Semma – Tamil Nadu's flavours, one star on Greenwich Avenue

On a quiet stretch of Greenwich Avenue in the West Village, Semma turns a townhouse dining room into a direct line to Tamil Nadu. The restaurant, operated by Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya and their hospitality group Unapologetic Foods, replaced their first collaborative restaurant, Rahi, and opened on October 12, 2021. It received a Michelin Star in 2022, which it retained in 2023 and 2024, and its chef Vijay Kumar went on to win the 2025 James Beard Foundation Award for best chef in New York State. In 2025 the New York Times put Semma at the very top of its 100 Best Restaurants in New York City list, a restaurant that previously held the No. 7 position in 2024 and has now risen to No. 1, while North America's 50 Best Restaurants organisation named it the first Indian restaurant ever to feature on its list. It holds one MICHELIN Star. None of this has changed the kitchen's intent: dishes built exactly as Kumar's mother and grandmother once made them.

01The chef

Vijay Kumar grew up eating this food back home in a small town called Natham near Madurai, learning to cook at his mother's side and on trips to his grandparents' farm. Executive Chef Kumar was raised in Tamil Nadu, where he developed a taste for cooking while helping his mother in the kitchen and on their frequent trips to his grandparent's remote farm; the memories he cherishes from these trips include hunting for deer, foraging for snails, and cooking in mud pots over an open fire.

A culinary career proved the practical route when engineering wasn't financially possible: Kumar was happy to opt instead for a culinary education at the State Institute of Hotel Management in Tiruchirappalli, and on graduating he found work at the Taj Connemara in Chennai, where he spent three years before embarking on a three-year stint on a cruise ship. Twelve years in California followed, latterly at Burlingame's Michelin-starred Rasa, before conversations with industry friends Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya of Unapologetic Foods persuaded him to move east and build Semma around the home cooking of his own childhood in Southern India.

02The room and the setting

Semma occupies 60 Greenwich Avenue, the address that previously housed Rahi, the group's first joint project, which closed in September 2021 before Semma opened in its place a month later. The dining room seats 79, with twelve more places at the bar, growing to 85 in summer when the terrace opens onto the street – a useful detail for anyone hoping to eat outdoors on a warm evening in the Village.

Insider tip

Dinner only, Monday–Saturday, 5–10pm; reservations open 15 days ahead at 9am EST.

03The cooking

Semma is an exploration of heritage Southern Indian cuisine that has rarely been seen outside of local homes and neighborhoods, built from Kumar's own memory rather than any restaurant convention. The result is personal, regional food – mung bean snacks remembered from his mother's kitchen, snails and mud-pot cooking recalled from his grandparents' farm – served without toning down for Manhattan palates.

The signature is the gunpowder dosa, now the most-ordered dish on the menu: the menu lists it as a rice and lentil crepe served with potato masala and sambar, and the kitchen sells around 150 of them on a typical night.

04What to order

Start small with the Mulaikattiya Thaniyam – sprouted mung beans, coconut and smoked chili – or the Paniyaram, a rice and lentil dumpling finished with asafoetida and paatti's chutney. The Gunpowder Dosa is essentially compulsory. From the larger plates, the Dindigul Biryani (goat, seeraga samba rice, garam masala, raita), Meen Pollichathu (branzino wrapped in banana leaf with ginger and shallots) and Valiya Chemmeen Moilee (lobster tail in mustard, turmeric and coconut milk) show the range of the coast and the interior alike. For two, and only with advance notice, the kitchen offers Kanyakumari Nandu Masala – Dungeness crab with parotta and coconut rice – a limited dish that needs to be pre-ordered.

05Wine and drinks

The cocktail list reads like an atlas of the south: Konkan mixes tequila with kokum and coconut oil, Alappuzha pairs Indian gin with hibiscus and coconut water, and Chikmagalur brings together Goan feni, filter coffee and jaggery with cream. Non-alcoholic options follow the same geography, from a curry-leaf and green apple Coimbatore to a rose and Nilgiri white tea Munnar. On tap, Semma pours its own beer collaboration with Transmitter Brewing – a basmati rice lager, a pilsner, a coconut IPA and a mango saison – alongside the wine list.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.