Now Open: Raghavan Iyer's Om - Contemporary Indian Cuisine

[Jeremy Iggers]

Raghavan Iyer was in his glory Saturday night at OM, his new warehouse district restaurant. The restaurant opened Friday, and on the second night of business, the Bombay-born cookbook author and food consultant was working the floor, greeting old friends and new customers. The former Nate's Clothing store at 4th St. and First Ave. has been transformed into a very stylish contemporary dining spot, with a bar on the ground level and a subterranean dining room, complete with lotus blossoms floating in a tiled pool at the bottom of the stairs.
The cuisine is a far cry from the three-pot cooking of typical curry houses. Many of the recipes are adapted from Iyer's critically acclaimed cookbook, 660 Curries. These range from mint and potato tartlets served in phyllo pastry cups, to Alaskan salmon seared with turmeric and poached in a coconut milk-malt vinegar sauce with red chiles, cinnamon, garlic, scallions, and grape tomatoes ($22), and a Cornish game hen marinated in coconut milk, garlic, and chilies served with a roasted cashew sauce and caramelized red onions ($19).

The flavors are certainly authentic, and for the most part more nuanced than the usual, but at the same time, Iyer's menu is geared to the expectations of Middle American diners - there are only a couple of vegetarian entrees on the menu, and most of the entrees are substantial pieces of animal protein - a stuffed chicken breast, a rack of lamb, a beef trenderloin with mashed potatoes - not a typically Indian way of eating.

We enjoyed everything we sampled, including the street food-inspired Mumbai crackers, topped with mango, potato and chutney, and the coconut shrimp - accompanied by a warm caramelized onion and coconut milk sauce - much lighter and more subtle than the usual heavily breaded deep-fried versions found elsewhere. We selected the two vegetarian options on the menu - a saffron-marinated grilled paneer topped with a peanut sauce ($14), and the panjarat dum biryani, a savory vegetable curry casserole with cashews and currants. ($16). Dum denotes a cooking style where the flavors are sealed into the baking dish with a lid of dough - here Iyer used puff pastry. Desserts were a highlight - especially the mango-flavored cheesecake.

The decibel level was a bit higher than you might expect in a restaurant whose name promises "an absolute, ultimate state of peace," but it's still early days - a little sound engineering, and maybe some tablecloths, could help a lot.


OM, 401 1st Ave N, Minneapolis, 612-338-1510.