Table Talk With Jeremy Wayne: East meets Eastchester at Marigold

In India, marigolds symbolize brightness, good energy and creativity as well as new beginnings. So it’s fitting that marigold garlands festoon the walls of the new Indian restaurant – named, what else but Marigold – that was formerly the Mediterranean restaurant Tapas & Cucina in Eastchester.   

Marigold is helmed by chef Hemant Mathur, whose résumé is peppered with accolades. The New York Times (in an admittedly rather old review) had called him “the Yo-Yo Ma of the tandoor,” and he is credited as the first chef to earn a Michelin star for an Indian restaurant in New York City. At the different establishments he has worked in, Mathur has also been keen to emphasize the regionality of Indian food – a variety you would expect in the world’s seventh largest country, six times the size of France. 

Keen to try his tandoor skills, I ordered one of the only two obviously tandoori “dishes” I could find on the menu, and that was tandoori roti, although this typical Indian flatbread is not really a dish at all. What arrived, though, and that after a couple of prompts, was garlic naan, grilled on one side, damp on the other. (When I brought it to his attention, the manager unhesitatingly offered to remove it from the bill.)

Far more interesting was mango coconut shrimp, unattributed to any region but the coconut calling to mind a Keralan stew – plump shrimp in a sauce made rich and red with chili and tomato. 

Butter chicken is my go-to in Indian restaurants. Master this deceptively simple dish, I’d say, and you’re on your way to being a good Indian cook. Marigold’s version could have been a jot more buttery, the chicken a moment or two less in the pan, but still, I enjoyed it. Lamb vindaloo brought nicely tender, cubed lamb in a rich, slightly vinegary gravy, bulked out with some potato. I couldn’t quite see the point of the slivers of lemon grass, which turned the vindaloo vaguely Thai but did no harm.

White basmati rice was particularly noteworthy, each grain – reminiscent of the old Uncle Ben’s jingle – “fluffy and separate.” Raita and mango chutney, both charged for, were brought in satisfying, near industrial quantities. 

As it turns out, Marigold’s menu references only a couple of specific or even broad geographical areas. On a second visit with a friend three days later, we opted for the Amritsari river fish, a dish typical of the Punjab. Coated in garam flour and deep fried, this was something I had tried as a street snack in Delhi and enjoyed. I liked Marigold’s version, too, a dense fishcake with a great crunch, packed with flavor. We also very much enjoyed the other tandoori dish we found – I had missed it first time around – achari chicken tikka. This was a spicy kebab which, by mere seconds, avoided being overcooked, the precise timing a reflection of chef’s Mathur’s Yo-Yo Ma-like skills. The tandoor oven could yet become the star of the show at Marigold.

In a goat rogan josh, meanwhile, the faintly sweet goat meat fell nicely from the bone to bathe in a thin, aromatic sauce – cardamom and cinnamon to the fore. 

Some pretty good dishes then, but overall, I’d have liked the menu to show more structure. Dishes, I felt, lacked context. (And what are lauki te kofti – summer squash dumplings – doing on a menu in February?)

Liquor is absent – the restaurant is awaiting its license – but decoration is simple and attractive, with a dresser displaying Indian artifacts at the far end of the room and faux rustic charm. If the wooden tables and chairs were any more distressed, they would be positively crying their eyes out. And service was endearing. As a runner reset a table on one occasion, his boss was hard on his heels, checking glasses were clean, silverware polished and napkins properly folded. (When said runner returned to the kitchen, the boss reset the whole table himself. I don’t think the tables for a White House state dinner could be more meticulously laid.)

As for music, an atonal Indian chant over the speaker system stopped abruptly, and suddenly we were listening to an Indian version of “The Girl from Ipanema.” She sounded muffled, as though she were swimming against a riptide and frankly, we were relieved, not the least for her sake, when The Bee Gees took over.

For more, visit marigold.restaurant.