The Verdict
The Garden of Five Senses is a 20-acre public garden complex in Mehrauli, built on land near the Qutub Minar complex that has been inhabited since the 12th century. The garden itself — designed with specific reference to the five sensory experiences that ancient Indian garden design was built to produce — provides Magique with an environment that is impossible to manufacture: ancient stone, mature trees, night-blooming plants, and the particular quality of air in a Mehrauli evening in November when the Delhi winter is arriving from the northwest.
The restaurant works in the French classical tradition — it is not attempting to be the most technically sophisticated kitchen in Delhi, and the menu does not pretend otherwise. What Magique does is produce a French tasting menu of consistent quality, in the correct setting, with service that is warm and attentive, at a price point that compares favourably with the city's hotel dining rooms. The seasonal adjustments reflect the Delhi rhythm — a lighter summer menu that accounts for the heat, a richer winter menu that responds to the cold that makes the outdoor terrace viable.
The outdoor terrace, available from October through March, is the restaurant's defining feature in the winter season: candlelit, surrounded by the garden's planting, with the city's noise reduced to an ambient background and the winter stars visible overhead in a way that Delhi's pollution rarely permits. The indoor dining room — warm, wood-panelled, with an open fireplace — provides the alternative when the evenings drop below comfortable outdoor temperature.
Why It Works for First Dates
Magique in winter is Delhi's best first-date setting without qualification. The garden context removes the formality that hotel dining rooms impose; the French cuisine provides the structure that a first dinner together requires; the outdoor terrace in November or December provides an environment where the conversation flows naturally and the evening extends beyond what a city restaurant usually permits. The booking itself communicates knowledge of Delhi that the ordinary visitor does not possess — knowledge that the person across the table will notice.
Related Dining in New Delhi
For further exceptional dining in New Delhi, explore our full guide: All New Delhi Restaurants. For occasion-specific recommendations across Asia, see our Impress Clients and Proposal guides.