When I looked up hot new restaurants to check out in LA before our short trip to the city, one name that constantly came up was a place that called itself an Indian sports bar. I was very intrigued (and also somewhat worried) by the concept of Pijja Palace that seems to marry bar food with Indian flavor. In our culinary journey, my wife Jun and I often found that a fusion concept bridging multiple culinary influences is not as easy to pull off as it sounds. Thankfully, I am very happy to report that our lunch at Pijja Palace turned out to be quite special, and even after our trip back home the next day, we found ourselves already missing all the memorable dishes from the restaurant.

What Pijja Palace is trying to achieve is seemingly insurmountable. Indian cuisine, for all its terrific flavor and diversity, is not the type that could mesh with other culinary influences due to its strong spices. But then, once we got a bite of Buffalo wing with Kashmiri red chili and masala sauce, we were instantly hooked onto the addictive flavor. We probably didn’t do ourselves much favor to our health at that point, but how could you resist this pure decadence? Pizza is another popular bar food, and the restaurant’s re-invention of the beloved classics into “pijja” with green chile chutney was also quite remarkable. Yes, the chutney flavor could overwhelm your palate in short order, but Jun said this is one dish that would make her go back to LA again in the near future. My favorite of our meal together was the rigatoni pasta with tomato masala sauce. Sure, we’ve had spicy rigatoni pasta before but the one from Pijja Palace was unlike anything I had tasted before, and I was secretly giddy that Jun was so distracted by the pijja that I get to devour the pasta in the meantime. We were beyond full by the time we finished all the dishes, but on the server’s recommendation decided to share soft serve with rooh-afza (a popular Indian refreshment) flavor that provided some much-needed relief to all the richness that lingered in our mouth.   

Getting a reservation at Pijja Place is very challenging, and we were fortunate to grab a table at 11 a.m. at the last minute on Saturday. By the time we started on the dishes around 11:30 a.m., the dining space was already almost packed. You will be surrounded by multiple flatscreen TVs showing different live sports events and will of course enjoy a variety of beer, wine and cocktail options (often using ingredients from Indian cuisine) to complement your meal. Pijja Palace is a worthy exhibit of how special the dining scene in LA is at the moment. We were very impressed with all the ingenuity and boldness behind the restaurant’s culinary vision, and are happy to visit again next time we visit the City of Angels.

KenScale: 8.25/10 (Jun’s Score: 8.0/10)

Address: 2711 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026

Website: https://www.pijjapalace.com/

Reservation via Resy