KHAKI and TIYA: The Sarkar Brothers Redefining Indian Fine Dining in the Bay Area

The Bay Area's Indian restaurant landscape in 2026 is meaningfully better than it was three years ago. The reasons for that improvement can be traced to two restaurants opened by two brothers within a short period of each other: KHAKI at City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, and TIYA in San Francisco's Marina District. Sujan Sarkar and Pujan Sarkar are not running franchise operations. Each restaurant has a distinct identity, a distinct audience, and a distinct approach to regional Indian cooking. What they share is the culinary conviction that Indian food, prepared with the same standards applied to French or Japanese fine dining, produces results that stand alongside any cuisine in the world. This guide covers who the Sarkar brothers are, what each restaurant does, and what together they mean for Indian dining in the Bay Area. For context on KHAKI's menu and approach,  the restaurant's Bay Area Indian dining guide  covers the full landscape.

Who Are the Sarkar Brothers

Sujan Sarkar

Sujan Sarkar is the elder brother and the figure whose culinary credentials are most extensively documented in the public record. His Chicago restaurant Indienne, which he founded and led as executive chef, became the first Indian restaurant in Chicago to earn a Michelin star, confirmed on the official Michelin Guide. He received James Beard Award nominations for Best Chef: Great Lakes in both 2024 and 2025, the most rigorous peer-evaluated culinary recognition in the United States.

His career before Indienne spans some of the most significant modern Indian fine-dining kitchens in the world: Trèsind in Dubai, BAAR BAAR in New York and Los Angeles, and EK BAR in New Delhi. Each of these restaurants operated on the same core thesis that Sujan brought to Indienne and to his Bay Area work: Indian cuisine, treated with the sourcing standards and technical discipline of European fine dining, produces food that is genuinely excellent rather than excellent for Indian food.

Pujan Sarkar

Pujan Sarkar's authority comes from sustained performance in a single market over nearly a decade. He led Rooh San Francisco, consistently recognized by the Michelin California guide, for nearly seven years before departing to co-found KHAKI and TIYA. His over 22 years of culinary experience bring a specific focus on the regional Indian comfort food traditions that define the menus at both Bay Area restaurants: the street-side chaat, the railway-station kababs, the slow-cooked home curries that most fine-dining Indian restaurants exclude in favor of more obviously impressive preparations.

Diablo Magazine, in covering KHAKI's August 2025 opening, described Pujan as having "helped individually launch similar finer-dining Indian projects across the country, including Chicago's Michelin-starred Indienne." That framing captures the collaborative dynamic between the brothers: Sujan provides the fine-dining technical authority, Pujan provides the deep regional culinary knowledge and the operational experience of running a Bay Area kitchen over multiple years.

KHAKI: San Ramon's Regional Indian Canteen

KHAKI opened at City Center Bishop Ranch in August 2025, co-founded with Akash Kapoor, the founder and CEO of Curry Up Now. The canteen format is deliberate. A canteen in the Indian tradition is not a cafeteria. It is a neighborhood institution built for daily life rather than special occasions, where the food is serious but the atmosphere is accessible.

KHAKI's menu covers regional Indian cooking from Bihar, Kerala, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Mangalore, Kolkata, and Delhi. The signature preparations, including the Champaran mutton handi cracked tableside and the purdah dum biryani sealed with a dough crust, represent Indian regional cooking that most Bay Area diners have never encountered. The Infatuation covered KHAKI in February 2026, listing it specifically for special occasions and great cocktails. FSR Magazine, Haute Living San Francisco, and Diablo Magazine all covered the opening with substantive editorial attention rather than news briefs.

The Tri-Valley location is strategic. San Ramon and the surrounding Tri-Valley have one of the largest and most food-literate Indian-American communities in the Bay Area. This community knows what good regional Indian food tastes like and has historically been underserved by the local restaurant market. KHAKI addresses that gap directly.

For the full KHAKI experience guide including what to order on a first visit, the tasting menu guide covers the curated path through the kitchen's best work.

TIYA: The San Francisco Fine-Dining Expression

TIYA opened in San Francisco's Marina District and represents the higher-formality end of the Sarkar brothers' Bay Area work. While KHAKI is built around the canteen format and daily eating, TIYA operates in the fine-dining register: a more structured tasting experience, a more elevated presentation, and the Michelin Guide's attention. The Michelin Guide specifically names TIYA in its coverage of the best Indian restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The menu at TIYA draws from the same regional Indian traditions as KHAKI but with a different level of elaboration and a different dining format. Where KHAKI serves sharing plates and a canteen spread, TIYA serves a more composed sequence built around the technical vocabulary of fine dining applied to Indian culinary traditions.

For Bay Area diners who want to experience the Sarkar brothers' culinary work at both registers, KHAKI and TIYA serve as complementary expressions of the same culinary conviction: accessible and regular at one end, formal and occasion-driven at the other.

What Separates These Restaurants From the Bay Area Indian Restaurant Landscape

The honest assessment of the Bay Area Indian restaurant landscape is that most of it is reliable rather than remarkable. The neighborhood Indian restaurants in Fremont, Hayward, Dublin, Pleasanton, and the South Bay serve community needs well. The upscale options in San Francisco mostly offer elevated decor and familiar preparations rather than genuinely different culinary thinking.

The Sarkar brothers' restaurants are different in a specific way that matters: they cook from actual regional knowledge rather than from a generalized idea of Indian food. The Champaran mutton at KHAKI is a Bihar-specific preparation that has no equivalent in any other Bay Area Indian restaurant. The Parsi chicken reflects a culinary community so small that it has essentially no restaurant representation anywhere in the United States. The galouti kebab is made with the green papaya tenderization and forty-ingredient spice blend that the Lucknowi tradition requires, not a simplified version designed to be recognizable to a broad audience.

That regional specificity is what distinguishes a Sarkar brothers restaurant from a well-executed standard Indian restaurant. It is the difference between cooking from knowledge and cooking from a template.

The Partnership With Akash Kapoor

KHAKI's co-founder Akash Kapoor is the founder and CEO of Curry Up Now, one of the fastest-growing Indian restaurant groups in the United States with locations across California and beyond. His operational background in scaling Indian food concepts adds a dimension to KHAKI that the Sarkar brothers' fine-dining background alone would not produce: the logistics of running a high-volume neighborhood restaurant that performs at a consistent level every service rather than only when everything is running perfectly.

The pairing of Michelin-trained kitchen leadership with seasoned restaurant operations is what makes KHAKI's canteen format work. A kitchen operating at the Sarkar brothers' standard in a fine-dining context is not unusual. A kitchen operating at that standard in a neighborhood canteen that opens for weekend brunch and handles large corporate groups is unusual, and Kapoor's operational experience is the part that makes it function.

For East Bay Diners: Why KHAKI Is the More Accessible Option

For Bay Area diners based in the East Bay or Tri-Valley, KHAKI at City Center Bishop Ranch is 8 to 15 minutes from Dublin, Pleasanton, Danville, and Walnut Creek. TIYA in San Francisco's Marina District is 35 to 50 minutes from the same locations without traffic. For a milestone dinner, a client entertainment evening, or a group private event that deserves Michelin-pedigree cooking, KHAKI's proximity is a practical and significant advantage.

For private events and group bookings that bring together the kind of client or team experience the Sarkar brothers' culinary work supports, KHAKI's private events program covers groups from 14 to 100 at City Center Bishop Ranch.

Experience the Sarkar Brothers' Bay Area Work

KHAKI and TIYA together represent the most significant development in Bay Area Indian fine dining in years. For diners based in the Tri-Valley or East Bay, KHAKI at City Center Bishop Ranch is where that story starts.

Reserve a table at KHAKI online or call (925) 359-6794. For private dining and group events, contact the team at manager@wearekhaki.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who are the Sarkar brothers? 

Sujan Sarkar and Pujan Sarkar are the chefs behind KHAKI in San Ramon and TIYA in San Francisco. Sujan earned a Michelin star at Indienne in Chicago and received James Beard Award nominations in 2024 and 2025. Pujan led Rooh San Francisco for nearly seven years and brings over 22 years of culinary experience.

What is the difference between KHAKI and TIYA? 

KHAKI is a modern Indian bar and canteen in San Ramon built around the canteen format for accessible regular dining. TIYA is a San Francisco fine-dining Indian restaurant operating in the higher-formality tasting-experience register. Both draw from the same regional Indian culinary traditions.

Does Sujan Sarkar have a Michelin star? 

Yes. Sujan Sarkar earned a Michelin star for Indienne in Chicago in 2023, making it the first Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in Chicago. This is confirmed on the official Michelin Guide.

Is TIYA in the Michelin Guide?

 Yes. The Michelin Guide names TIYA in its coverage of the best Indian restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Why is KHAKI better located for East Bay diners than TIYA? 

KHAKI at City Center Bishop Ranch in San Ramon is 8 to 15 minutes from Dublin, Pleasanton, Danville, and Walnut Creek. TIYA in San Francisco's Marina District is 35 to 50 minutes from the same location. For Tri-Valley and East Bay diners, KHAKI provides the Sarkar brothers' culinary standard without the commute.