Hari Nayak left a small beach town on the Southwest coast of India to study at New York’s prestigious Culinary Institute of America. A decade later—and following stints with legendary chefs Daniel Boulud, Marcus Samuelsson, and Floyd Cardoz—he co-authored the best-selling cookbook Modern Indian Cooking.
“I used my heritage and my Western cooking knowledge to develop Indian recipes,” Nayak says. That east-meets-west approach is central to Sona, the chef’s latest restaurant (which he co-owns with actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas) that’s been thrilling New Yorkers with its inventive Indian fare since 2021.
“I’ve lived half my life in India, half in New York, and that’s Sona,” Nayak says. “It’s Indian at heart, but very New York. We take seasonal ingredients from New York and adapt dishes from all over India.”
Hits such as chile paneer-topped naan pizza, butter chicken with gooey burrata, and chaat with spicy guacamole have all lit up social media since its opening. But there’s a lot more to the menu than just the crowd favorites. Here are three Sona dishes Nayak wants you to try right now.
Roasted oysters

This appetizer is a loose rendition on oysters Rockefeller that still brings the crunch, creaminess, and warmth of the original with plenty of added spice. “Oysters aren’t very common on Indian menus,” Nayak says. “I never had an oyster in my life until I came to America.”
With its seamless melding of two cultures, the oysters are an ideal entrypoint to the rest of the menu. The bivalves (sourced from Long Island) are topped with a spicy butter infused with a green garlic and chile chutney, lightly roasted, and dusted with some crumbled chips. They come to the table with theatrical flair on a platter decorated with seaweed.
Grilled kasundi branzino

Kasundi, reminiscent of wasabi or dijon, is a fermented mustard sauce common to Bengali cooking in India. Nayak’s version serves as the vehicle for this grilled fish; the chef swaps the more commonly used sea bass (in India) with branzino, a nod to its popularity on menus across New York City.
The branzino arrives tableside wrapped in a banana leaf, a common way of preparing fish in India. Unfurl the leaves to get a glimpse of the crispy skin before your server tops it with the warm and coconutty kasundi.
Floyd’s Goan fish curry

Sona’s menu is seasonal, but this curry remains in honor of Nayak’s late mentor, the groundbreaking chef Floyd Cardoz. “It’s one of my favorite dishes,” Nayak says. “It’s a blessing to continue his legacy.”
The recipe stays true to Cardoz’s roots in Goa, a state on the western coast of India. “We don’t mess with it at all,” Nayak says, referring to the sauce. A coconut milk, red chile, and kokum (a sour fruit from Goa) curry is the base for seared whitefish filet, baby clams, and micro greens. Basmati rice, more commonly seen on Indian menus in the US, is swapped with red rice on the side.
“At Sona, we take people on a journey through the dishes of the best of India,” Nayak says.
Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner is a writer based in Brooklyn, where she lives with her wife and rescue dog. You can follow her on Instagram @melissabethk and Twitter @melissabethk.