Tommy Washbush
Lovely yellow rice in this vegetarian biryani in a brown lidded serving dish.
New on the fall menu: biryani with pumpkin, carrots, lotus root and peas.
Any conversation about Sultan, the new Punjabi restaurant on Williamson Street, will inevitably turn toward its gratuity-free operation — if it doesn’t start there from the jump. A restaurant that builds all diner costs into the price of each dish is novel in Madison, but it’s not the only reason Sultan stands out.
While Madison has no shortage of worthwhile Indian restaurants, a kitchen focusing on Punjabi dishes is news enough. Punjab is the name of both a state in northwestern India and a province in northeastern Pakistan, each pressed up against the national border — like Kansas City, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri, but without the burnt ends. As such, you may find some familiar dishes on the Sultan menu, but also some intriguing new ones.
The tandoor oven features prominently in the cuisine of the Punjab, and at Sultan I found more unique ingredients than usual at the typical area Indian restaurant — nuts, lotus root, okra. Vegetarians will find a number of vegetable dishes different from the usual saag paneer, like a biryani with pumpkin, carrots, lotus root and peas, or a korma with red and golden beets. There is less focus on base recipes made with the choice of different protein options. Servers describe most of the dishes as small and advise guests to order accordingly, but I found portions comfortable if not generous on most occasions.
You’d be wise to order some carbs right away. Sultan doesn’t unload tubs of fluffy basmati with every dish, so you’ll want something to scoop, swipe, or sandwich your main dishes with, and Sultan’s naan is tremendous, puffy and charred from its quick turn in the oven. The tandoori variety includes a scattering of cilantro; the garlic version has the punch of garlic salt. Either (or both!) is a key component to the best Sultan meals.
A recent menu addition, the parmesan truffle naan, unfortunately tasted like neither and for a whopping $10 increase over the cost of the other two. Skip this cultural non sequitur, but if you ever see paratha back on the menu, it’s pleasantly hearty with a hint of sweetness. A lightly maple butter- and saffron-dosed sheermal was more like a pastry than a bread, and perfect for fall.
The concept of seasonal shift in a South Asian menu is atypical for Madison; it’s a genre of food that typically allows people to lock in on their favorite dishes for years at a time. A stunning mater keema, crispy bits of ground beef with peas and cucumber raita, is sadly gone. The keema karely toastie currently on the menu bears some resemblance, but the pinched-off seams of this pocket sandwich are at times too crisp to bite through.
Creamy aloo bhindi is new for the season, essentially a potato salad with thinly sliced okra, bound with cauliflower puree instead of mayonnaise. A late summer special of tandoori sweet corn is now a menu regular. I’ll take it; the tandoor blesses each kernel with smoky char as it does the blistered naan.
There’s a lot of seafood for a menu based on a landlocked region’s cuisine.The keema nihari, a newer squid dish that replaced a rich beef stew with a similar spice base, did not come across well. Three very small pieces of squid were fishy, gray and overdone, doused in a thick cumin-heavy sauce with no hint of the mentioned candied ginger or cilantro. A bummer of an experience for $22.
Chicken (murgh) is handled deftly across the board, and I will return to these dishes on future visits. The Pakistani classic murgh karahi has an appreciable zip of heat. A New World addition of tomato deepens the flavor with acidity and sweetness.
New to the fall menu is the raisin-studded Indian menu standby, murgh shahi korma, which features a yogurt-based gravy and the punctuation of crunchy cashews and pistachios. These dishes are technically bone-in, but the meat falls away luxuriously.
Service is quick from the kitchen and the front of house team is clearly working hard to offer a welcoming vibe and familiarize each table with the restaurant. Online ordering for takeout and reservations for dine-in help to keep customer traffic predictable.
The national dialogue over restaurant pay is reaching a tipping point as the fair restaurant wage movement continues to spread. I never found that the tip inclusion at Sultan made the total food cost unusual. If the tandoor stays hot, and the naan keeps coming, there won’t be much for Madison to need to figure out.
Sultan
1054 Williamson St.
608-285-5062; sultanmadison.com
11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-10 p.m. Mon.-Thurs.,
11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4 p.m.-midnight Fri.,
10 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4 p.m.-midnight Sat. and 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4 p.m.-10 p.m. Sun.
$8-$36
