(Chapter 1)
Fats and Foods Experience
A Vegetarian must never trust a non-vegetarian culinary experience. Few Non-vegetarians praised Moti Mahal Deluxe and hosted me there. It was the worst culinary experience in my memory. I say this as someone who cooked extensively through the pandemic and emerged a practical expert in Indian cuisine. Even now I cook about four times every week and prefer my own cooking except at a handful of restaurants that do it better.
Except Missi Roti and Kulfi, everything else was not suitable for humans. Not only cooking was bad but cooking oil was also not good. The acidity burned the chest for hours. The disgorgement experience in the next morning was also unpleasant.
Moti Mahal Delux: A Glorified and Expensive Dhaba
They placed a huge menu with pages as thick as sleek mobile phones but had nothing fresh to serve. I tried to order many unusual items like nadru or lotus stem etc. but none was available. So basically behind the huge menu it was dhaba like operation where a few dishes are rotated around with same spice mix. Expensive menu was the facade.
The Dhaba have ready boiled dal, few chopped vegetables (boiled or not) and raw Paneer and Mushroom. Their entire menu runs around it and they are cheap and quick. Moti Mahal is neither. They took 30 minutes to serve the worst culinary experience of a lifetime at exorbitant prices of about Rs. 900/- per dish.
I will explain about cooking in detail but first let me know who are these reviewers who have given 4 stars and five stars to Moti Mahal? Are they paid reviewers? Or they are reviewing about non-vegetarian food? Because it is not a matter of good or bad cooking. From what I experienced, the Moti Mahal cooking staff does not know much of cooking. Like any dhaba they have one recipe for all the dishes.
Boasting about 51 years
Moti Mahal website boasts 51 years of experience in serving food.But what they served was a fraud. Wrong spices and cheating with ingredients while charging through the nose.
This is the statement of Chef Yuvraj Kohli on their website:
At Moti Mahal Delux, we don’t just serve food—we serve a legacy. Each dish is a harmonious blend of tradition, quality, and innovation, crafted to take you on a journey of authentic flavours. Our passion lies in preserving the rich heritage of Indian cuisine while embracing modern influences to create an unforgettable dining experience. We invite you to savour the artistry that has made Moti Mahal Delux a name synonymous with excellence for generations.
Every word used is meaningless and is a deception. How people can lie from the teeth?
The Chinese Cuisine
After boasting about the Punjabi Cuisine on the web site, Moti Mahal Deluxe has now adopted Chinese Cuisine. The reason is obvious. The legacy of 51 years is not selling.
Nothing sensible from the huge menu was available, yet an entire Chinese section has been grafted onto what was supposed to be a Pindi-style Punjabi kitchen. Tomato soup is the one soup every North Indian restaurant serves regardless of cuisine, it is almost a reflex. Dropping tomato soup while adding a full Chinese soup menu is a visible indicator of attempt to move on but without courage to leave the legacy behind.
A restaurant that has abandoned its culinary identity has no business boasting about 51 years of legacy.
The Food
Dal Makhani
Dal Makhani is made with Urad Dal and about 10% Rajma. Some quantity of Moong/Masoor dal is also added for texture. Milk and cream are other ingredients. Milk is added earlier but cream is added last. Tomatoes and Onions are the other ingredients used.
Their website claims:
Our Dal Makhani is a culinary masterpiece, crafted with slow-cooked perfection and a blend of rich spices. Known for its creamy texture and deep, comforting flavours, this iconic dish is a true testament to North Indian culinary tradition.
What they served was soup of some dal, tomato puree and few broken rajma. To add insult to injury, it was served so boiling hot that question of adding cream at last minute was automatically ruled out as it would melt it. Only road side dhaba serve dal this hot and they do not use cream at all. Forget any aromatic experience.
Mushroom
Mushroom were cooked with onions cut in large pieces. Mushroom has a distinct aroma. Some people do not like but most cooks understand that a person ordering Mushroom will naturally be a person who likes its aroma. Good restaurants use mild spices and enhance the flavour of Mushroom. Rarely do this kind of onion/Mushroom khichdi is served. But the cooks at Moti Mahal thought it differently.
On top of it, they used ingredient completely unsuitable to this dish. They used the dry roasted spices used in Pindi Cholley. Spices are listed in the Notes below. It turned the entire dish look more dark than it was supposed to be. In Moti Mahal Deluxe the dish was literally black. It was darker than it should have been, and the mushroom pieces were buried under the onion masala rather than visible. See the picture at top. A Google Search too could not show this very dark version of cooked Mushroom.
The third dish with soya chanp also looked same. I had no courage left to taste that. The main ingredient ‘soya’ is originally from Multan, which has distinct cuisine. In Delhi it is cooked like butter chicken. To expect Moti Mahal to do it right, was too much. From the looks of it, this dish was also cooked with same dark smoky spices.
None of the dishes had any aroma. When anything is overcooked it loses its aroma. The cooks at Moti Mahal seems to have only one method of cooking vegetables. Fry lots of onions add very little of fine chopped tomato, add spices and vegetable. Cook with ‘lot of oil’ and serve. Soya had green coriander sprinkled but Mushroom had none.
Cooking Medium
Does Moti Mahal Deluxe use Palm oil in cooking? Two hours after eating there was intense acidity but no vomit followed. It means food was not stale. That is good news. But it means fat used in the dishes was difficult to digest.
When we eat any cooking oil or fat, our body breaks them apart during digestion, uses the fatty acids for energy, and rebuilds new types of fats to store excess energy in fat cells. If the process takes longer we experience acidity. It is like the fire burning under an empty pan. So I ate lots of salad like cucumbers to subside the acidity. Worst I had to skip the black coffee which I usually take in the evening. That would have exacerbated acidity more.
More about Fats and Cooking Oils in the next chapter and why palm oil must not be used at all in cooking. Now let’s deal with architecture of the Restaurant which also shows no application of mind.
Architecture
25th April was the hottest day of April 2026, till that day. Heat wave had started. When we entered the restaurant at 4 PM, we expected to cool down ourselves but it was not cool enough.
The cassette Airconditioners are least efficient and are required to be placed on each table. It was not. So Many tables had no airconditioners on top. Floor to ceiling glass windows with white curtains was chosen as if the restaurant was situated in Europe. No care for Delhi summer? What these architects think?
In Greater Kailash 2, the restaurant is at first floor and is ‘L’ shaped single floor. It appears that no architect was engaged or if engaged, the architect was utterly incompetent.
The Cash counter was created right at entrance at the place where widest room was available. This made the person managing the counter to be blind to half the restaurant. This place could be used to create big table for groups like us. We were 8 persons and had only two tables possible. One of which was in the back which had no airconditioning. I asked for a pedestal fan but they had none. So we sat on only table which was behind the stair case at the extreme corner of where the two legs of ‘L’ meet.
This place would have been ideal for cash counter which could keep eye on both legs but as said earlier, architect chose not apply the mind.
The Staff
While cooks may not know their jobs, the servers knew theirs. The staff was unfailingly polite and attentive. When one person complained of excessive salt in the dal, they offered to replace it without hesitation. When asked to cut two kulfis into small pieces for eight people, the server smiled and said he would have it chopped into fifty. The wait for washroom was made easy by the staff by informing at the table that wash room was now available.
This was the only consolation prize alongwith Kulfi which was good but was served without faluda, which traditionally accompanies it.
Conclusion
Zero marks to such poor aesthetics and cuisine. Eat at your own risk at Moti Mahal Deluxe. As of me, I am out.
We will discuss cooking medium and fats, in next Chapter 2.
Note:
- Moti Mahal, the original one at Daryaganj is different and has its website at motimahal.in. This Moti Mahal Deluxe is a fork started by Kohli family perhaps the relatives of Gujral family which is owns and manages original chain.
- Ingredients dry roasted to make Black Chickpea or Pindi/Kale Cholley:
- coriander seeds
- dried Kashmiri red chilies
- fennel seeds (saunf)
- cumin or jeera
- black cardamom
- green cardamoms
- bay leaf
- cloves
- cinnamon
- pepper corn
- mace
- grated nutmeg (add at the end)
- amchur (dried mango powder, to add to the grinder)