Eylan

The Verdict

Three restaurants in, chef Srijith Gopinathan and restaurateur Ayesha Thapar have established a consistent track record across the Bay Area — and Eylan, their Menlo Park debut, earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2025 alongside a San Francisco Chronicle Leading New Bay Area Restaurants nod the same year. At $$$ for cuisine and $$ for the overall experience, this is Indian cooking that punches well above its Peninsula address. If you are already a fan of Ettan or Copra, Eylan is a direct addition to your rotation. If this is your first encounter with the Gopinathan-Thapar collaboration, it is a good place to start.

Portrait

Eylan opened as the anchor restaurant of a mixed-use development on El Camino Real — condos, luxury watch retail, and a dining room that aims to reframe what Indian food looks like in suburban Silicon Valley. The setting is deliberate: this is not a neighborhood curry house filling a gap in the market. It is a considered restaurant project from operators who have already proven themselves twice over, planted in a location that serves both the affluent residential community around Menlo Park and the wider Peninsula dining circuit.

The room signals ambition before the food arrives. Anchoring a development that mixes residential and retail, Eylan is designed to read as a destination rather than a convenience stop. That visual positioning matters here because the food program supports it. Gopinathan's approach at previous collaborations with Thapar has centered on ingredient specificity , the sourcing logic that distinguishes a kitchen treating Indian cuisine as a fine-dining framework from one treating it as comfort-food shorthand. At Eylan, that philosophy continues. The menu's price point ($$$ per two-course meal, over $66 per head) reflects a kitchen sourcing with intent, not simply charging a premium for the postcode.

Wine Director Andre Sydnor and Sommelier Alex James Doughty run a list of 230 selections from a 2,000-bottle inventory, with particular strength in France and California. The list is priced at $$$, meaning you should expect many bottles above $100, and the corkage fee sits at $65 if you bring your own. Star Wine List awarded Eylan a White Star as of April 2025 , a meaningful credential for a restaurant less than two years old. For a food-forward Indian restaurant on the Peninsula, that wine program depth is notable: most comparable Indian restaurants in the Bay Area do not invest at this level in the cellar. If wine pairing is part of how you dine, Eylan is a better call than most of its regional peers.

The Bib Gourmand designation from Michelin is worth contextualizing. Michelin awards the Bib to restaurants delivering quality above expectation at a moderate price , but Eylan's cuisine pricing at $$$ (above $66 for two courses) sits at the upper edge of what the Bib typically recognizes. That tension is meaningful: it tells you the kitchen is delivering perceived value that overrides the sticker price in Michelin's eyes. For a diner trying to calibrate expectations, that is a useful signal. You are not eating cheaply here, but the award confirms the cooking justifies the spend.

This is Gopinathan and Thapar's third collaboration. Their first, Ettan in Palo Alto, put contemporary Indian cooking on the Peninsula map. Copra in San Francisco followed. Eylan represents the next chapter, but it does not require you to have done the homework on the earlier projects to appreciate it. The throughline is consistent: Indian culinary tradition treated as a serious fine-dining framework, with sourcing decisions that shape the menu rather than decorate it. If ingredient provenance and cooking technique are what you are paying for at comparable restaurants , say, [Single Thread Farm in Healdsburg](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/single-thread) or [The French Laundry in Napa](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/the-french-laundry) , Eylan operates in a related register, at a significantly lower price point.

For context on where Indian fine dining sits globally, restaurants like [Trèsind Studio in Dubai](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/trsind-studio-dubai-restaurant) and [Opheem in Birmingham](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/opheem-birmingham-restaurant) have demonstrated that the format can sustain the highest critical recognition. Eylan's Bib Gourmand in its first full year positions it as the Peninsula's strongest current entrant in that conversation. Google reviewers rate it 4.5 across 149 reviews , a solid early signal from a dining room that has not yet fully accumulated its audience.

Booking is rated Easy. On a weekend basis, you should be able to secure a table without the weeks-out lead time required at comparable San Francisco destinations like [Lazy Bear](https://www.joinpearl.co/restaurants/lazy-bear). That accessibility is part of Eylan's current value proposition: the cooking and wine program are operating at a level that would require more planning effort in a denser market.

For wider planning around your visit, see our full Menlo Park restaurants guide, our full Menlo Park hotels guide, our full Menlo Park bars guide, our full Menlo Park wineries guide, and our full Menlo Park experiences guide.