A New Menu. A New Chapter. Khaki San Ramon.

The New Menu at Khaki San Ramon: A Journey Across India's Regional Kitchens

There is a particular kind of restaurant that does not ask you to meet it halfway. It asks only that you arrive with curiosity - and then it does everything else. Khaki in San Ramon is that kind of restaurant.

With the arrival of its new menu, conceived by Chef Sujan Sarkar - the James Beard-nominated mind behind Chicago's Michelin-starred Indienne - Khaki signals something more than a seasonal refresh. It announces a philosophy. That Indian cuisine, in all its regional specificity, has found a worthy home in the East Bay.

The dishes on this menu do not speak in generalities. They speak in dialects.

A Dish That Knows Where It Comes From

The Pallipalayam Chicken arrives quietly. No dramatic presentation, no architectural plating. Just chicken, slow-roasted with shallots, dried red chilies, curry leaves and coconut oil, cooked low and long until the moisture surrenders and what remains is pure, concentrated flavor. This is a dish from the Kongu Nadu region of Tamil Nadu - from the textile town of Pallipalayam near Erode - where carpenters and day laborers once made it on the road with whatever ingredients they could carry. Minimum spice. Maximum intention.

In a fine dining context, its simplicity becomes its sophistication. Chef Sarkar understands what most do not: that restraint is its own form of mastery.

The Hyderabad Table

Bagara Baingan is one of the great dishes of the Hyderabadi kitchen - eggplant, slow-cooked in a sauce of roasted peanuts, sesame, coconut and tamarind, finished with the gentle heat of dried chilies. The name comes from the method: baghar, the technique of blooming whole spices in hot oil, a foundational act in Mughal-influenced cooking that turns a few ingredients into something profound.

At Khaki, the dish honors this lineage. It is vegetable-forward, deeply layered, and the kind of thing that makes a table go quiet for a moment before conversation resumes.

The Chettinad Spice Route

Chicken Chettinad carries the fingerprint of one of India's most respected regional cuisines - the cooking of the Chettiar merchant community of Tamil Nadu's Chettinad region. This is a cuisine built on spice sourcing. Black stone flower, kalpasi, marathi mokku - aromatics that most kitchens in America have never seen, let alone used. The result in the pan is a dark, fragrant, deeply complex gravy that builds heat gradually and lingers long after the last bite.

To cook Chettinad properly is to commit to specificity. There are no shortcuts and no substitutions. The spice blend is particular, regional, and irreplaceable. It is a dish that rewards the patient palate.

The Whole Roasted Crown

Then there is the Gobi Musallam - a whole roasted cauliflower, prepared in the Mughal tradition of musallam, meaning whole and complete. Historically served with whole roasted meats at royal tables, the technique is here applied to a single head of cauliflower that has been marinated, slow-roasted and glazed until its surface caramelizes and its interior gives way like something far more luxurious than a vegetable has any right to be.

It is, in the current moment of ingredient-driven California dining, the dish that most clearly announces what Khaki is doing. Honoring ancient technique. Reframing what belongs at the center of the table.

The Man Behind the Menu

Chef Sujan Sarkar grew up in Kolkata, trained in Mumbai, spent eleven years in London's finest kitchens, and built his American reputation through ROOH San Francisco - a restaurant that earned a three-star review from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association's Best New Restaurant award in 2017. He went on to open Indienne in Chicago in 2022, which became the first Indian restaurant in that city to earn a Michelin star, and received nominations for the James Beard Award in both 2024 and 2025.

At Khaki, he is joined by his brother Pujan Sarkar, whose travels through coastal Karnataka directly informed dishes like the Beef Sukka. Together, they are building something in San Ramon that the Bay Area has not had before - a restaurant where the food is personal, regional, technically serious, and genuinely generous in spirit.

"At Khaki, you can expect food that is both surprising and comforting," Chef Sujan has said. "Each dish speaks to a specific region in India."

The new menu makes that statement literal.

Come to the Table

The new menu at Khaki is available now. San Ramon, CA.

Reservations recommended.