A Fork on the Road: The Copper Chimney

The rich tapestry that is Indian cuisine is on sumptuous display at The Copper Chimney, an elegant new restaurant in Sunny Isles Beach where the offerings range from creamy kormas to kebabs cooked in a clay tandoor oven. Owner Jasmine Oberoi grew up in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh in North India, and learned to cook from her mother. Her husband’s software career has taken them to places diverse as Bahrain, New Zealand and Orlando. After relocating to Sunny Isles, they couldn’t find an Indian eatery, so Jasmine hired a Delhi-born chef and opened her own.

Lucknow flourished as a cultural and artistic capital in the late 18th century, and is renowned for a refined cuisine, a legacy of the Nawab princes who governed it. Royal cooks perfected the technique of dum pukht (slow steaming). For a taste of it, try parda gosht biryani made with spice-marinated lamb layered with rice (shrimp and vegetable versions are available). The pot lid is sealed with bread dough, allowing the meat to steam in its juices and infusing the rice with the flavors of saffron, cinnamon, cloves and mint.

The tandoori platter brings char-grilled chunks of chicken safed (in spiced yogurt-cashew paste), tulsi (with holy basil) and tikka (marinated in saffron yogurt), plus sausage-shaped ground chicken gilafi, saffron salmon and shrimp angaare (seared in blackened butter). It comes with crispy wonton cups filled with tangy chutneys, hot onion sauce and sweet green papaya relish.

One of the best kormas is khazan-e-lazzat, “treasured delicacy”. Soft potato dumplings stuffed with cheese and sun-dried tomatoes are simmered in delicately spiced cream and nut gravy. Or surrender to paneer lababdar (“to love”) in creamy tomato sauce laced with fennel seeds. There’s also pepper lamb chops, buttery garlic naan and carrot pudding with raisins to complete the edible mosaic here.

This story was originally published January 11, 2011 at 5:01 AM.