Benares

Super impressed with the delicious and inexpensive lunch special. Very tasty seekh kebab appetizer and chicken saag. Even the naan was warm and so fresh. Service was terrific and the space is upscale looking … Nice modern vibe.
I’m giving this five stars after considering the entire «package» … Will definitely be back.

Loved it here! Food is not so spicy but feels like a real home made food, reminds of what my mom would make. From the taste I would say all non south asians will love it too because less greasy, less spices and less hot! Will visit again, although the price is little on higher end.

Lunch special is a great deal! I will be back in my short week here in NYC.
I had the lamb kebab and chicken vindhaloo. Great environment and comfortable. Fast service.

Love the food here!
When I use to work around here I would order a lunch platter takeout. I have also taken my wife here for the all you can eat lunch buffet. My wife usually cannot take a lot of spice and she found the place to be quite good. So I would probably say that the food here is not spicy but has sufficient spice for you to sense the quality of the food dishes. They are definitely not watered down.

Exceptional! I know Manhattan has a lot of delicious food, but you’ll want to make time for this restaurant.
The lunch special is a great deal.

Benares is easily one of few good places to have Indian Vegetarian lunch in downtown area.
The Ambience is very good. It is always crowded on any Friday. There are no reservations on Friday. We usually go with Lunch Prix Fix Menu.
The Menu did’nt change from almost an year since we have been going to this place.
The taste is good for most of the items on Menu. We tried Adraki Samosa, Mix Pakora, Papri Chaat, Malai Kofta/​Paneer Bhurji and can easily rate 4.75÷5. Desert was great.

Service is very abrupt. Shahi paneer from here is the most bland Indian dish I’ve ever had. Lassi is watery and tastes like chemical. But paratha is done well, and my friend who had the andhra chicken curry enjoyed it. Free crackers, chutneys and rice are some nice touches.

4 Star rating will be based on the Food, ambiance, and service.
Service: Upon arrival you are immediately greeted warmly and assisted to a seat. During lunch it is busy therefore you may want to plan ahead, but usually you will be quickly seated. The restaurant service is quick and on point. They will check in with you ever so often, but not to the point where it is annoying, like SOME restaurants.
Ambiance: This is definitely a great restaurant to go to for a date, or a quick lunch with friends. Some Indian restaurants leave a strong spice odor on your clothing, but this restaurant seems to be well ventilated therefore, you will not get that regretful feeling like you do when you leave Subway. The lighting is rather dim, therefore it is quite romantic and the setup of the seats are great. I love that its rather spacious and it has several booths and comfortable seating. You tend to feel like you are in your own space, rather than feeling awkward next to someone else.
Food: The food here is excellent, I do not feel oily or overly sick after eating here. But, keep in mind that they make the food the way they want and not exactly trying to accommodate to taste buds of the local. Therefore, whatever that is suppose to be really spicy, will be, and whatever that is suppose to be less spicy, WILL BE! therefore, you may want to consult with your waiter about the spice level of the dishes. But, trust me, everything is delicious and well flavored. I cannot handle spicy food well, but I ordered the vindaloo anyways, as I was crying due to the spice my stomache was so happy and my taste buds were in heaven. It was worth it!!! my friend and I loved their food, not only is the portion satisfying, the price is reasonable too.

Unilocalers, you didn’t lead us astray! I found this place in a pinch for a quick meal before we had to dash to a friend’s place, and this place truly wowed. If only this place was around the corner from my home, I’d be here every week. And it’s quite affordable with very generous portions, friendly and attentive service, in a nicely decorated space.
For around $ 25 before tax and tip, my husband I shared the saag paneer lunch special with palak chaat, and a peshwari chickpea dish, with garlic naan and rice. The palak chaat was light, yet perfectly balanced between tamarind and mint, with chickpeas and crispy crackers. Then, we received a bowl of brightly colored orange, green, and yellow almost shrimp cracker-​like fritters to dip with the mint and tamarind sauces. The saag paneer was flavorful without being oily — the paneer, among the best I’ve had in North America. The peshwari chickpeas were the rockstar of lunch — just incredibly deep flavors, a perfect blend of spices, clearly simmered for a long period of time and cooked with such love and care, even a different texture, more luscious than a typical chana masala. The rice was perfectly cooked — not too dry, not overly cooked. The naan was a tad cold when it came out, but really crispy and not at all oily. This was such a treat! We’ll definitely be back.

Front of house staff are not at all accommodating or welcoming. I asked to sit at the bar whilst waiting for my wife, and the staff would not accommodate. I didn’t want to sit at a table on my own so I chose to stand on the street. There were two seats available at the bar.
We were led to a dirty table, and then waited for our table to be cleaned. Once seated we had to ask twice for water. The lamb starter was OK, but everything else you can tell was spiced from a packet. Presentation of food was also very bland, the Biryani looked like it was purchased from a street cart and dumped on a plate (it was $ 18).
Overall this meal was $ 70 for one entrée, two meat appetizers, one veg appetizer, and two six dollar beers. I left $ 0 tip, and still feel I over payed. This place is a wall street area tourist trap. Do yourself a favor and head to 26^th and Lex, any of the restaurants there are superior.
On leaving I told the front of house staff «this was very disappointing», they simply smiled and said thank you!

Great food. Love the curries they churn out.
Food is pretty pricey but worth every penny.
Its not very spicy too

Food was alright. I don’t think that their dishes are seasoned enough. The paneer saag didn’t hit the euphoria spot when I first took a bite.
What really made me laugh and think twice about this restaurant was that they had a full lunch takeout menu but they didn’t have any to-​go cups for my chai tea. They asked if I wanted to drink it at the restaurant. Well sir, there’s a reason why I am getting my lunch to go. Why doesn’t a big restaurant like that have to go cups??? Luckily, I had my tumbler with me so I asked if they can put it in there. The guy there told me no, he can’t do that. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM NOW? I JUST WANT MY CHAI TEA PLEASE! Then the girl next to him was like, «yeah, we can do that» and now they are ‘quietly’ arguing about it in front of my face. She just allowed me to have my to-​go tea while her coworker just rolled his eyes at us. So awkward. Oh, btw, that tea wasn’t even that good. Didn’t have that full chai tea flavor.
Thanks but no thanks. Won’t be back.

Benares is an Indian restaurant in Tribeca. I came here for a work dinner with 20 people. You should definitely call in advance for large groups. They were nice and had a space for our group with one week’s notice. Someone called me a day before to confirm and was very nice when I said we might be late for our reservation.
The space is nice and has high ceilings. Enough elbow room and separation from other groups of diners. The noise level is pretty quiet — I could hear everyone near me talk.
There was confusion on how we would order food. Appetizers started coming out all over the table, and the servers said that they would serve it family-​style and just choose entrees for the table (instead of each person ordering an entrée). I was fine with that, but they did not tell us which entrees they would choose. However, the ones they chose were great. They asked if anyone was vegetarian and made sure there were enough vegetarian options.
The food was delicious and present quite nicely. The bill came out to be around $ 50 per person. The average price per person is definitely less expensive if you come with smaller groups.
It was a great choice for my work dinner and I’m glad I chose Benares!

3 – 3.5 stars. Pros: GREAT lunch specials ($ 16.95 prix fixe with an appetizer, main course AND naan). The portion is also HUGE: you can definitely feed two with one lunch special. Cons: There’s just something off about the food. I tried the fish amritsari appetizer-​essentially spiced with that is deep-​fried with some batter covering the fish and it was way too sour/​salty. The lamb vindaloo was very flavorful but extremely spicy in a way that was too dominating rather than savory. Finally, the naan was average-​a little too chewy and lacked a bit of flavor.
I’m a little disappointed given all of the positive reviews. Maybe I just didn’t order the right things, but in general just felt that everything was either overdone or underdone in some way.

Yes, this place is really great. I came here to dinner with my sister (intl food connoisseur) and we were both very pleased.
Hostess:
She was very odd and didn’t talk much — seemed to just want to seat me as fast as she could and get back to her post
Food:
We got 3 appetizers and ended up going home with leftovers
Kakori Kebab — ground lamb kebab which was relatively spicy. it came with some sort of yogurt sauce which was ON POINT. Really tasty. there were 4 pieces about 4 inches in length each
Paneer Tikka — cheese and yogurt which melted in your mouth. Especially with some naan it was amazing. They were squares about 2inches x 2 inches. it came with 4 pieces
Koli Erachi — pieces of chicken with delicious sauce on it and pieces of naan around it.
My descriptions do not do it justice — the food was filled with flavor with just the right amount of spicy-​ness. I have leftovers for lunch today which is taking a lot of energy to not break into now.
Drinks:
Happy hour on weekdays until 7pm (half off all drinks). I had the Mango Martini which was very good and my sister had the Kingfisher beer — which was also tasty
Service:
The service was great! Our waiter always kept our water glasses filled and the food came out pretty quickly. It seemed like he had a lot of tables but never neglected any of them.
There is a bar in the front which has no more than 8 chairs with a TV as well. The place is small so I suggest making a reservation or going in early. We went around 6 and the place was pretty open but most of the tables were reserved and filled up about 30 minutes later.

The lunch I had was absolutely delicious, plentiful, and flavorful. I am sitting after the lunch, holding my stomache because of how plentiful the food was. At $ 10.95 for a lunch special — to get a FOUR COURSE lunch — I mean wow wonderful deal. The service was great as well. I got saag paneer and samosa. Mmmm!!!
No complaints from me here!

I met up with my friends after work for dinner last Friday. We were there a little after 6 pm and we did make reservations, just in case for a Friday night. It wasn’t crowded but the place did get full later in the evening.
Karwani Jhinga was interesting, Andhra Chicken Curry didn’t have a strong coconut flavor, Achari Bhindi didn’t taste that ‘Achari’ but the Salmon Curry was very delicious.
The non-​vegetarian appetizers prices were only a few dollars less than the entrees.
Recommendation: Salmon Curry

I came here cos’ the place I wanted to was closed, but it was worth to be here.
After entering in, a member of the staff will come and take you to your table. The restaurant has fancy decoration, very modern with some women shapes, sofas and wood chairs and tables.
For lunch they have a two course menu and, with a lot of options in each course, so it looked like a good option to go.
As the first option I had Seekh kabab, I’ve never tried this before, I liked but I didn’t loved it. Then I chose Lamb curry with naan, pretty tasty and spicy, meat was really tender, loved it.
Lunch menu included a dessert, so I had rice pudding, better than average.
In summary I enjoyed the experience, staff was nice and fast, and the most important the food was really good.

Great food and outstanding service.
My favorite Indian restaurant in the New York so far. Especially like the selection of appetizers. Favorites:
Konkani Shrimp which is sort of like coconut shrimp on steroids. Came with a fragrant spicy sauce. Can’t eat enough of these!
Aloo Papri Chaat — fried dough pieces with lentils, potato chunks, yogurt, tamarind sauce, mint sauce, garnished with pomegranate seeds.
From the rest of the menu, my perennial faves are:
Chicken Korma — delicious creamy sauce
Lamb rogan josh — tender lamb in spicy tomato sauce
Garlic naan — warm, soft and very garlicky.
Waiters are very friendly. Ambiance is comfortable and relaxed, with spacious booths.

I’m one followup visit from naming benares my favorite indian in all of nyc. Bengal is meh for me. Pippali is delicious but the complex, dynamic, delicate, transcendental flavors of benares take the damn cake.
I’m still sitting at the table just soaking it in. Bhindi masala lunch special made vegan was just dancing from my tongue to my stomach.
And don’t be fooled by «lunch special» this is a REAL PORTION. Wear your stretchy pants. — but the fancy kind because this place is nice!