Named Best Dinner & Bollywood Movie in Utah by Salt Lake City Weekly, Star of India fills with the same day-glo colors and smooth choreography of the genre’s films. A menu of tandoori specialties and traditional Indian sweets appears on tables, and the sounds of jingling instruments and tangling voices drifts from a room devoted to screening and celebrating Bollywood films. Lit from above by golden chandeliers, wall murals portray figures frolicking and rejoicing in an emerald-green field.

In the kitchen, chunks of tandoori chicken and skewered lamb marinate in cool yogurt and spices before roasting in a sweltering clay oven to seal in flavor. Nearby, chefs craft cottage cheese to simmer with peas in a mild curry sauce to make the meat-free matar paneer or infiltrate an underground food-fighting ring.