Adda

Adda sits at 107 First Avenue in the East Village, the Manhattan reboot of the Long Island City Indian canteen that chef Chintan Pandya and restaurateur Roni Mazumdar opened in 2018. That Queens room helped launch Unapologetic Foods, the group that later built Dhamaka inside Essex Market and Michelin-starred Semma in the West Village. After the LIC location closed, Adda returned in May 2025 with a bigger, glossier First Avenue room and a house pitch of “classics reimagined”: familiar North Indian and pan-regional names rebuilt with flashier technique, tableside carts, and higher prices than the old canteen.

The useful comparison is inside the same family. Semma is Tamil Nadu focus and a quieter West Village date. Dhamaka is Essex Market noise and forgotten-region feast plates. Adda is the theatrical East Village night: rattan light, illuminated matchbook art, chaat and kulfi carts, and a menu that still keeps goat brains and baby goat biryani next to the butter-chicken spectacle. The Infatuation rates the reboot 8.5 (June 2025) and treats the cooking as still excellent even when the room feels more glamorous than the LIC original. Eater NY named it Best Comeback in its 2025 awards.

Book this when you want Unapologetic cooking without locking a Semma table or fighting Essex Market volume, and when you are ready for Manhattan check averages. The Butter Chicken Experience is the loud booking hook; critics still steer first-timers toward biryani, offal, and grill plates if you would rather skip the tableside show.

The Infatuation’s East Village review keeps baby goat biryani near the top of the order, now with more dramatic presentation than the Queens years, and praises lukhmi (a Hyderabadi savory pastry) and a beef cheek dish that lands buttery and juicy. It frames the Butter Chicken Experience as delicious chicken wrapped in elementary-school magic-show energy: $42 per person, pre-ordered, whole table participates, unlimited rice, flaky paratha, and black lentils on the side. Infatuation would not make the Experience your first order, but calls the fenugreek butter the best of the house-churned choices if you do book it.

Eater NY’s dining report pushes past the Experience toward bheja masala (goat brain with egg custard on pao), ananas paneer tikka, bhatti kumbh (foraged mushrooms presented tableside before cooking), Awadhi lamb shank korma spooned from a Dutch oven, and the creamy dal side. The piece also notes a chaat walla visit during the meal and kulfi pops presented with dip choices at dessert. Grub Street walks through the same butter-chicken theater in more detail: wood-chip smoking, three butters to taste, Le Creuset carts, and a sauce rich enough that the accompanying dal becomes the necessary counterweight.

Public reviews track the critic split. Fans praise biryani, brains, kebabs, and the showmanship; skeptics call the Experience overproduced or too sweet-rich, and flag Manhattan pricing versus the old Queens canteen. Reservations fill for the labeled Butter Chicken tables on SevenRooms. Vegetarian diners can work the grill and paneer lane, but the house’s loudest signatures are meat-forward, and the Experience itself cannot be made vegetarian per the restaurant site.