Our Story
One diary. Two hands.
Twelve years of slow cooking.
How it began
From an Awadh kitchen to Banjara Hills
Amara begins with a single object: a recipe diary, hand-bound in cloth, carried out of a small royal household in Awadh in the 1920s. In its pages — stained with saffron and clarified butter — are the dishes that would become ours: galouti kebabs, dahi ke kebabs, a dal that was never eaten before its second day.
In 2014, the diary's great-granddaughter and her husband opened Amara Café & Kitchen in Banjara Hills with eight tables, one tandoor and one rule from the diary: never rush the food.
Twelve years later, the tandoor has multiplied, the menu has grown to forty dishes, and the rule has not moved an inch. Everything is still marinated overnight, ground by hand each morning, and simmered until it's ready — not until it's convenient.
The road so far
A timeline
1920s
The diary
A young bride in a small royal household in Awadh begins a recipe diary — dal simmered for two days, kebabs pounded by hand, saffron measured in pinches.
2014
Amara opens in Banjara Hills
The diary's granddaughter and her husband open a small kitchen with a single tandoor, eight tables and the promise of cooking food the slow way.
2017
The tandoor grows
A second tandoor, a bread station, and the Royal Thali joins the menu — it has outsold everything else every Sunday since.
2021
The café hours
We start pouring filter coffee and kahwa in the afternoons, and Amara becomes the neighbourhood's unhurried room.
2026
Still cooking slowly
Forty-plus dishes, one recipe diary, and the same rule: if it can be rushed, it isn't on our menu.
What we believe
Three rules of the house
01
Slow fire, always
Our dals bubble for 48 hours. Our gravies reduce overnight. Speed is the enemy of flavour.
02
The diary is law
When the diary says a spice is ground fresh, we grind it fresh. No exceptions, no substitutes.
03
Feed the room like family
Every guest is a guest of the house — served like the family dinner table, not a conveyor belt.
12
years in Banjara Hills
40+
dishes on the menu
4.8★
from 3,100+ reviews