Dining at XO & Mì: A fine view over Lutyens' Delhi, a menu that stays on familiar ground

The menu at XO & Mì @ Le Belvedere opens with a promise. It "celebrates the vibrant spirit of Asian street cuisine, reimagined for the modern palate", speaks of bold flavours and innovative twists, and signs off with an invitation: Discover: Secrets of the Orient. A bold promise, and exactly the standard a restaurant of this stature should be measured against.
We were there to celebrate. A table for seven, with five of us dining, the city settling into its evening lights below, and a menu generous enough to keep a group happily occupied. We dined well, lingered over conversation and were looked after with genuine warmth. What the evening rarely offered was a moment of surprise. That gap, between a good meal and a memorable one, is where the real opportunity lies.

Reservations

XO & Mì sits within Le Belvedere, on the 20th floor of Le Meridien at Windsor Place, Janpath, in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi. It’s the kind of address any hotelier, in any city, would be immensely proud of. The restaurant is rarely quiet, drawing hotel guests, Delhi’s discerning old guard and the city’s sharp-suited professionals in equal measure. For a celebration or a larger group, book ahead, let the team know your numbers, and ask for a table along the windows.

Insider Tip:

We reserved through EazyDiner, where Prime members receive 30% off along with bank offers of up to 20%. It is worth checking current offers when you book.

Price

Expect to spend INR 3,000+ per person on food, and upwards of INR 5,000 once cocktails join the table. Signature cocktails range from INR 1,295 to 1,795, the classics sit around INR 1,095, and mocktails at INR 600. Vegetarian plates, mains and bowls mostly fall between INR 1,095 and 1,495. Non-vegetarian dishes run from around INR 1,195 to 2,795, with the Chilean sea bass (INR 3,495) and Cantonese-style lobster (INR 3,995) at the top. All prices are before taxes.

The Room

This is where XO & Mì is at its most assured. The room is long and generously proportioned, tables are placed with ample breathing space, and French windows run its full length along one side. Beyond the glass, Lutyens' Delhi unfolds in a single sweep: the Presidential Estate, North and South Block, and the old and new Parliament buildings side by side. India Gate is still there too, though the new government buildings rising along the Central Vista now veil part of it. At dusk, the effect is quietly spectacular. The space feels open and unhurried, with a private dining area for those seeking a quiet, exclusive room all to themselves.

A note on the seating. To seat seven, a table for two was joined to a table for four, and the pairing was awkward. The smaller one was narrower and about half an inch higher, leaving an uneven join that was hard to ignore throughout the meal. A small detail, but this is what separates a good room from a polished one. In a space this generous, a seamless window table for a larger booking should not be hard to arrange.

The Bar

Set discreetly at one end of the room, the bar is well stocked and carries the hushed air of a private club. There is a considered run of single malts, a short sake list, and a set of signature cocktails inspired by Asian folklore (Wukong, Yuki-Onna and Jade Rabbit among them). It is well worth arriving a little early for a drink before you are seated.

The Menu

The menu is a lively piece of design. Bold colour blocks, playful line illustrations, and small glossary panels that explain galangal, yuzu, wok hei and omakase. Its spirit is closer to a smart café than to fine dining, yet it does its job supremely well. The sections are clearly drawn (Soups, Salads, Cold Plates, Izakaya-style Hot Plates, Sushi Rolls, Masters of Robata, a Dimsum Trolley, Wok Hei, The Curry House, Ember & Umami Stone Bowls, The Noodle Cart, Rice and Noodles), and many dishes can be had with vegetables, chicken or prawn, alongside lamb, pork belly, lobster and sea bass elsewhere on the menu. Each dish carries its weight, calorie count and allergens. For a group ordering together, that clarity is a blessing.

Vegetarians are thoughtfully served, with tofu, mushrooms and vegetables running through every savoury section. Guests who eat strictly plant-based will need to ask. Nothing on the food menu is marked vegan, and the one dish billed as plant based, a coconut ceviche, is finished with honey. The closest thing to a meat alternative is a charred soya dish from the robata grill.

Portions

Most portions are small to medium. They serve one comfortably but stop short of satisfying, and a table that shares will find itself ordering more than it planned. The stone bowls are the exception: hearty, and close to a complete, comforting meal on their own. A tasting platter, or a small-plates sampler drawn from across the menu, was sorely missed. It would suit this room, and larger groups of diners, remarkably well.

Service

Service was warm and plentiful; if anything, the floor felt generously staffed. The senior team was knowledgeable, courteous and occasionally a shade more eager than the moment required. The serving staff seemed not yet at ease on the floor, and a little removed from the evening unfolding around them. It felt less a matter of attitude than of confidence still waiting to be drawn out.

A few moments underlined this. At quieter points, staff gathered at the service counters or fell into small talk near the entrance. During a busier spell, instructions were called loudly across the room, well within earshot of diners. None of it was significant on its own, but in a fine-dining room, the choreography behind the scenes is meant to stay behind the scenes.

These details matter more than they might seem. In hospitality, the guest’s experience of a brand is shaped most by the people lower down the hierarchy, the ones guests tend to interact with the most, whether on a shop floor, in an aircraft cabin or at a fine-dining table. Those people are the brand’s truest ambassadors. When they are given a sense of ownership and pride in their role, it shows. The finest training goes beyond templates and checklists; it draws out the individual personality and spark that turn good service into something guests remember.

Two smaller moments came at the close of the evening. A discrepancy on the invoice needed pointing out, and it was corrected promptly and graciously. Such things happen. The team was also keen to gather our feedback at the table, by way of a finely printed form that takes a few minutes to complete. The intention is a good one, though after a long and leisurely meal it can feel like a task. A quiet word from the chef, stopping by the tables at the end of service to hear first-hand how the meal had landed, would have felt far warmer. A personal note in the guest’s inbox the following day, with a feedback form, followed by a brief courtesy call, might then complete the loop rather than rush it.

XO & Mì has the warmth and the will. What remains a work in progress is that seamless quality of the very best hospitality, where genuine passion sits beneath communication, timing, presentation and practice so assured that nothing seems out of place.

In Search of Surprise

This is the larger reflection, and it is not meant to single out a particular restaurant. Anyone who eats out seriously in India will tell you that the most memorable meals are usually found outside five-star and seven-star settings. One can dine at the finest room in a luxury hotel and still leave with the sense that the menu has played it safe. Contrast this with a city like Bangkok, where almost every high-street corner seems to hold a kitchen worthy of a Michelin nod. Not for the food alone, but for its daring: the willingness to experiment, and to leave you with a lingering memory of flavour, texture and sensation.

The menu at XO & Mì speaks of bold flavours and innovative twists. In our experience of the evening, those were hard to find. The building blocks are certainly present. Miso, gochujang and black bean all make an appearance, but as seasoning rather than as the heart of a dish. Nothing we savoured took a humble ingredient and elevated it through modern technique, whether house fermentation, dehydration or a deliberate, complex layering of umami. We did not try everything, and the menu may well hold an exception or two.

The clearest gap is in what plant-based cooking can do beyond the familiar. Mock meats, and the craft of giving plant ingredients the depth, bite and savouriness of meat, are still rarely explored at Delhi’s high end. A kitchen with the resources of XO & Mì is well placed to lead here, and it would set the restaurant apart. For now, it has chosen the more familiar path. Everything arrived as expected; little stayed with us the day after.

At a glance

We reserved through EazyDiner and paid for the meal directly, since the restaurant extended an offer to match the EazyDiner Prime discount. Bill value: INR 15,098. Amount paid: INR 7,549.06.