The best Indian spots in DC.

Daru works the space between a neighborhood dining room and a special-occasion table, and it does that by taking both the food and the cocktails seriously rather than treating one as decoration for the other. The dal that keeps coming up is the kind of dish a kitchen either respects or phones in, and here it reads as a house strength: a side that regulars order on purpose, not out of habit. That matters in Washington's Indian dining landscape, where dal is often an afterthought next to the tandoor and the curries; a room that gets it right is signaling something about the rest of the kitchen's attention. The dinner entrees carry the same weight, plated for a table that wants a full meal rather than a sampling of small plates, and the cocktail program is built to match, not to trail behind.

That combination, a bar with real range paired to a kitchen doing composed Indian cooking, is why the room shows up on birthday lists and date night plans rather than quick weeknight rotations. Daru runs an everyday happy hour, which loosens the room considerably: the same kitchen that plates a special-occasion dinner is also doing accessible specials on a Sunday evening, and that dual identity is part of what makes it a local favorite rather than only an event destination. Takeout holds up too, which speaks to a kitchen whose plates are not dependent on tableside theater to land. Pricing sits in the moderate range for what is otherwise dressed as an upscale room, which is likely part of the draw: the tasting-menu instincts without the tasting-menu bill.

Location within the city's Indian dining scene positions it among the rooms doing composed, modern plates rather than the steam-tray buffet model, which is its own lane in Washington and a smaller one. Anyone treating it as a special-occasion room should reserve; anyone treating it as a neighborhood option has the happy hour to fall back on.

The Bombay Club runs on a register that most Indian dining rooms in this city do not bother with: a tie-and-jacket formality that reads as old-school rather than stiff. The chicken biryani and butter chicken, the two dishes most likely to bring in someone new to the cuisine, get treated with the same care as the tandoori chicken, which depends entirely on a clean char and a marinade that actually penetrates the meat rather than sitting on the surface. That balance, comfort-food staples served at a special-occasion level of polish, is the room's whole argument. This is not a Ninth Street or Langley Park operation feeding a community that grew up on the food.

It reads instead as a downtown institution built for visiting family dinners, anniversary tables, and diners who know Indian cuisine mainly through takeout containers and are getting a fuller version of it here, plated with more attention than a strip mall counter has time for. The service record backs that up: attentive, name-checked staff, the kind of pacing that suggests a room used to guiding first-timers through a menu rather than rushing regulars through it. The price sits at the upscale end of the city's Indian dining, which puts it closer to a downtown special-occasion room than a neighborhood curry house, and the crowd it draws, out-of-towners making a stop on a DC visit alongside longtime regulars, suggests it has held that identity for a while. Butter chicken here is doing the job it does everywhere: introducing a table to the cuisine without alienating anyone, rich and mild by design.

The biryani is the more ambitious order, layered rice and meat that rewards a kitchen that keeps its steaming and seasoning consistent across a long service. What the room is not is a place for someone chasing the sharper, more regional Indian cooking scattered through the suburbs. It is a formal room for a classic order, and it does that job well enough to keep drawing people back on every visit home.