photograph by michael donahue
L-R: Owners Himmat Singh, Balvinder Kumar, and Jatinder Sharma.
Butter Chicken is Balvinder Kumar’s go-to dish at India Palace. The boneless tandoori chicken, cooked in butter and gravy, is one of about 50 items on the restaurant’s menu.
“It’s a very good menu,” says Balvinder, 54, who — along with his brother, Jatinder Sharma, and their business partner, Himmat Singh — owns the restaurant.
Kumar, originally from Punjab, India, got into the restaurant business when he worked at an Indian restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona, after he moved there in 1990. In 1993, he moved to Memphis, where he opened India Palace in 1996. “There was more potential in the Midtown area,” he says. “I tried to give the best food in town. The best service.”
Photograph by Michael Donahue
The restaurant was a hit from the beginning. “From the very first, it was packed,” he says, “and a big line outside.” And, he adds, “it’s still doing very good.” The menu then is “pretty much the menu we have now. We didn’t change too much.”
The food at India Palace is prepared in the style of Northern India. Balvinder explains that “it’s different from the South. Different spices.” Among the most popular items is the Chicken Tikka Masala, which is “mesquite broiled” and served in a tomato-butter gravy with bell pepper and onions.
The restaurant offers a lunch buffet, which includes desserts, like Kheer, a basmati rice pudding; Gulab Jamun, which, the menu says, are “juicy balls made from cream of milk in light syrup;” and Mango Kulfi, an “Indian-style ice cream with fresh mangoes.”
“It was really nice that the staff is from North India. So, how they greeted you and treated you, the interior design of the place, and how everything smelled and tasted, made it feel like a complete Indian experience.” — Steven Yeo
The light-filled establishment, with picture windows that look out onto the intersection of Poplar and Evergreen, features large hand-painted murals, including one showing a herd of elephants and another depicting an approaching tiger. Rows of booths line the windows and a back wall, with the buffet table set up in a corner.
They don’t have a bar, but customers can order beer, including Indian beer.
India Palace survived the pandemic thanks to its customers. “It was a tough time,” says the owner, “but we got a lot of takeout orders.” Residents of the surrounding neighborhoods, including the Evergreen Historic District and Central Gardens, “support us a lot. We are very thankful for our neighborhoods.”
On a recent Wednesday, Hickman Ewing and Steven Yeo stopped at India Palace for the lunch buffet. Ewing, a retired attorney, is a big fan of the food. “I’ve been to India Palace 15 times in the last 15 years,” he says, “and theirs is very authentic.”
photograph by himmat singh
Michael Donahue samples a bit of, well, almost everything.
Ewing especially loves the lamb meatballs. “Most people don’t eat much lamb,” he says, “and, if they do, it’s not in a meatball.” The meat here is “ground up. And it’s in a very good sauce.”
It was Yeo’s first visit to India Palace. “Hickman was the one who introduced me to Indian food,” says Yeo, director of outreach and Memphis ministries at First Evangelical Church. “What I do appreciate about Indian food — and I did experience at India Palace as well — is the taste, which feels very homey to me. The cream and the butter, maybe, is what makes it happen.”
He especially enjoyed the Palak Paneer: fresh spinach cooked down in an aromatic curry, and mixed with cubes of paneer, a homemade cheese. “I definitely enjoyed it with the naan [Indian flatbread cooked in a clay oven],” Yeo says.
The India Palace experience, he says, “was like going on an adventure. It was really nice that the staff is from North India. So, how they greeted you and treated you, the interior design of the place, and how everything smelled and tasted, made it feel like a complete Indian experience.”
India Palace is located at 1720 Poplar Avenue.
