House of Tandoor North Indian Restaurant and Tea House at The Hoxton, Charlottenburg

The three Tandoors are impressively enthroned at the front of the kitchen. The preparation methods in the traditional North Indian clay oven are without question the focus here - and so the name of this brand-new Indian restaurant explains itself entirely: House of Tandoor.

Otherwise, in this food hotspot of the newly opened The Hoxton, Charlottenburg, you can expect a feast of sensual encounters: modernly interpreted North Indian cuisine (from the tandoor, of course, but also curries and biryanis) served in family style, creative drinks, fine wines and warm and hearty hospitality. The concept originated in London and makes you want to clap your hands for joy: Finally, a first-class Indian restaurant with high-quality cuisine for special occasions in Berlin!

The North Indian cuisine itself, with its fragrant spices and distinctive flavours, already stands for sensuality beyond compare. Warm, dark wood, cosy shades of yellow and orange, sparingly used patterns create a comfortable yet stylishly elegant atmosphere without having to resort to Indian clichés.

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The House of Tandoor is a busy, somewhat noisy place. This is fitting, as it sees itself not only as a restaurant but also as a tea house. After all, some of the best teas in the world come from India. And so, in addition to authentic Indian cuisine, there are also creative drinks on the menu, some of which are tea-based. A Himalayan Hi Ball, for example, which is made from cold-brewed white tea from the Himalayas, complemented by Ketel One vodka, mango, lime sorbet and soda.

The wholehearted service team also serves natural wines and other selected grape juices. For example, the orange Tacheles from Rheinhessen go quite well with the (truly) Spicy Mango Salad with cucumber, peanuts, ginger and chilli. However, we especially love the samosas with a filling of green peas with mint sauce, which brings a delicious balance of saltiness and sweetness.

Butter chicken also tastes wonderfully balanced in its fragrant aroma. The secret national dish of the British is genuinely irresistible in its intense spiciness of the simultaneously mild curry sauce and in its complex interplay of acidity, fat and rich consistency flavours.

But since the House of Tandoor's culinary focus is on the clay oven, it goes without saying that we also taste one of these specialities. We decide on the surprisingly spicy Amritsari lamb chops with sesame seeds and coriander. The super tender meat convinces with an unmistakable smoky note. It goes wonderfully with the in-house Hoxton Lager.

Airy basmati rice is a wonderful side dish, of course, but the traditional naan bread, which is stretched by hand and artfully cooked on the wall of the tandoor oven, is also delicious. We choose the bone marrow version and love the bubbly, crispy texture in combination with the fat.

But we are particularly pleased with the dessert, which is also prepared in the special oven: The tandoor oven gives the pineapple a smoky flavour. At the same time, mango ice cream with pistachios complement its wonderful sour-smoky tanginess.

Instead of the obligatory coffee to finish, tonight we follow in the footsteps of the legendary Indian masala chai. It once triumphed all over the world so that the Hindi word for tea, "chai", became synonymous with this preparation method and spice mixture of cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, pepper, mace and nutmeg, which are slowly boiled with milky-sweet tea.

And the one at the House of Tandoor is possibly the best we've tasted in a long time: sweet, frothy, spicy, fragrant and delicious, it becomes a final pars pro tote of our visit to this delightful place that beautifully manages to bring traditional cuisine up to date.

Ronja C. Kolls

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