Bhardwaj immigrated from India to New York City in 1990. During this time, he opened plenty of smart, casual restaurants and felt that Americans lacked knowledge of true Indian cuisine. “The perception of Indian food was spicy, oily, and cheap, things like that,” he says.

So he began to wonder, what made the experience of going to a French restaurant or an Italian restaurant so distinct? And what he concluded was simple — the dining part. Food quality is key, but a great ambience, fantastic service, and a phenomenal wine list all work in harmony to create a seamless experience. 

“Indian food was never known for wine,” says Bhardwaj. One of his first hires when he opened Junoon was Scott Carney, a very rare master sommelier in the world at the time. 


Scott took the challenge of curating a wine list to pair with Indian flavors seriously. Though his stay was brief, with his initial guidance, Junoon was the “Award of Excellence” recipient from the  Wine Spectator for 12  consecutive years.

The cocktail program is also award winning, run by Hemant Pathak, the mixologist and General Manager. The cocktails are driven by the flavor of a lot of herbs and spices found in Southeast Asia and India. When Patron did a worldwide competition of blind-tasting margaritas, Junoon’s Mumbai Margarita was rated the third best in the world. 

Bhardwaj has been able to match his ambition with his beverage program to that of his desserts. “Indian restaurant would have only essentially two or three desserts,” he says. “It’s a very important element in French cooking to end up with a dessert made by pastry chefs, so we thought we should do that too.”

Bhardwaj’s first in house pastry chef was Jenny Lee, brought in from Del Posto, an Italian restaurant in Chelsea. He took her around, and introduced her to the common flavours found in Indian sweets but gave her total creative freedom to create something new in alignment with the restaurant.

Since 2015, Gustavo Tzock has been the Executive Pastry Chef at the helm. Bhardwaj inspired Tzock to create something unique when he introduced him to the most important sport in India, cricket. Treated like a religion, the dessert is designed as a field with a pitch, wickets,  a ball and a bat, a sweet treat you don’t see very often.

Items on the menu are cooked with modern techniques but feature an authentic flavor profile. Bhardwaj explained to Spaced that the menu has just recently gone through its first change in 15 years and derives its inspiration from the tree of life.  

The reference symbolises the balance and harmony of things, the interconnectedness of all beings. “We wanted to have a sustainable menu,” he says, taking into account all economic, social and environmental impacts. “We also wanted to bring a balance of our personal favorites and some of the old heirloom recipes of India.”

We started with the eggplant chaat and the gilafi seekh kebab. From there, we enjoyed the Delhi degh chicken biryani and the achari paneer. Service at Junoon was unmatched, from the moment we entered the restaurant, we were kindly greeted, our water glasses were always full and each dish upon its arrival was romanced, causing our ever-hungry stomachs to sound.