For me, personally, Dum Pukht is the greatest dining room in the world for Awadhi food specifically. The menu is classic, inspired from 200 year old recipes which were cooked in the royal kitchens of Awadh under the rulership of Nawabs. This has been extensively researched by the ITC Master Chefs when they were opening the original Dum Pukht at ITC Maurya and it’s clearly evident in the taste. The Dum Pukht here in mumbai is excellent since Imitiaz Qureshi Ji had shifted to this branch and all the favourites were and are to date faithfully rendered. Current head chef Asif Qureshi Ji is also an excellent chef giving out great dishes consistently. The melt in mouth Kakori Kebab is out of this world, something that has the potential to stay on your palette for years, beautifully seasoned and cooked to perfection it’s a perfect representation of a kebab. Biryani, I have no words. Truly fantastic. It definitely has that ‘Nazakat’ in truest sense. It’s mildly spiced, contains perfectly cooked pieces of prime cuts of lamb and is very fragrant. Culinary craft of the best possible level. The only area where Dum Pukht needs to work is on their curries if I had to critique. The dining room also needs a revamp I guess considering the interiors of other Dum Pukht branches. Rest, I think it’s perfection. Service is also amazing, shoutout to Priya for making my lunch worthwhile. But there’s some scope of improvement in attentiveness of the server, like if my glass of water is almost going to empty, the server should notice and fill it up & thing’s similar to this can be improvised. I took the single diner experience and it was money! Set menus are interesting since they allow unlimited portions in that. Ala Carte is tricky since the prices are overwhelmingly expensive for the portions provided, nothing wrong with the food just the portions can be at least incremented to justify the prices. If you just focus on the Kebabs & Biryani of Dum Pukht at Maratha, you are sure to achieve some sort of culinary enlightenment haha!