Kanishka’s Neo-Indian Gastropub

Food wasn’t that great at those prices, and service was average.
The Unilocal reviews looked amazing, so I came here on a Friday evening with five other friends to try it out. We each ordered two dishes per our server’s suggestion which turned out to be just a bit more than we wanted. We left a few scraps on each plate, so we could have probably ordered one dish less for the table.
The highlight of the night was the chicken tikka masala poutin, essentially chicken tikka masala on fries. It was simply gorgeous. Fries had soaked up the sauce and everything was hot. One of the better portion sizes as well.
Coming in second were the ribs. I just really like ribs, so might not be a fair comparison. The lamb sliders were on par in terms of flavor, but it was such a small portion I put it slightly below the ribs. It’s like a wrap cut in two, so there’s only enough for two people. Or maybe four mice.
The other dishes were just okay. Flavors weren’t extraordinary and presentation was average. I was expecting more Indian food inspired by pub fare, not the other way around.
Not really sure I would come back since our group tried 12 different dishes, and I only enjoyed a few of them. But this is worth a try if you want to have a good place to hangout in walnut creek!

Not the best but has a good selection of indian fusion food! Only downside is the quantity which is very small compared to other indian counter parts but a good place to give it a try! Service was good as well!

Just had a fantastic dinner at this unique gastropub. Great Indian fusion! Definitely try the masala chickpeas sliders. The grilled shrimp with mango sauce and cauliflower tacos were also superb. Highly recommended!

Just watched a recent Chefs Table on Netflix about a contemporary Indian Chef (chef/​owner of Gaggan in Thailand). Kanishka’s is a local effort cut from the same cloth. Taking old dishes & themes and making them playful and inviting… and DELICIOUS !! Highly recommend… their bar menu & beer selection is fabulous as well. A new fave !!! Well done chef !!

Easily my fav restaurant in WC. Don’t miss out on their twist on papas bravas or the lamb sliders. Order those two. Don’t think about it. Just DO IT.

this place has a unique take on Indian food, different Indian cuisines blended into tapas style dishes.
looking at the photos here felt it will be more of a pub or lounge but turned out more like a regular restaurant.
The menus looked so good so many plates to choose from. even some great vegetarian options.
food was really delicious we had the cauliflower tacos, their version of pani puri and panner manchurian wrap.
the shrimp curry was tasty too but did not serve any rice or bread.
must say it is little bit on the pricey side.

What a great place to dine in with family and friends any day of the week! Fabulous food, awesome ambience and superb service! My personal favorite? It’s the chicken tiki masala wrap and the Brussels sprouts! YUM! I’m definitely coming back and recommending this IT spot in WC!

Great place! They have a great selections of beers and their menu is set up perfect to share with another person. I think they have a new hefty in the kitchen as of the past 8 months or so, and the food suffered slightly, but still a great place to eat.

Chill spot. Reallllllly good prices, I have to put emphasis on the good prices. As an art fan, I love the fact that local artists work is hanging and for sale.
Really calm on a Sunday night but I can digg it.

The smallest meals I’ve ever eaten. My friends shrimp dish came out and there were literally 5 shrimp in a cup. For $ 15. Is this a joke? My other friend’s dish still hasn’t come out. Everyone else at our table finished eating their plates. I’m not even sure what else to say. I’m beyond disappointed.

I was here for my Mom’s birthday in the beginning of April for brunch and it was good!
We ordered the following plates:
Popcorn Shrimp Bucket — a nice, hefty amount of popcorn shrimp.
Kamasutra Chicken Wings — the mango habanero pineapple was sweet, with just a hint of heat.
Jhalfrezie Skirt Steak with Blistered Shishito Peppers — good, but the peppers weren’t blistered and could have been cooked a little longer.
Chicken Tikka Masala Poutin — super good and one of our favorites!
Cauliflower Pakora Paratha Tacos — these tacos were delicious.
Kanishka’s has a lot to choose from on their menu and is worth checking out if you are in the Walnut Creek area.

One of my favorite restaurants in Walnut Creek. Very fun modern twist of Indian food.
Small plates range from $ 6 – 14, so be prepared coming in. Small and cozy restaurant. Parking is a little difficult, and a lot of it is paid. I would suggest hitting up this spot on a weekday.
The Crispy Paneer Lollipops are my favorite. Tasty and a great snack, delicious melt in your mouth. I also like the Chicken Tikka Masala Poutin, but sometimes the chicken is a little dry. For a beer, go with the Clown Shoes Chocolate Stout.

Came in here around 5 on a weekday with my friend. For $ 60, we received a single tired glass of wine each, bottles obviously having been kept in a warm closet for weeks and left out for days before serving, a (funny shaped) plate of 6, very small, slightly undercooked shrimp covered in a thinned-​out apricot chutney that tasted like it came from a jar. This was served with a side of sriracha. The other dish was a little iron pan filled with french fries from a frozen bag and a microscopic spoonful of cheap, watered down «queso» that tasted like it first came out of a can, then was left in a aluminum pot overnight and allowed to separate, and finally reheated 10 minutes before I arrived while still in said pot. On top of this was put some dry tandoori chicken and a douse of watery, thin, makhani. The french fries quickly became a bland, soaked mess with alternating patches of waterlogged potato, waterlogged potato that tasted vaguely like makhani, and waterlogged potato that tasted vaguely like cheese. They put a little black pepper in that.
The next time they make this latter «dish,» they should just take a bag of frozen ore-​ida fries, sautee up some frozen chicken breasts with Lawry’s season salt and throw some Ragu alfredo sauce on it, it would be a vastly superior meal.
This experience was served to us unenthusiastically by three apathetic, inarticulate servers too entranced by stuffing their faces with burritos and a loud conversation about their sordid social lives to remember to serve us. We had to wave them down several times, despite the fact that we were the only people in the whole restaurant, and sat directly in front of the server station at the bar.
I’m not sure what makes this a «gastropub.» The presence of a beer tap? The lack of comfortable seating, the cramped surrounds, the comically high prices, the disgusting embarrassment they call food, all add up to give the restaurant’s name a sort of wry Orwellian tone.
Perhaps this is the owner’s intent; in which case, they have succeeded brilliantly. The other reviews on this restaurant make me think that the public believes the food here is good — presumably because they paid a lot for it. High prices and novelty are not a substitute for quality, and the modern consumer is an absolute idiot for thinking otherwise.
The only reason I would ever set foot in this place again would be as a component of a practical joke, or as some kind of self-​flagellating atonement. I can say without irony or reservation that you’d get more bang for your buck walking outside and throwing it into the street.

My boyfriend and I were in the walnut creek area and wanted to eat somewhere yummy & delicious. We were going for some Indian food. SO I searched on Unilocal for a great rated place & came across this one. As we approach the location it was very small on the outside & not expecting what we seen on the inside. It was beautiful & classy. The waiter/​host was very friendly & told us we can sit wherever we’d like, he had great customer service!
We got an order of flat bread which came with a delicious lemon sauce we ended up getting another order. For my meal I got the chicken masala poutin fries it came out sizzlin on a skillet. It was sooooo good. The chicken was nice and tender! My boyfriend ordered the Kamasutra Chicken Wings select sauce: Chef’s secret flarin, tropical mango-pineapple+blue-cheese raita, celery i didn’t try, but he kept raving about how good they were and wanted more lol. We ordered a very unique dish called the Puchkas — Gol Gapppa Shots & Bhelpuri which is puffed Shells, mashed potatoes filling, seasoned puffed rice, cucumbers, tamarind herb shooter. It was damn good to. It was such a great experience we are already talk about going back!

3.5 stars from me. I always wanted to try this place as it replaced Fujian which I had been going to on and off for years, but oddly enough never made it out to it while living in WC.
I came here with some friends for New Years Eve. We got an awesome bottle of spice-​blend from the owner which was fantastic — I’m still holding out to use it. Also got some mehendi (henna) done that day too! Hence the extra 0.5 stars.
Food: I thought it was just okay. Fusion is what it is and fusion can either be a beautifully synergy of food or be meh. This was closer to the meh on the spectrum for me. My two friends who come here regularly said that the food is better on regular nights, so I’m looking forward to coming back and trying them next time I’m home in the Bay to get a real assessment.
Ambiance: they took an old space and tried to amp it up — overall nice. was loud when were there but it was New Years Eve.
Service: overall attentive on a busy night
Would I come here for authentic Indian food? No. But I don’t think that’s what this place is trying to be.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The Good: Atmosphere: very pleasant; nice lighting, distressed wood tables, pleasing paint and decoration scheme.
Sound Level: Quiet-​Moderate; piped-​in music and conversation from 3 tables.
The Bad
Waitress: Loud, grating voice. Eating at the bar every few minutes. Talking on phone.
Food: Unbelievably awful. Papas Brevas Revisited tasted like Ore Ida breakfast potatoes, overheated in the microwave until rubbery, and drizzled with Aioli sauce. Three Sum Sliders were hideous. The steak one was served with red cabbage and carrots coated in thousand island sauce (YUCK), all in a stale bun (not brioche as listed on the menu). The chicken one was overcooked, over spiced and oversauced. And, of course, served in the stale bun. The «bucket» of fried shrimp arrived in a small bowl and contained about 10 shrimp. The shrimp were rubbery, overcooked, and tasted like they’d been sitting under a heat lamp all day. Gross. The mushroom crostini was well presented, but, alas, was flavorless.
The Ugly
The Hostess seated a couple at the table next to us. The couple sat down, undid their napkins, put them in their laps, handled all the silverware, and other items on the table. They reviewed the menu briefly, then got up and left (smart people). The weird part is the hostess then tried to seat another couple at this table without even cleaning it.
I ordered a San Pellegrino sparkling water. They opened the bottle and poured a small amount into a tiny glass, similar to a whiskey tumbler. Then they kept the bottle behind the bar and handed me a thimble of overpriced water. Cheap.
Definitely would NOT recommend.

I have to admit we kinda giggled when we read «Neo-​Indian Gastropub» it sounded ultra hipster, but with such great reviews we decided to give it a chance.
I came here with my boyfriend for some tapas on a Friday night. They were fairly crowded but were promptly seated in the last available spot. The restaurant itself was not terribly large but it never seemed to loud or crowded which was pleasant.
The waitress greeted and was extremely knowledgeable and she suggested we get 2 items each if we were hungry; we decided on ordering 2 for the table and kept a menu just in case. The menu was a little surprising for prices; it was certainly not cheap — averaging $ 15 – 25 per tapa.
This place also only has beer and wine for alcohol, which was a little surprising to me, so be prepared. I ordered a Pinot Grigio at $ 9 my boyfriend ordered the American Beer Flight for $ 12. Of the 5 beers he sampled he would highly recommend 4 of them. My wine was only OK — I’m sure for a higher price tag I could’ve ordered something better.
For food I ordered the Tangra Chili Chicken and my boyfriend ordered the Deconstructed Samosa (a special for that night). Both came out in a beautiful display.
The chicken was excellent, SPICY for sure — but wonderful. My boyfriend really enjoyed the bell peppers that also came in the chili sauce. The samosa was also excellent, I prefer meat in mine, but my boyfriend loved it. The food definitely made up for some of the high prices.
Overall, we were pleasantly surprised with this spot. It was a nice change from the usual places in downtown. The service was quite excellent and the flavors unique and intense. But alas it still has the usual Walnut Creek mark up when it comes to prices, making it unlikely to be a «Regular» spot for us. I would love to come back for a happy hour and see if that makes it more affordable.

This is a trendy little place in the heart of downtown Walnut Creek serving fushion Indian food. Choosing about a total of five tapas, my friends and I really enjoyed the Masala Fries and Garbanzo Masala Sliders. Our waitress was friendly and provided suggestions when requested. I would definitely come back here again to try out their draft beers and other small plates.

Was in town to visit a friend, and decided to browse Unilocal for a dinner/​beer place. When I saw that this place had Indian food AND good beers, I got super excited.
Very cool concept! The lamb sliders were amazing. More like lamb wraps maybe, but that made them even better. Who needs those boring buns? The meat was juicy, flavorful, and tender. It was to die for. Tikka Masala fries also amazing. If we weren’t full, I would have tried more stuff.
They also had a great selection of beers. I had a couple of nice IPA’s, husband had a couple of solid Belgians.

Came here after reading a bunch of great Unilocal reviews, and I must say that overall we were quite impressed with the place! The restaurant is a bit small, but the aromas radiating from this place were undeniably enticing.
What I like about how they set up their menu, is that each dish is listed with a recommended wine. We decided to go with 2 dishes that had the same wine pairing recs, and I have to say the pairing was spot on! We had the Duet Puchskas and the Lamb sliders. The puchskas were absolutely gorgeous upon arrival! One is set on top of a shot glass filled with a basil spice sauce. The pairing was light and delightful. But, the absolute star was the lamb sliders. O.M.G. The naan, sauce, lamb combo was absolutely sensational! Plus, it comes with a small side greens salad, which was the perfect light addition to pair with the sliders. I would come here again to order this dish in a heart beat.
The only tough part is that CA is in a bit of a drought, so to get a glass of water was really difficult. The waitress was kind enough to discount our bill a little bit because of the inconvenience (we waited 30 min for 2 glasses of water… food and wine came out way before), so I am really appreciative of the courteous service.
If I’m back in Walnut Creek, I will definitely be stopping by again!