Darbar Restaurant

My family has eaten at this restaurant or ordered takeaway many times over many years. Most recently we ordered a great meal to go from Darbar a couple of weeks ago (Thanksgiving weekend). The reviews I’m reading on here are surprising as our food has always been so tasty! My husband and I have ordered the soya dansak a couple of times because we’re vegetarian. It was delicious both times. The paneer dishes we’ve ordered have also always been excellent. My Mom and her husband have always enjoyed the lamb dish they get. My husband and I have eaten at a number of different Indian food restaurants in a few different countries (including Italy of all places). Darbar in Kingston ranks amongst the highest for us in terms of food quality and flavour.

Signed, Jennifer & Chris
Mark & Shirley (sandm)

Absolute best Indian food in all of Kingston! I've been frequenting all of them since 2001 and this is the best. The owners are fantastic people and I will be forever a loyal customer.)

Love me some Darbar! I order from here far too often. Always happy with the food and service!

We dropped by at this restaurant during our two nights visit to Kingston from Toronto. This was by far the best chicken biryani I've tried. Just the right balance of spices used by the chef.

It’s unbelievable that this place is operating since years. They server food which is noway close to authentic indian food. We ordered matar panner, dal tadka, biryani and naan.

The panner was very chewy and you can hardly find panner pieces, the dal tadka was average and biryani was actually veg pulav.frozen veggies added to rice.

The worse was Naan. I haven’t seen any indian resturante serving pita bread in the name of naan. Funny thing the garlic naan was basically garlic seasoning over pita bread.

Save your time and money and please avoid this place.

PLEASE AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COSTS. I have never had worse butter chicken in my entire life. As you can tell by the picture, the dish served was nowhere close to butter chicken.

Upon checking and confirming with the waiter/owner, we were told that it was ‘English Style’.

To make it worse, chicken wasn’t cooked properly and was visibly pink from inside and chewy!

To anyone expecting the food to be a true representation of Indian food, taste and spices, this is the last place you’d want to go.

Awful.waste of money.butter chicken tasted like no other butter chicken I’ve ever had, my son (who loves BC) couldn’t eat a second bite. Saag Paneer was watery, clearly frozen spinach in a puddle of water. Vindaloo was too spicy to eat.

We are visiting Kingston. We love Indian food and ordered from Darbar which is close to our Airbnb. The food is terrible! It looks like mash or baby food and tastes much the same. The butter chicken looks nothing like butter chicken and tastes nothing like it either.

Worst food i have ate in canada in the name of Indian cuisine. The funny thing is that Owner told me he is operating this restaurant for 32 years, It is such a shame that still serve such a pathetic food, feels sorry for residents and students of kingston. Google does not allow 0 ratings otherwise I would have given that, and I want my money back, that is pure cheating against indian food.

Please avoid this restaurant.

Biryani was not even rice pulav see the picture your self.

Matar paneer just had boiled peas and some panner no gravy at all, see picture as proof.

Look at the Naan, they are the one you get ready-made from Walmart and chargedme 4 cad for that, we ordered both regular and garlic but they both are same.

I have eaten here for years! When we were students, we used to come weekly and now that we’ve moved away, we come and visit a few times a year. The owner is so kind and still remembers us when we come in. The food here is amazing. It’s the best Indian food we’ve ever had. I am now vegan, and they are so accommodating. Most of their veggie dishes can be made vegan. The flavours are so delicious. I recommend Darbar wholeheartedly. Now I need another trip to Kingston:)

Great biryani. I ordered the chicken biryani at max spicy and it was delicious. I would recommend getting it mild though.

I’ve only had dine in for dinner. But we’ve never had any issues; welcoming environment, gracious staff & and amazing food!

I used to go here all the time. The food is always good. However, the restaurant's lunch hours have been reduced. Our lunch party was waiting for a friend to join us. We got there at noon and by 12: 15 our friend had still not arrived. It was at that point the waiter came by and curtly told us that they were closing at 1 pm. As we were not sure when our friend would join us, we decided that we would go someplace else. When leaving we turned around to check the hours as we could have sworn it was 2 pm that they closed, but the sign read lunch until 1: 30 pm (but not 1 pm as was told to us).

Our friend showed up at 12: 30 and had we not been feeling that we were putting the restaurant out we would have stayed and enjoyed lunch.

The following week a friend and I went there for dinner. I would not have gone except that it was my friend's birthday and they wanted to go there. What a completely different experience. The waiters were most pleasant and the food was good.

I was walking past the back entrance to the restaurant and saw two kitchen staff in their aprons - one was smoking partially inside the kitchen, and the other was sitting on the ground with pigeons on his lap feeding them. Approximately 30 pigeons. I wish this was a joke.

Food was delicious with the nice people and high quality dine in set up, your experience will be Super!

I was there for lunch today and once again it was excellent. The best bhaji in Kingston as well as the chicken korma.

Do not order from here. I don't think I have ever written a 1 star review. I am contacting my credit card company for a chargeback for this disgusting joke of "dinner". Two of the dishes we received (Shahi paneer & paneer muglai) were almost empty. Literally there was a couple tablespoons of food. Paneer was very old and hard. Very oily and disgusting. We paid $50 for empty containers of food. Avoid this place at all costs. Hopefully we can get our money back.

Disappointed. The butter chicken has 0 tomato in it, and tasted oddly like bacon, please change the name of this dish, because it is not butter chicken. The Lamb Rogan Josh was quite good. The Darbar rice was a bit too fragrant but to each their own. The samosas had probably the worst filling I’ve tasted in 35 years.

Yellow Butter Chicken? It was not Butter Chicken. It was so sweet a diabetic would be calling 911. This restaurant is not Indian food. An hour to get it with 2 tables being served. The menu or website do not have photos so you have no idea if you have no experience in Indian food. The waiter was useless. Nope, never again.

I’ll be honest, this place has ruined other Indian restaurants for me, nothing else quite compares to the quality of food and service you get here. I recommend this place to all my friends.

We ordered take out for tikka masala, qorma, samosas, and gulab jamun.
The qorma was extremely sweet to the point where I couldnt taste my pop. Everything else was amazing and I would definately try the other curries next time.

Have been a repeat customer for years now! We tend to get the same items, they’re our tried and true faves - Chicken Tikka Masala, Karhai Beef, Darbar Rice, and Garlic Naan. Absolutely delicious every time!

I will say, I’ve also tried the Butter Chicken and it was a no for me, like others have expressed. It seems depending on what you order, it can be a hit or miss, but it’s all subjective really.

We got takeout but the atmosphere within the restaurant was amazing. The staff were very friendly and informative. We got the chicken tika masala and the paneer tika masala.so good! 100% recommend, especially because they are a small local business!