NoMa Favorite Indigo Scraps Expansion Plans in Brookland

The owners of casual Indian restaurant Indigo tell Eater they’ve pulled out of a spin-off eatery still taking shape in neighboring Brookland.

Indigo co-founder Dinesh Tandon says he and his wife, chef Nidhi Tandon, have split from other family members still working to open a new Indian restaurant at 3301 12th Street NE.

“We are announcing our dismissal from the Brookland venture,” Dinesh Tandon wrote in an email. Although he and Nidhi have been working on what they called Indigo Chapter 2 since last fall, they’ve cut ties with the forthcoming eatery due to, among other things, concerns about putting out an inferior product. With a loyal following at stake — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a fan — Dinesh Tandon says he could not “compromise on the quality and the name that we built for ourselves.”

“Me and my wife will come stronger out of this, but as for now we [are] gonna have to ask all our friends who were looking forward to our opening the Chapter 2 in Brookland to try to understand our pressures and excuse us for not being able to deliver as planned,” he wrote.

No word on what the substitute Indian restaurant still on the way will be called or when it might debut.

For now, Dinesh Tandon says he’ll continue to focus on the neighborhood restaurant he’s steadily built up (the festively lit patio now boasts a dedicated bar) in NoMa since late 2013. Developing a second spot remains a priority, but right now, Dinesh Tandon just really wants to regroup.

“We are still interested but we will take some time to retrieve ourselves from the (emotional) turmoil,” he wrote.