Semma, a South Indian fine dining establishment in Greenwich Village in New York, has become the first Indian restaurant to ever top The New York Times annual list of the city’s 100 best restaurants.
This year, only the top ten were ranked, making chef Vijay Kumar’s Semma’s win all the more significant in a city with more than 20,000 restaurants.
Last year, the restaurant, which opened in 2021, came in at No. 7 while Tatiana by Kwame Onwuachi was at No. 1. This year, Semma has jumped to the top edging out last year’s No. 1 plus other heavyweights like Atomix and Le Bernardin.
The list is curated by restaurant critics Priya Krishna and Melissa Clark, along with NYT’s senior editor Brian Gallagher and Pete Wells.
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“This is unprecedented in so many ways,” the restaurant stated. “Semma isn’t just about Indian food — it’s about what happens when a cuisine speaks in its own voice, untranslated and unafraid.”
“This win isn’t just ours,” Semma’s team added. “It’s for every cuisine that’s been sidelined… and every diner who’s shown up with an open mind.”
When Semma opened four years ago, it came out swinging with a menu of snails, rabbit, fermented rice pancakes, and foxtail millet porridge, all built around rustic village cooking from Tamil Nadu.
Dishes like eral thokku, nathai pirattal, and thinai khichdi speak distinctly of their roots and their mother tongue. Semma’s vision was not Indian food adapted to New York but Indian food that insists that New York catch up, according to Conde Nast Traveler .
Semma has held onto its own Michelin star for three consecutive years while collecting newer accolades. It’s the crown jewel of the Unapologetic Foods group, led by Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya, who are responsible for redefining Indian dining in the city with hits like Adda, Dhamaka, Rowdy Rooster and Masalawala & Sons.
Chef Kumar, who previously led Rasa in California to a Michelin star, approaches Semma’s menu with clear intention: favouring specificity over safe bets, and eschewing crowd-pleasers for lesser-known dishes that are rarely seen outside homes in Tamil Nadu, let alone on Indian restaurant menus abroad, it says.
Every element at Semma feels deeply personal and rooted, right from the food, down to the clay pots and steel tumblers that one might find in kitchens across South India.
It all traces back to Kumar’s childhood in Natham near Madurai—and as he told Condé Nast Traveller earlier this year, he feels he is finally cooking what he grew up eating.
That intimacy is what makes Semma’s win feel different. It’s food that’s dialled into a time, a place, a memory. What’s more remarkable is how New York City has connected to the same frequency and flavour, the magazine says.