Tandoori chicken is named for how it's cooked, not a sauce or spice blend — "tandoori" means it came out of a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven fired with charcoal or wood past 900°F. That heat is the whole point: it sears the outside fast while the inside stays juicy, and it's what gives the chicken its char and smoke without drying it out the way a slower oven or grill would.
The marinade
Before it ever sees the tandoor, the chicken is marinated in yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, and a spice blend built around Kashmiri chili (for color more than heat) and garam masala. The yogurt does double duty — it tenderizes the meat and helps the spice cling through the high-heat cooking, so what comes out isn't just charred on the surface, it's seasoned all the way through.
Why the tandoor matters
A regular oven or grill tops out well below what a tandoor reaches, and it heats food from one direction. A tandoor surrounds the chicken with radiant heat from a live fire, cooking it in minutes rather than tens of minutes. That's the difference between tandoori chicken and chicken that's simply been grilled with similar spices — the cooking method is the dish, not an optional detail.
Tandoori chicken vs. Chicken Makhni (butter chicken)
These are related, not the same order. Tandoori chicken is the finished, standalone dish — smoky, charred, served as-is. Chicken Makhni starts with that same tandoori chicken, then simmers it into a butter-tomato gravy. If you want the smoke and char front and center, order tandoori chicken. If you want that flavor folded into a rich sauce, order Chicken Makhni.
How to order it
Tandoori chicken is available for dine-in, pickup, delivery, and catering, and it's part of our Rani Ki Offering tandoori platter on the catering menu alongside other clay-oven items. It's spice-adjustable within the marinade's built-in range — ask your server if you want it milder or spicier than the standard preparation. Pair it with garlic naan and a squeeze of lemon, or order it as part of a mixed tandoori platter if you want to sample more than one protein.