

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