Inside Punjab Grill, Penn Quarter’s Luxurious Ode to Royal Indian Excess | Eater DC

"When I step into the Penn Quarter outpost of Punjab Grill, the first stateside location of the luxury Indian brand, I find a 4,700-square-foot palace made to mimic the home of a maharaja. The interior was assembled in India and transported in five shipping containers and was crafted by D.C.’s Grupo7 and India-based Incubis; CEO Karan Singh says they aimed for an authentic Indian design that still fits D.C. in 2019. The space is absurdly decadent: a solid brass bar outfitted with white mother-of-pearl inlay meant to mimic the Taj Mahal, glowing onyx details, and 20 emerald chairs; a 40-foot, 12,000-pound piece of solid sandstone that required breaking the next-door wall and reinforcing it with steel; and a private dining room called the Sheesh Mahal covered from floor to ceiling in 150,000 hand-laid mirrors—a project that took three months and as many as 40 Indian artisans at a time—with Hermès dishware dotting the 1,000-pound black marble table and an antique maharaja dinner set being sourced for diners (for an upcharge). Off the bar is a 30-seat “Passage to India” with 200-pound tables bolted on solid hand-carved marble legs, and every element—from cutlery to chargers to glasses—was painstakingly handpicked; even the bathrooms are lined in polished granite, leather, and solid brass tiles. Chef Jaspratap “Jassi” Bindra, a native of Kanpur who worked at San Francisco’s acclaimed Rooh, leads the kitchen, and Singh is already considering framing the entrance with two large lion sculptures and opening more U.S. outposts in New York, Las Vegas, and Miami." - Tierney Plumb