Credit Tim Robison
ASHEVILLE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chai Pani Heads to D.C., With a James Beard Heavyweight at the Helm
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By Eric Barton | Aug. 11, 2025
AUTHOR BIO: Eric Barton is editor of The Adventurist and a freelance journalist who has reviewed restaurants for more than two decades. Email him here.
Chai Pani has been on my short list of Asheville restaurants since the first time I ate there way back in 2009. Back then, not long after it had opened in the original downtown space, you could tell founder Meherwan Irani was building something bigger than the room could hold.
Last year, when they moved into a larger location up the street, I figured he’d solved that problem. Turns out, the solution also involves Washington, D.C.
Kale Pakora Chaat, credit Tim Robison
The third Chai Pani opens August 29 in the Union Market District, and if you’ve been to the Asheville mothership or the Decatur outpost, you’ll know what to expect: the sensory wallop of color and hand-painted detail, murals of cricket players mid-swing, and a menu that refuses to fit in any tidy category. It’s Indian street food as Irani sees it—bright, brash, and grounded in nostalgia.
What D.C. will have that Asheville doesn’t is chef Vishwesh “Vish” Bhatt running the kitchen. If you follow Southern food, you already know Bhatt as the James Beard Award-winning chef who turned Snackbar in Oxford, Mississippi, into a playground where the flavors of Gujarat could sit comfortably next to Delta catfish. Bhatt and Irani go back 15 years, having crossed paths on the Southern chef circuit and bonded over their shared obsession with flavor and identity. Their collaborations, like the sold-out Brown in the South dinner series, became so talked-about that they’ve been immortalized in Food & Wine and Southern Living.
Meherwan and Molly Irani, credit Tim Robison
Bhatt’s arrival signals that Chai Pani D.C. will be more than a cut-and-paste version of Asheville. His cooking draws on the parallels between his native western India and the American South—a perspective he detailed in his 2022 cookbook I Am From Here. That means you might see pani puri next to fried okra, or spiced peanuts alongside deviled eggs. He’s not shy about blurring borders.
Vish Bhatt, credit Pableaux Johnson
Pakoras, Okra Fries, Dahi Puri, credit Molly Milroy
For Irani, D.C. is a logical next step. Union Market has become a magnet for high-caliber, chef-driven spots, and the city’s diners already have a taste for global flavors. And for Bhatt, it’s a chance to cook on a bigger stage, in a restaurant that’s never been afraid to be loud in both color and conviction.
Credit Tim Robison
Next year, Chai Pani’s expansion will continue with a Botiwalla in D.C.’s Tenleytown and another in Raleigh. But for now, August 29 belongs to the capital—and to a chef who seems ready to make it his own.
