Sydney's tandoor restaurant.
One clay oven. Packed with coal. Fired to 450°C by five o'clock. Ten years of pulling kebabs, breads and vegetables off the wall to order. At Kebabiya, Sky City Bella Vista.
A tandoor is a four-hundred-year-old piece of engineering: a bell-shaped clay pot buried into a workbench, packed with hot coals at the bottom, radiating heat from every wall at nearly five hundred degrees. It caramelises marinade in seconds, sears meat before it can dry, and smokes everything on the way up as the fat drips back down onto the coals.
Gas grills approximate it. Electric ovens don't come close. There are fewer than a handful of proper coal tandoors running in Sydney tonight. Ours is one of them, and it's been running since 2014.
450°C by 5pm
The pit is lit two hours before service, brought up slowly, and stays hot until the last order goes down. No cold starts, no reheats.
Coal, not gas
Charcoal at the base, banked against the walls. Meat fat drips down and smokes back up. That smoke is on every plate that comes out.
One person, one pit
Our tandoor chef stands at the pit for the entire service. Nothing off the tandoor is finished on another station. That's the discipline.
Tandoori Chicken (Whole & Half)
PoultryOvernight yoghurt marinade, six-spice rub, 450°C clay tandoor. The dish the tandoor was invented to cook. Plated whole.
Lamb Chops (Barrah Kebab)
LambFrench-trimmed cutlets, 24-hour marinade, pulled from the pit at pink centre. Rendered fat, charred edge, the kebab everyone photographs.
Seekh Patiala Shahi
LambHand-minced lamb, royal cumin, fenugreek, mint. Moulded raw onto the skewer in front of the pit — never pre-cooked.
Malai Tikka
PoultryChicken thigh in cream, cheese, white pepper, green cardamom. Ivory off the skewer. The 'not spicy' kebab worth ordering.
Fish Tikka
Seafood · Halal-sourcedFirm white fish in ginger, lime, mustard oil. Ninety seconds in the pit. Timed to the second — thirty too long ruins it.
Paneer Tikka
VegetarianHouse-set paneer, capsicum, onion, yoghurt-and-carom marinade. The vegetarian tandoor plate the whole table shares.
Tandoori Broccoli
VeganBroccoli in ginger-garlic pickle-oil, charred hard, finished with chaat masala. Vegan, gluten-free, on almost every table.
Naan · Roti · Kulcha · Paratha
BreadsEvery bread is slapped into the tandoor wall to order. Garlic naan, keema naan, laccha paratha, ajwain roti, cheese kulcha. Never held on the pass.
Beyond the pit.
- · All Indian kebabs — the tandoor list
- · Tandoori chicken — the dish page
- · Sealed-pot biryani
- · Regional Indian curries
- · Why Kebabiya — a decade of live fire
Tandoor questions.
- What is a tandoor and does Kebabiya use a real one?
- A tandoor is a bell-shaped clay oven fired with coals or wood that runs at 450°C. The heat radiates from every wall and the fat drips onto the coals to smoke the meat from below. Kebabiya has run a coal-and-clay tandoor at Bella Vista since 2014 — not a gas grill, not an electric oven.
- What's on your tandoori menu?
- Eight kebabs (seekh, barrah, tandoori chicken, malai, galouti, reshmi, fish, paneer), vegetarian and vegan tandoor plates (tandoori broccoli, paneer tikka, cauliflower), and every naan, roti, paratha and kulcha slapped into the oven wall to order.
- Is the tandoor visible from the dining room?
- Yes. Our kitchen is semi-open. From most tables you can see the tandoor chef pulling naan off the wall and skewers out of the pit. Ask for a seat near the pass if you want a closer view.
- Where in Sydney can I book a tandoor restaurant for a group?
- Kebabiya Bella Vista seats groups of 8–20 with a phone call and accommodates larger private events with our metre-long tandoor platters. Free undercover parking at Sky City, six minutes from Castle Hill and fifteen from Rouse Hill.
- Can I order tandoor dishes for delivery?
- Yes — our tandoor dishes travel well because they're low-moisture and high-char. Order direct (no platform fees) or via Uber Eats and DoorDash across the Hills District.