54Amaya

Amaya remains at the head of the pack of Indian restaurants in Toronto, thanks to superb ingredients and detailed sophisticated cooking. But three Amaya food courts, Amaya Bread Bar, plus six Amaya Express takeout outlets have diluted the brand. Amaya still curries favour with its signature dishes, but the execution is not as sharp as when the owners only had one shop to look after. The chaat app is a crisp mountain of sweet/sour excitement — wheat crisps and crispy puffed rice with sprouted beans in tamarind, coriander, mint and pomegranate sauce. But not as crisp as it was a pre-expansion. They still do huge barely cooked shrimps in marvelous coconut curry, but the ratio of fat to flavour isn’t as perfect as it once was. Tandoori duck breast, where the French and the Indian chef meet, is not as tender as it was in yesteryear, though the spicy sauce is still charmingly orange-scented.