Murmurs about a new high-end Indian restaurant called Ganges have even top local chefs asking each other if they’ve tried this South Asian eatery yet. But you should beat them to it. Ganges is serving some of the most interesting Indian fare in the area.
The new spot is owned by the same people who started Tikka Indian Cuisine. The first Tikka in Venice tops Yelp’s “Top 100 Restaurants in Florida” and has held its No. 2 spot since 2023. In early 2025, the owners, Pallavi Joshy and Radhakrishna Sureddy, opened a second location on Fruitville Road. But late last year, Joshy and Sureddy took a culinary leap by combining their acclaimed Indian flavors with a fine dining approach in which elegant plating and showstopping tableside presentations equal the complex seasoning.
Ganges is located in a nondescript shopping center inside The Meadows, which you could easily miss if you blink while driving by. The front of the restaurant is a neighborhood bar where area retirees gather for stiff margaritas and rousing rounds of karaoke. But as you begin to look around, perplexed by the septuagenarians singing Frankie Valli numbers out front and wondering if you’re in the right place, a host appears and escorts you to the back room, where cinnamon, cardamom and curry perfume the air.
The dining room is plain, offering no indication of the passion infused into the restaurant’s dishes. Gray vinyl flooring is carried halfway up the walls in a makeshift wainscoting, and the remaining wall space is decorated with bizarre AI images of beautiful Indian women dressed in their finest apparel, engaged in household tasks. (Regulars at Tikka may recognize these images, as they decorate the walls at the Fruitville location, too.) Fluorescent light shines down on all of it.
While the lighting may be too bright, and the decor unremarkable, you’ll forget about the vibes the moment Ganges’ food hits the table.
The palak paneer lasagna ($25), for example, mimics artistic Italian plating, but the similarity ends there. This “lasagna” is made with tender paneer (fresh cheese) and creamy spiced spinach, served layered and surrounded by burnt orange-colored lemongrass makhani sauce, made with tomatoes, cream, bay leaves, cinnamon, cloves and other aromatic spices. Equally wonderful is the coastal jhinga ($27), a seared shrimp dish paired with coconut and kaffir lime curry that achieves the impossible balance of rich but bright flavors. And the morel mushroom biryani ($24) is dazzling, covered in puff pastry that is sliced open tableside, releasing an intoxicating spiced steam.
Small plates include tahini cauliflower ($16) with pomegranate and chutney, lamb kebabs ($27) with mint and peppers, and a sweet and tangy yuca chaat ($11). Chaat, a fried Indian snack, is most commonly made with chickpeas, but when replaced with yuca, it’s a textural revelation that is chewy, sticky-sweet and beckons you to take another bite.
At Ganges, you will order too much food, but it’s imperative to save room for dessert, specifically the “Lotus Kaapi-Misu.” It’s another dish served tableside that stops all conversation in the dining room so guests can watch as a server pours liquid nitrogen over a sweet saffron cream, freezing it instantly, while nitrogen vapors billow and spill over the dish. The cream is scooped over coffee sabayon and salted toffee caramel, then topped with crushed pistachios and freeze-dried raspberries. It’s crunchy at first and evolves as it melts, as all the ingredients meld together. It may be the most interesting dessert in Sarasota and Manatee counties, and we wouldn’t judge you for making the trip to Ganges just to order it. Luckily, the rest of the menu is equally as delicious. Just skip your lunch that day so you can taste as much as possible for dinner.
GANGES RESTAURANT & BAR | 5013 Ringwood Meadow, Sarasota, (941) 203-5933, gangessarasota.com
