Besharam

"Heena Patel, a graduate of San Francisco’s food incubator La Cocina, channels flavors from her native Gujarat at this cheeky restaurant in the Dogpatch. Patel’s regional and deeply personal dishes won her the Eater Award for Restaurant of the Year in 2019. Since reopening in summer 2021, Patel has dropped meat from the menu, which takes diners through four cities in western India." - Paolo Bicchieri

"Chef Henna Patel’s vibrant Indian restaurant Besharam offers an $85 per person tasting menu that spans about a dozen or so meat-free dishes from across Gujarat, the western state in India that Patel calls home. Your meal might start with an array of chutneys and pickles before moving into dishes such as dal, kaju masala, and butter beans with ginger and scallion. There’s also the option to add on a $45 beverage pairing." - Dianne de Guzman, Eater Staff

"Few bowls are more heartwarming than spicy, perfectly cooked dal. This beloved Minnesota Street Project restaurant has dal all over the menu, but the star dish may be the samosas dhokli, a Gujarati specialty containing silky, fragrant dal, Hodo yuba sheets, fresh and pickled vegetables, and crunchy chickpea noodles. Add any chutney to make this bowl even more of a journey." - Flora Tsapovsky

"Fully revamped in the spring of 2019, Heena Patel’s Dogpatch restaurant shifted away from her initial “California Gujarati” cuisine concept, leaning heavily into the regional Gujarati dishes she grew up eating and launching a family-style vegetarian tasting menu option. The result? One of the most fantastic — and now, meat-free — Indian restaurants in the city. Customers may have never previously tried the smoky, spicy eggplant stew known as ringan no oro. But they’ll happily dig into those bold flavors here." - Dianne de Guzman, Eater Staff

"Sassy plateware and cheeky preparations of Gujarati food (hello, blue cheese naan) attract diners to this award-winning Indian restaurant inside the Minnesota Street Project. Chef Heena Patel serves comforting and mostly vegetarian fare, and don’t miss out on the well-spiced cocktails, either." - Justine Jones, Dianne de Guzman