Vancouver's Delhi-6 goes to extreme lengths in attempt to modernize Indian cuisine

Delhi-6 Indian Bistro

I knew it. Even though I couldn't see what Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was eating when I spied him across the room at Delhi-6 Indian Bistro, I suspected (and one of the owners later confirmed) that his dinner included the roasted butternut squash salad with organic quinoa and baby kale.

Who else but a bike-lane-loving, green-juice-chugging health nut would order a power bowl at an Indian restaurant? Truth be told, curiosity won out and I ordered it too. As do many customers, especially at lunch.

It was an okay salad, typical of one you might find at a nearby Kitsilano yoga studio (or Earls), plumped with raisins, cucumbers, sprouts and shredded cheddar. Toasted cashews, cumin-balsamic vinaigrette and a side of warm, crisp and bubbly, pesto-slathered naan lent the clamshell greens a light Indian touch. Chicken and paneer tikka are also offered as optional protein supplements.

Is it even Indian food? That's debatable. Mr. Robertson really should have tried the chaat, a more traditional snack of fried wheat crisps layered with potatoes, green chickpeas, fresh mint leaves, sweet-yogurt and tamarind chutneys, but here heightened and brightened with diced green apple and pomegranate.

Or the tandoor-roasted cauliflower, still crunchy and firm, yet richly marinated in saffron, cream cheese and hung curd for a luxuriant mouth feel, then elegantly plated over roasted tomatoes with dots of lemon-mint aioli and puréed beets along the side.

There are far more interesting dishes on this expansive menu to explore. And while I wouldn't necessarily order the power salad again, I think it's telling of the extreme lengths to which Delhi-6 is attempting to modernize Indian cuisine and reflect a distinct West Coast point of view.

Rarely have I seen a restaurant, let alone an Indian restaurant, cater to dietary preferences with such enthusiasm. Most of the fish is Ocean Wise-approved, while poultry and meats (with the exception of goat) are fresh and naturally raised. Nut allergies? Lactose intolerance? Gluten-free? Check, check, check. Even spice aversions are happily accommodated.

The kitchen can be flexible because its cooking methods are refined. Rather than just slowly stewing everything to death in big batches, the meats and vegetables are marinated, seared and braised separately, then pan-finished or roasted to order.

Take, for instance, the excellent seafood curry, which Mr. Robertson also had the good sense to order. It's a layered dish with aromatics (bright ginger, citrusy curry leaves, earthy garam masala) added at different stages to a succession of base sauces (onion gravy, tomato, coconut milk) in which succulently tender squid, shrimp and scallops are simmered à la minute, with pan-seared fin fish ladled over top so it doesn't break apart. A final squeeze of lemon clenches all the disparate elements together and amplifies their vibrant flavours.

Or the goat curry, for which the meat is preroasted and glazed to retain its chew and snap, then finished with yogurt (or coconut cream, if you choose) for a rich yet tangy dark sauce that balances high notes of ginger with low bass tones of clove and black cardamom.

The butter chicken, composed with less dairy and butter than is typical in Vancouver, is one of the menu's greatest hits. But because it's cooked with fresh tomatoes (rather than canned and paste) and fresh tomatoes are pretty bland at this time of year, the chef is currently adding a lot of sugar to draw out the flavour. To me, it was off-puttingly sweet. The kitchen is also working on a dairy-free version, which will be introduced in the next few weeks.

It would be easy to categorize Delhi-6 as a Western-Indian restaurant. The butternut-squash salad is certainly a compromise, or overture to the neighbourhood. The staff is a multicultural mix (co-owner Yoona Lee is Korean-Canadian).

And the modern décor, with its dark wood, leather booths, flat-screen televisions and embedded fireplaces, appears to be inspired by the Western chain-restaurant playbook. It kind of looks an Indian Moxie's accented with silk cushions, pink-lit wall screens and filigree brass lanterns.

Moxie's, by the way, is the chain-restaurant group with which executive chef and co-owner Bhupinder Singh received his work permit after arriving in Vancouver from Chandigarh in 2008. After a few years at the Metropolitan Hotel, he worked at Coco Rico Café, owned by Jagjit Banwait, the third partner in Delhi-6, which opened last summer.

But Western Indian is too simple a generalization and also patronizing to contemporary Indian cuisine. It would be more accurate to say that the restaurant is pulling local Indian cuisine into the modern age.

"When I go to Indian restaurants here, they are all very similar," Mr. Singh says. "In India right now, the standards are very high compared to Vancouver," he adds, pointing to his dough-covered biryani, which is light, fragrant with floral kewra water, spiked with fresh herbs and layered with yellow and orange basmati rice that has been par-cooked in saffron and spicy deggi mirch.

"This is the way it should be cooked," he explains. "Most restaurants here just add gravy and mix it together. Sometimes it's tasty, but it's more like fried rice."

Vij's would be a more apt comparison, although Delhi-6 doesn't have quite the same finesse or elevated beverage program.

Quintessentially Vancouver seems to sum it up best. This is a modern Indian restaurant that reflects the here and now. I'm pretty sure the mayor would agree.