Savvy Indian café in Napa

Neela’s, the new upscale Indian restaurant in Napa, breaks several western stereotypes about Indian restaurants.

When most people think Indian food, they think generous portions at modest prices, dime-a-dozen décors, and beverages like beer and lassi. At Neela’s, the portions are moderate — more suited, perhaps, to someone who wants to enjoy the exotic spices and flavors without all the calories. Neela’s Chota Haazari, meaning small presentations, are very much like the small plates so popular at tapas restaurants.

At most Indian restaurants, big mounds of rice are the underpinnings for curries and are lavishly provided. At Neela’s, a moderately-sized bowl of cumin-seed flecked basmati rice is five bucks. If this is a problem, complain to the impressive statue of Ganesh just inside the front door.

Garlic naan at Neela’s is a seven-inch round of flatbread generously sprinkled with minced garlic. It costs three dollars. We’re used to naan being big, floppy rounds of bread, designed for pulling apart into pieces that can be used to swoop up rice, veggies, meats and their sauces. Neela’s garlic naan is a little circle the size of a personal pan pizza, and it’s more in keeping with what you’d find at real Indian street stalls. In fact, Neela proudly emphasizes the authentic breads of her country of nativity on Thursdays — bread night at her restaurant — where not only naan, but chapatis and parathas, two wheat-based flatbreads, are stuffed with vegetables and meats and served with salad and raita.

Neela Paniz was born in India, but has spent many years in the United States. She discovered her love of cooking by watching Julia Child. She opened Bombay Café in Los Angeles to great success and followed up with a cookbook, “The Bombay Café,” in 1998. She loved visiting Napa and so recently decided to move here and open a restaurant.

While many Indian restaurants have short and unimpressive wine lists, Neela’s presents a savvy list with glasses of wine ranging from $7 to $19, with most somewhere in the middle. Bottles range from $28 to $75, and corkage is $15, waived for one bottle if you buy a bottle from the list. Bottles are well chosen to complement Indian food. Whites include Alsatian Rieslings and Pinot Gris, Austrian Gruner Veltliners, German Rheingaus, French Macons and Muscadets, Italian Verdicchios and Portuguese Alvarinhos. Rosés include one from Aix-en-Provence and a pink Mourvedre from Sonoma Valley. Yes, there are reds, but reds with Indian food? You’re on your own. In addition, cold, foamy Stella Artois is on tap and many other beers are in the bottle.

Neela has put together a beautiful room. Besides the Ganesh at the door, there’s an inlaid armoire worth your regard, a small bar with Bollywood movies on a back-bar screen, and a large, hand-painted cloth wall hanging Neela inherited that dominates the east wall. But the most beautiful part of the restaurant is the way the colors of the palm-themed tablecloths — cream of tomato soup red and royal blue — are picked up and used on the walls to give a seamless coherence to the décor.

It’s all very sophisticated and that sophistication is reflected in the food. Delights include Karari Bhindi ($6 ***½), an appetizer made of okra pods sliced lengthwise into thin matchsticks, dusted with green mango powder and roasted until crispy. They are salty, crunchy and absolutely yummy. Kathi Rolls ($10 **) consist of bits of tandoori chicken, mint chutney, marinated onions and Indian spices wrapped in wonton-like wrappers, brushed with egg wash and heated through. They are dense and chewy, but the spices are perfectly matched and delicious. You get two rolls on the plate.

For the Endive Beet Cups ($8 **½), leaves of Belgian endive hold diced golden beets dressed with cumin and strands of mint. It’s a simple little salad, but very refreshing and feather light, unlike so much heavy Indian food. We wished more mint were used in order to emphasize the palate-refreshing quality of the cups.

Sindhi Champas ($14 ***) was one of the more adventuresome small plates. Two rib lamb chops are poached with whole spices, then seared with mango, coriander and cayenne, and arrive covered with the remains of the spices. The spices are used so abundantly that it becomes hard to pick the flavors apart, but the cayenne shines through as a bright glow in the mouth. Lamb seems to have an affinity for lots of spices, as the cooking of North Africa as well as the Indian subcontinent demonstrates so well.

One of the nightly specials was Shrimp and Mango Chutney Samosas ($12 ***), a dish that brings Neela’s house-made chutneys and sauces front and center. You get three of these conical, savory pastries that are stuffed with tender shrimp and potatoes enhanced with mango chutney and served with a sweet tamarind sauce for dipping. To someone raised on home-made Indian food, this might be standard fare. To folks with western sensibilities (read “meat and potatoes”), it’s a swooningly exotic, gustatory excursion to faraway lands.

The color of the chicken in the dish called Tandoori Murgh ($16 ***) — half a small chicken cooked in the tandoor oven — was a natural color, rather than the strange coral color one sees so often in other Indian restaurants. That’s because there’s no red-orange turmeric in the marinade, but rather just yogurt, ginger, garlic, coriander and garam masala, this latter a blend of cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, black pepper, cloves and tejpat leaves. Tejpat, used since classical times from the Mediterranean to China, are the leaves of a tree native to Nepal and India and impart a cinnamon-like flavor to dishes. The chicken was cooked quickly and hard in the fierce heat of the tandoor, sealing in the juices while developing an appealing texture on the outside of the meat. It’s served with a spicy mint sauce and lime wedges.

The Lamb Vindaloo ($18 ***) was, properly, very spicy. Extra tender chunks of lamb are covered in a brown curry from Goa, spiced up with tamarind and black pepper. Here’s where you need that bowl of rice. You make a bed of rice on the plate, spoon on lamb curry, tear up some naan, and use it to pinch up the finger food. With an order of Poriyal ($9 ***), which is green beans with onions, lentils and spicy peppers (although the menu says kari leaves and coconut, they didn’t seem to be in evidence), you have a complete meal with meat, vegetable, and starch, plus a boatload of spices.

The big surprise of the night was the dessert, Gajjar Halwa ($8 ****). Shredded carrots are cooked in whole milk with whole cardamom pods. After cooking, the milk has curdled and the whey and pods are drained off. Golden raisins and almonds are added, the mixture sautéed in a pan,, then molded in a cup, turned out on a plate, and served warm with a dollop of whipped cream on top. The result is carrot-y, sweet and wonderful.

To sum up: An upscale Indian restaurant with authentic foods prepared from scratch. There’s a world of flavor to enjoy.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.