Vatan
Indian restaurant · Kips Bay
409 3rd Ave, New York, NY 10016
Highlights
Gujarati vegetarian thali served in a village setting
Gujarati vegetarian thali served in a village setting
"Vatan is essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet where you never have to stand up to get seconds, thirds, or fourths of mini samosas and chana masala. At this completely vegetarian Gujarati-style spot in Kips Bay, you’ll pay roughly $45 for three courses, and you can have as many helpings as you want. Each course comes on a thali with about 12 different dishes: our favorites are the fried potato dumplings, the bhaji with spinach and corn, and the sweet gulab jamun. Even without the prix fixe situation, eating here feels special—your table will have a thatched roof over it, and you’ll sit next to a wishing well and a massive tree." - molly fitzpatrick, bryan kim, neha talreja, carina finn koeppicus, sonal shah
"Vatan is essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet where you never have to stand up to get seconds, thirds, or fourths of mini samosas and chana masala. At this Gujarati-style spot in Kips Bay, you’ll pay roughly $45 for three courses, and can have as many helpings as you want. Each course comes on a thali with about 12 different dishes: our favorites are the ragda pattice, the bhaji with spinach and corn, and the sweet gulab jamun. Even without the prix fixe situation, eating here feels special—your table will have a thatched roof over it, and you’ll sit next to a wishing well and a massive tree." - molly fitzpatrick, bryan kim, neha talreja, kenny yang
"A multi-course, all-you-can-eat, vegetarian (and kosher) Gujarati meal is the focus of this Murray Hill fixture for decades owned by Prashant Shah. The entire premises is made to look like an Indian village, where there’s seating inside a small building, on a balcony, or beneath a spreading banyan tree." - Nadia Chaudhury
"If you want to take your shoes off and eat until you can’t move (but outside of your apartment), go to Vatan. This vegetarian Indian restaurant in Murray Hill only serves a $34 three-course Gujarati-style meal that comes with unlimited refills of anything you want (our favorites are the batavada potato dumplings and sweet rice pudding). Everyone gets their own tray of food, so you won’t need to worry about sharing or ordering the right amount. Plus, Vatan feels like a party no matter the occasion - mostly because of the massive tree in the middle of the room, a wishing well, thatched roofs over every table, and the no-shoe policy." - nikko duren, matt tervooren
"There’s a place in Kips Bay where moderation is as extinct as woolly mammoths and Myspace. A place where you can sit in a mural-painted room under a thatched roof, and stare at a plastic frog in a wishing well until you’ve consumed as much gulab jamun and silky masala chai as you can fit in your body. It’s called Vatan, an amazing Gujarati-style prix-fixe restaurant where you pay $39 for three vegetarian courses, and unlimited refills. As is popular in Gujarat and other Northern Indian states, each course comes on a big metal thali with eight to ten different dishes in their own compartments. After you finish your thali, a server will ask if you want more of anything before the next course. It’s essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet in a room that looks like the set of a Tony-nominated play. I always get seconds of sev puri, ragda patis, and chole." - hannah albertine
