NISABA: Where to Eat in Delhi

You feel the shift before you even reach the door. The traffic noise of Mathura Road falls away behind you, the air cools under the canopy of Sunder Nursery’s old trees, and somewhere past the manicured lawns and Mughal-era tombs, a modern restaurant has quietly slipped into one of Delhi’s most unlikely settings. This is NISABA — the first restaurant chef Manish Mehrotra has opened under his own name after two decades of shaping the menu at Indian Accent, one of the most decorated restaurants in the country.

That pedigree alone would draw crowds, but the setting is what makes the visit feel different from anything else on Delhi’s dining map right now.

Why NISABA matters

For years, Mehrotra was the name behind Indian Accent’s globally-inflected Indian tasting menus, the kind of cooking that put the restaurant on international “best of” lists. NISABA, opened January 17, 2026, is his own project, run under MMCA, and it takes a deliberately different angle: instead of fine-dining abstraction, the food looks back toward the everyday — home kitchens, small-town bylanes, roadside stalls, and dhabas.

The name itself nods to grain, and the menu is built around reworking the humble, grain-based dishes that Indians actually grow up eating, elevated in technique and presentation but rooted in something recognisably familiar.

The setting: Sunder Nursery and Humayun’s Tomb

What makes a visit here feel like an occasion rather than just a meal is where it sits. Sunder Nursery is a 90-acre heritage park next to Humayun’s Tomb, restored over the past decade into one of Delhi’s most walkable green spaces, dotted with Mughal-era tombs, a micro-forest, and a nursery of old and rare tree species. Arriving at NISABA usually means walking in through this landscape first — past domed pavilions, gravel paths, and the kind of quiet you don’t expect this close to central Delhi.

It reframes the meal: you’re not just eating inventive Indian food, you’re doing it inside a living monument complex that UNESCO recognises as part of the Humayun’s Tomb World Heritage Site buffer zone.

Getting there

NISABA sits within the Sunder Nursery / Humayun’s Tomb complex in Nizamuddin, on Mathura Road. The nearest metro connection is JLN Stadium station on the Violet Line, followed by a short auto-rickshaw or cab ride, since the complex itself is a walk-in park rather than a drive-up address. Many visitors combine the trip with sightseeing — Humayun’s Tomb and the Nizamuddin Dargah are both close by, so it’s easy to fold a meal at NISABA into an afternoon of monument-hopping rather than a standalone dinner outing.

What to expect on the plate

Details of the exact menu will shift as the kitchen settles in, but the stated direction is clear: dishes built around grains, reimagined from the food of Indian homes and street corners rather than hotel banquet halls. Expect the kind of Mehrotra touch that made Indian Accent famous — a familiar dish arriving in an unfamiliar form, texture, or plating — but here filtered through the lens of dhaba staples and regional street snacks rather than five-star tasting-menu theatrics.

Given the pedigree and the setting, portions, pricing and hours are still worth double-checking directly with the restaurant before you go, since a newly opened venue like this can adjust service times and booking policies in its first months.

How to visit like a local

Book ahead rather than walking in — a chef of this profile opening his first solo restaurant is exactly the kind of launch that fills up fast with Delhi’s food crowd and design-conscious diners, so treat a reservation as essential rather than optional. Aim to arrive with enough daylight left to walk through Sunder Nursery first; the gardens are at their best in the late afternoon light, and seeing the tombs and tree-lined paths before you eat sets up the meal properly.

Dress is generally smart-casual for a restaurant of this caliber, and given the heritage-park setting, comfortable shoes matter more than you’d think — you’ll likely be walking cobbled or gravel paths to reach the entrance. Since this is a very recent opening, call or check official channels the same day for hours, closing days, and reservation requirements rather than relying on secondhand information, as schedules at new restaurants tend to shift in the first few months.