Past the pulpo bhuna and the rogan josh, the kitchen turns out ratan kebabs of spiced lamb and chicken, chicken supreme tandoori with pickles and mint chutney, grilled hake with cauliflower and eggplant purée finished with panch phoran, a Punjabi-style butter chicken masala, and a lentil dhal cooked with cardamom and clarified butter.

The space covers about 375 square metres and seats more than a hundred, and it was refitted in a British-colonial-India style: chequerboard floors, wicker, palms and a fan of wooden beams across the main dining-room ceiling. There's a chef's table facing the open kitchen, a terrace built around a water feature where images of Benares are projected, and a table of spices at the entrance worth stopping to smell. Two private rooms seat six and twelve, and one doubles as a small wine cellar for tastings. When it opened, its tandoor was the only one in Madrid.

The kitchen works around the tandoor and a Japanese-style robata adapted to Indian recipes, with classics that never leave the carta, butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, biryani and northern curries such as saffron-marinated lamb rogan josh, alongside a broad vegetarian list. The tasting menu changes three times a year and is served only to the whole table: the 2026 edition runs from a curry tartlet, mushroom shorba and pani puri through a sea-urchin chaat with seasonal flowers, a duck momo in black-trumpet consommé and Kashmiri-marinated red mullet to tandoor lamb ribs with naan and pulao, at €89, or €45 more with wine. Parampara, at €59, is the introduction: pani puri, onion bhaji, smoked tandoor cauliflower, fish tikka in Malabar sauce or butter chicken, dal makhani and gulab jamun.

For its tenth anniversary in May 2025 the Madrid and London chefs cooked a four-hands 'Best of Benares' menu together, with dishes such as a spider crab curry in Malabar sauce and Alphonso mango mousse from Madrid.

The 2025 wine list runs to about a hundred references chosen for freshness and varietal character, with native grapes, terroir wines, ancestral-method sparklers and bottles from South Africa, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and the United States, so that wine becomes part of the conversation with the spice rather than an afterthought. Cocktails bring green cardamom and tamarind to the bar.