Chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khazana

Ok so Sanjeev kapoor is to India, what Bobby flay is to America, he is a quintessential celebrity chef, first one in India at that. He has a long running television series called khana khazana, hence the name.
I’ve been there 3 – 4 times, I must say this is one of the classier looking Indian restaurants you will ever visit. But sadly I’ve been there with my parents and uncle all this time and they are all strictly vegetarian.
So I wasn’t able to order anything meat, but I read the menu and I want to go back now and try their non veg items.
In my visits I’ve tried, dal makhani (lentils cooked in cream tomato sauce and butter with ginger garlic.) This was the best dal I’ve ever had, amazing.
Palak paneer (spinach and Indian cottage cheese)
Shyam savera (which literally means evening-​morning) this dish has a rich creamy tomato sauce. But the start is the kofta (balls, made of spinach as outer layer and paneer as inner ball or layer, so when you cut it is green outside and white inside).
I’ve also tried their delectable breads, the service was good, they are extremely busy so calling ahead is not a bad idea.

This place is an absolutely first class experience! And when I say that, I truly mean it. It’s akin to flying First Class on a commercial airliners. The service is absolutely superb, the dishes are absolutely delectable, and immaculately presented. Your server is with you through the entire experience of the meal, and never misses a beat. The have an awesome selection of wines and other alcohols, should that be to your appetite for the night. The décor is absolutely amazing as well; the entire place exudes a type of Buddha-​bar-​mixed-​with ultra-​high-​end-​lounge-​type ambiance. This restaurant is less of a restaurant and more of an experience. Which brings us to the next point, how much exactly is this experience going to cost?
Should you wish to titillate your palette, the 5-​course dinner option is best for you; this experience will cost about $ 50-​$ 60/​person excluding the alcohol. Otherwise you can order from the à la carte meal which will cost about $ 30-​$ 40.
In summary, this is an excellent experience that transcends the sole pleasures of the palette, and reaches a level where all your senses are catered to. Should you only be able to visit this place once, I definitely recommend it.

A little disappointed, as many of the items on the menu were NOT available. Ended up ordering mostly appetizers, service was OK. The food tasted good. I noticed many of the menu items listed were actually things that were prepared by contestants on the Indian version of the show ‘Master Chef’, such as the pani puri, etc. Tried the lamb chops which was good. I guess they are relying a bit too much on the name to carry this place, but maybe it will improve over time to merit being top class.

We came here for our parents anniversary. When we entered in a Wednesday evening the place was barely a quarter full. First thing I realized was that it was really quiet and the atmosphere wasn’t alive — seemed dead. I went here with some expectations and it started out well. The chicken appetizers were great. Fresh white meat. However I found it odd that our apps came within minutes of ordering them. In fact they came while still ordering our meals within 3 – 5 minutes of ordering the apps! Apps were delicious but in that time they had to be precooked and heated. We had the lamb chops as well and they were nice and tender. They also have papardum free on the table — tasty as well with their yogurt dips (mango achar flavor and green chutney flavor.)
However everything was way overpriced and downhill from there. Bottles of beer were $ 8 each. The naans were expensive but tasty. My issue was with the main dishes. We ordered 3 of the chicken dishes and one mutton curry. The meat used was not good quality at all. Brown chewy meat with no white meat in sight! Portions were comparatively small. I expected better. Curries were tasty but without the good meat it was just not worthy. Ambience was just mediocre. Staff was great but seemed like they were up selling stuff even though they gave us some lentils to try for free. Overall I’ve had better food for cheaper and with a variety of other places in the area I don’t think I’ll return. Wanted to give a high rating but can’t :-/

For a top chef this was horrible food. If this was by a no name brand in Kansas I would give it a 3 star.

I usually don’t give 1-​star rating but I’m afraid I will have to on this occasion.
I actually didn’t even get a chance to order food here — that’s how bad the service was. Upon entering, there was a small crowd of guests. I couldn’t find anyone responsible for taking orders and reservations. Eventually found a waiter and asked him «hey do you know how long the wait is?» I was rudely told «I don’t know. Wait here and talk to someone else». I waited for another 10 minutes and then decided to go somewhere else. What the heck? I get better service at a McDonald’s. Don’t bother coming here. It’s just another fancy looking Indian restaurant that lacks basic manners (I say this as an Indian).

It’s tough for me to rate Khazana. The place itself is upscale, with modern décor and white tablecloths. It’s also owned by Indian celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. Based on those two factors alone, you know you’re going to be paying a premium.
One thing that’s undeniable is that the food here is good. I’ve been here 5 times now and I’ve never had a dish I didn’t like. Having said that, it’s difficult for me to justify coming here more often because there’s just so many other more affordable alternatives for Indian food in Brampton. The food gets pricey and is definitely targeted more toward special occasions.
The menu itself is a little complicated to the casual diner as many dish names are in Hindi. For example, you won’t find butter chicken on the menu, but rather, you’ll find murgh makhani. Because of this, it took us longer to order because we were reading through every single description to find the dishes we wanted.
One thing that I’d say is a must-​order is the garlic naan. It’s by far the best garlic naan I’ve ever had. It’s super garlicky and super buttery and is consistent with every bite. The only catch? It’s $ 5 per order. The meat dishes weren’t outstanding here, but I did like nalli rogan josh (lamb) a lot. The chicken biryani is also a great option as it comes with a decent amount of chicken and is served piping hot, and covered with fresh bread. You’ll find that main dishes will run $ 15−20+, and that your naan will be about $ 5.
The food here is a solid 4.5 stars. For the price, though? I’d have to dock it down to at least a 4. At $ 30+ after tax and tips, there are many other places I’d rather dine.
The service here is spotty… It does take quite a while to fulfill requests, especially when requesting the bill. You really have to plan ahead with your requests when you’re working with time constraints, such as an hour lunch break. Also, one time I visited, the waiter was very pushy and constantly trying to upsell us in terms of our orders. Once we stood firm with our order, he no longer came back to check on us for the rest our meal. Coincidence? I think not…
The thing that initially drew me to Khazana in the first place was their summer lunch deal. While the restaurant is otherwise quite expensive, the lunch deal they had through nearly the end of last year was amazing. For $ 10, the deal included 1 veg/​1 meat curry, garlic naan, and basmati rice. For $ 15, you could add another meat curry. It was a lot of food for the price, and at half or less than half of what you’d pay for a normal experience. Unfortunately, it seems they’ve gotten rid of this deal now.
Overall Khazana is a restaurant embodied by great food at above average prices, which make it less justifiable in a city abundant with options for Indian food. The ambiance is great, however, making it a good option for occasions. The service is spotty, but this can be overcome if you plan ahead. Lastly, look out for them if they ever get another lunch special, because the previous one was definitely worth it.

Made a reservations to have dinner here tonight. I was seated promptly and began to admire the beautiful interior — very modern. When my family arrived, we order several dishes from their menu and hoped for a delicious meal. We started off with their prawns and chicken from their tandoor. Their prawns were delicious however I wished they gave more than 6 pieces. Their dishes are pricier ($ 15 – 30) and are smaller (feeds 2 – 3 people per curry which is what the waiter suggested) than what you would receive from a traditional Indian restaurant. After our appetizers, we then had to wait 30 minutes for our mains. We noticed that the tables around us who were seated after, were receiving food before us. When we asked a sever to check on our mains, he said «the other table is just receiving their appetizer and that mains take more time.» I then asked him to check anyways and he said he would. About ten minutes after our conversation, the rest of our meal arrived. I found their butter chicken flavorful, their dal wasn’t anything special and their meat biriyani was very spicy. Their vegetarian biriyani was more mild. Overall, I agree with other Unilocalers. For a fine dining establishment, their service could be improved to match the beautiful ambiance they provide.

We had very high hopes for this restaurant… I’ve watched Sanjeevs shows and admire his style. The ambience of the restaurant was good, the décor pleasing. We went as a family of 4. Our teenage son has a nut allergy and we always ask which dishes we can order. The initial server was quiet, didn’t make eye contact and mumbled a hello AFTER I engaged him. It was not a good first impression. He me mentioned a couple of dishes that he said were the only ones nut free (like 4 off the whole menu) and left.
Thankfully another server who was more welcoming came by and took our order… he was a bit more helpful and friendly and basically gave us some more options than the precious one.
Food was good, but I wasn’t wowed.

We brought my BF’s mom and his family here for her birthday celebration.
The food was very very good, no complaints there.
We ordered a bunch of different items to share — my faves dishes were the veggie tandoor platter, the pistachio naan (so so good!!) and the chili coconut fish curry.
Downside: Our waiter however seemed possibly inebriated, and even more so as the night wore on. We ended up waiting 15 awkward minutes to pay the bill as he wandered away while we were trying to use the debit machine and it stopped working.
Not a great way to end what was mostly a fun night.
Pro tip: try the sanf (spelling?) on the way out!

EDITED: I’ve left the original below. I was asked to come though for lunch by the manager to make up for my previous experience as was reviewed here earlier. That was a nice gesture. For lunch I had the Chicken Kebab for appetizers, Chicken Biryani. Lamb in a Yogurt Gravy, Dal Makhani (Lentils in a cream base), Garlic Naan. Starting from the beginning, the Chicken Kebab’s had one flavour profile (just masala no others) some dry considerably some quite nice. We thought it was chicken breast (tasted, looked like it, confirmed with the manager there, but when we brought this to the attention later on to the gentleman he said it was chicken thighs. That’s a conundrum). The dal was just butter with some lentils thrown in. The lamb technically for $ 20 was relatively nice, about 8 1″ cubes of Lamb in a gravy which didn’t remind me of the dish it was supposed to be, but was quite soft and nice. The quantity was extremely minimal though. The Chicken Biryani (again the conundrum or the breast vs the thighs), the rice itself didn’t have flavour but the chicken /​gravy near the end was quite nice. All in all a better experience when compared to the last two times. But sadly still not memorable. Which is what I really hoped for.
PREVIEW REVIEW: Second time heading to Khazana. Possibly last. The first time was ½ decent I think (or I hope, it was a while back and considering I don’t recall usually means it wasn’t exciting).
Pros. Beautiful ambiance. Giving a high end feel. Great service. Price is apt for the high end Indian restaurant that it’s meant to be. No issues with that.
The food though is a quite a disappointment. I got myself an assortment of items from their menu. The lunch special with Adraki Dhania Paneer (Ginger, Coriander Cottage Cheese), Butter Chicken, Goat Curry (Nalli Rogan Josh), a platter of Mangalorian Fish Curry, Keema with peas and to drink a Jaljeera (soda, spices supposed to be refreshing). The server quickly left some roast papadams at the table which I realized that they were raw in the middle and over done on the sides. The drink was the saddest excuse for a Jaljeera. No taste.
The Cottage Cheese and the Mangalorian Fish Curry has the same gravy. Like literally. The servers admitted it. There were no South Indian spices as one would expect from a South Indian Dish. The butter chicken was super sweet gravy with over cooked chicken. They told me that butter chicken is supposed to be sweet. Really? When made incorrectly it’s sweet. All of the gravy dishes had too much cream, low to no salt and were sweet. The goat was tough and overly salted. The awesome server did try to make it right by giving us a new Fish curry to take home. But besides adding spices it was the same. The ground meat with peas was nice. Pointless and nothing ground breaking or exciting for Sanjeev Kapoor but yea. The Roti’s given were hard :(this Is sad. The Naan was nice though.
All together The service and ambiance are the only saving grace. (Hence the 2*) Not enough to keep discerning customers though. For an establishment that would like to present itself as high end Indian Cuisine it falls considerably short.

Having watched Sanjeev Kapoor and used his cook books I wanted to try this place for a while. I live downtown so it took a bit of planning to get all the way to Brampton to try it.
I was surprised that the restaurant is located in a suburban mall/​parking lot (while dining you see the neon lights of the RBC next door). The restaurant is well decorated and does not smell like Indian food when you walk in — however we did notice papad crumbs under many of the tables.
The restaurant is trying very hard to be fine dining but it just misses the mark. The staff is very friendly but could use some fine tuning. We were a party of 2 and seated at a table set for 4 — no one removed the extra china on the table. A glass bottle of water was placed on the table and it had grease and dried curry of some sort smeared on the side of the bottle.
We got the Shikanji to drink and it was delicious — however it came in very cheap looking barware with multi coloured bendy straws in them.
Our papad basket was refilled constantly and it came with 3 tasty dipping sauces.
We started with the Ajwan Prawns — by far our favorite dish, the prawns were perfectly cooked and it was a generous portion.
We got the «lamb curry and shaam savera. The lamb curry was describe as lamb shank but instead it was small cubes of lamb and no marrow bone in a tasty gravy. The Shaam savera was tasty but the curry was too sweet.
Both dishes were presented well — however the copper serving dishes needed a good polish!
For dessert we got the cardamom and condensed milk cream, which was very pretty — it looked like it was tumbling out of a matka. However the matka wobbled when it was placed on the table and in trying to steady it, the waiter stuck his finger in the dessert! The cream was garnished with crushed pistachios, strawberries and baby beet leaves (Im hoping this should be flower petals and the kitchen had run out).
The cream itself was delicious but EXTREMELY rich — 2 big dessert eaters could barely make it through half the dessert.
I would go back and hope that Khazana irons out its kinks and becomes one of the GTA’s few fine dining Indian restaurants

We went here for dinner the other day with very high expectations. We ordered multiple apps, panner (basil cilantro tikkas), Tandoori Aalo Nazakat, Harippa Paneer Tikka. All were great but nothing spectacular as we were expecting.
The service was average, I had to ask multiple times for a lime for my drink. Our server was courteous but spead thin between tables.
The apps were better than the entrées, so maybe wants to fill up on apps.
The ambiance was nice, but the large room lends to a lot of noise.
With some training and a bit tweaking of the menu this could be a great restaurant, until then may want to try someplace else.

I’ve never heard of Chef Sanjeev Kapoor before, but since he’s apparently some hotshot chef from India, I was excited to try this place out.
I had the chicken biryani and stole some butter chicken/​roti from my friends who were dining alongside me. None of us were big fans of spicy food, and the restaurant really toned down on the spices at our request. Big points for that. The chicken was amazingly tender and flavourful, as was the butter chicken.
Now that I know this place is quality, I’ll be sure to be a little more experimental with my menu picks next time I’m in the area.

Good service ! Decent Ambiance ! Little over priced food, taste was good but missing the wow factor ! Chef needs to be consistent with the dessert ingredients and plating :(
I went with my family for dinner. The food we ordered was made heavy and rich so felt heavy after eating. The Lalla mussa dal had good flavour but needs more texture to it as it had too much of liquid consistency.
The Pooran singh Chicken lacks the flavour and had a very basic curry with three boiled pieces of chicken– not happy ! The other disappointment was the dessert which took long after we ordered and the plating was not how it looked in the picture we saw. Actually, I noticed that the pictures posted online had different style of plating. The fruits were laid out differently on the plate and some plates were missing the fruits as in the other pictures. I would expect consistency and perfection without any excuses for a celebrity chef restaurant.
My kids wanted the Kulfi with an umbrella as in the picture but the glass was different and umbrella missing and overall looked different so do not expect to have the same appearance as you saw or had last time !!
The grill and Tandoor items were perfectly cooked and had a very fresh taste. Full marks on those items.
Starters are really good and unique
Chutneys and dipping sauces were also unique and flavourful
Quick Summary
Service — ⁴⁄₅ cant be better for me :) delayed our dessert and dessert plating was not upto the standards
Ambiance — ⁴⁄₅ (I prefer little quite place and don’t like to see Hindi shows on all the TV’s)
Taste — 3.5÷5
Value for money — ³⁄₅ expect
Price per person: $ 30-​$ 50 per person depending on what drinks you pick

A nice place for a fine dining… though our expectations were much higher about this restaurant. The foods are ok, as expected from a master chef like him. But comparing quality-​quantity-​price, I would give it 3 star. Do keep in mind about the quantity, it’s much smaller than other restaurants. You need to order about 1.5x more than what you usually order in other restaurants. Overall, the ambiance is good, a decent place, but it’s bit pricey.

After a lot of anticipation and word of mouth I decided to dine in. This restaurant is owned by one of the most celebrated chefs from India. The building looks pretty nice from outside. As soon as I entered, I was seated. Great 1^st impression of the customer service, and ambience of the inside of the restaurant. Very elegantly decorated, and it seems a thorough thought process was placed on the seating, comfortable furniture and overall look. I honestly wished the food matched the anticipation. Pretty average in taste, even though the presentation with which each dish was presented was nice, the taste compartment left me with a lot to be desired. Nothing special:(
Overall a good place to get together, mediocre food (can’t believe I have to write that). I went in with a lot of expectations, sadly I didn’t feel the food did justice to the brand name brought by Sanjiv kapoor“s Khazana.

Incredibly inventive Indian food! Gives Toronto Indian food that comes close to the quality that you experience now in Indian. Excellent presentation and high quality with superb service!

My parents and I have been trying a bunch of Indian restaurants in the Brampton/​Mississauga area, and I was recommended by a friend of mine to try out this restaurant.
Here’s my break down of the review:
1) Ambiance, service, seating area — Excellent
2) Food:
Knowing that this restaurant is owned by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, we expected it to be great. However it did not meet our exceptions. Mind you, we are vegetarians, so we do not know how the meat dishes taste.
We ordered the following:
a) Mixed grill veg
b) Lalla Musa Dal
c) Anglo Indian Zalfreize (the worst dish out of the all by the way)
d) Mutter Jeera Pulao
e) Butter Naan, Roti, Mint Paratha
f) Shaam Savera
Out of the above, the Shaam Savera which consists of spinach and cottage cheese. There was no flavour to it, it was bland. You can also tell that the cottage cheese was very dry, despite it being in gravy.
The Anglo Indian Zalfreize was the worst. If Chef Sanjeev Kapoor came to know of this, I assume he would be in shock. The chefs did not use fresh vegetables. They used frozen vegetables, and for the gravy, they added tomato ketchup. My mom makes the same dish, and traditionally speaking, you do not use frozen vegetables for this. I don’t know if the chefs got lazy or not, but this is unacceptable.
3) The total price we paid including the sweet lassi which by itself is expensive compared to other restaurants, and it was not the greatest, it came to $ 90 before taxes.
Overall, we would not recommend this place, and for the price paid, its not worth it. It is definitely a hype, as I’ve been to better places such as Tavva Indian Bistro, and Avani Asian Indian Cuisine which are far better off in terms of food quality and pricing.

This is a fine dining Indian Style restaurant. Run by a top chef, everything is as you would expect from a fine dining experience, but a bit pricy. We were a bit intimidated by the menu, but our waiter Pritpal was fevers patient with us. We ordered some lamb appetizer and butter chicken, mixed vegetarian plate, and rice. I must say I enjoy everything. The spices, the taste, and the presentation was wonderful. Compliments to Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and his crew! We will be back!