Bhatti Indian Grill

Open fire as the first discipline

Kebabs meet the open fire at the pass while Gaurav Anand works as Chef at Bhatti Indian Grill in Rose Hill, New York City. The restaurant is built around North Indian kebab culture, not as a garnish to a wider menu but as the center of the room. Anand has owned and led Bhatti Indian Grill since 2009, the first step in a New York path that later widened into Moti Mahal Delux, Baazi, and CGA. The earlier imprint comes from New Delhi, where work with his brother Saurabh Anand’s catering company gave him the service rhythm of events, scale, timing, and the practical discipline of food that has to arrive generous and exact.

At Bhatti, that background sits close to the flame. The kitchen’s attention belongs to skewers, marinades, heat, and the narrow margin between char and dryness. Anand’s broader cooking vocabulary includes dishes such as Mawey ki Seekh, Silbatta ki Shami, Nalli ka Rampuri Korma, and Beet tikkis, a range that points to texture, grinding, slow depth, and a modern lift without making the room feel scattered. Here, the kebab is the station that gives the place its spine.

Twenty one ways to read the grill

The house is known for 21 varieties of North Indian kebabs grilled over open fire, a number that matters because repetition is never repetition when the cut, mince, marinade, and heat behave differently. Galouti Kebab asks for softness and seasoning carried through the meat. Bhatti Da Murgh depends on the chicken holding its moisture while the outside takes smoke. Bhatti Champ brings the chew and fat of the chop closer to the fire. Dilli Butter Chicken sits nearby as a familiar measure of the kitchen’s North Indian register, but the grill gives the room its sharper grammar.

This is traditional cooking in an a la carte dining room, so the method has to carry both memory and service pace. The open kitchen makes the timing visible: orders move from the counter to the pass, kebabs leave the fire while still carrying heat, and the plates have to reach the table before the work collapses into steam. There is no need to dress that up. The craft is in managing open flame in public, through service, without letting the gesture become theatre.

The room keeps close to the pass

The room is refined and comfortable, modern without asking the guest to forget the cooking. Sightlines toward the open kitchen matter here because Bhatti Indian Grill is not only serving kebabs, it is letting the guest stay near the bench-side work of grilling. The atmosphere can be lively, but the noise stays conversational, so the scrape of service, the movement of plates, and the short exchanges at the pass remain part of the room rather than a performance laid over it.

That proximity suits Anand’s place in New York dining. Bhatti Indian Grill began as the first move in a portfolio he has continued to build, but the restaurant still reads through one primary decision: North Indian kebab culture deserves its own room. Bhatti Indian Grill has the fire, the skewers, and the plate of Galouti Kebab.