What America's best restaurant for 2022, Indian eatery 'Chai Pani' serves; See menu here

Indian street food eatery 'Chai Pani' in Asheville, North Carolina has been named America’s most Outstanding Restaurant at the James Beard Foundation Awards in Chicago on Monday. The honours were awarded for the first time this year after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Chai Pani, founded by Meherwan Irani, bagged the award for serving the most affordable Indian street food in the United States as this year’s recipients and nominees were more diverse.

The menu at Chai Pani features all kinds of famous Indian snacks including chaat, which is known in the world for being a dish full of flavours such as sweet, spicy and tangy. Describing itself as “Mindblasting Indian Street Food in Asheville”, Chai Pani restaurant topped nominees such as Brenan’s in New Orleans. It opened as the first outlet in the downtown Asheville in 2009 and in just over a decade, Chai Pani expanded to eight restaurants including in Atlanta and Charlotte. 

Chai Pani’s Indian street food surpassed several multicultural cuisines with its uniqueness and diversity. The victory also marked Indian domination in the space of American restaurants. 

What’s Chai Pani’s menu?

As the homepage of the menu reads, Street Food and Chaat is just an entry point to Chai Pani's world full of sinful indulgence. The restaurant describes this section as “Brightly flavoured nibbles and snacks served by street vendors all over India.”

Additionally, Chai Pani has been serving ‘Thalis’ in the US which consists of a comforting yet delicious home-cooked Indian meals and underscores the country’s outstanding culinary diversity. They offer traditional meals featuring a selection of regional dishes that highlight India’s culinary diversity, served with basmati rice, daal, raita, masala slaw, and papadums.

Even the salads at Chai Pani are called “Desi Salad” which include roasted cashews. The Asheville eatery has also included other famous Indian dishes such as Vada Pav, Crispy masala fish roll, Kheema pav, Chicken tikka roll, Paneer tikka roll and Pav Bhaji, the Maharashtrian street food classic.

Highlighting the diverse menu of Chai Pani, it also serves the delicacies of South India including Uttapam which are crepes made from rice and lentil batter with a range of toppings. It is to mention here that the restaurant manages its authenticity by serving fresh Indian food across all states. In Thalis, the restaurant serves ‘Saag Paneer’ and ‘Butter Chicken’ Thali while also giving people the choice of their own curry. 

In a separate section of ‘Bowls’, America’s Outstanding restaurant serves Daal, Sambhar, Cholle and Kheema. It also serves the typical Indian Naan and after several years of its existence, the Indian street food restaurant emerged as America’s most loveable eatery. Its bestsellers are known to be Bhel puri, Sev Dahi Puri, Corn Bhel, Green Mango Chaat, Potato Chaat, Aloo Tikki, Kale Pakoras, and Uttapam.