The confusion is understandable. Both dishes are chicken, both are served in a sauce that is roughly orange-red, both appear under the heading 'chicken' on most menus. But ordering one when you wanted the other is like ordering a Bordeaux and receiving a Burgundy — the same grape region, entirely different everything.
The history of butter chicken (murgh makhani)
Butter chicken was invented at Moti Mahal restaurant in Delhi in the 1950s, almost certainly by accident. Kundan Lal Gujral, the founder, was looking for a way to use leftover tandoori chicken without letting it dry out. His chef mixed it into a sauce of tomatoes, butter, and cream. The result became one of the most widely eaten dishes on the planet.
The key technical fact about butter chicken: the chicken is cooked separately, at very high heat (traditionally in a tandoor), then added to a sauce that was made independently. The sauce is smooth, sweet with tomato, finished with cream, and relatively mild. The whole thing is an exercise in richness and accessibility.
What chicken curry actually is
Chicken curry is not one dish. It is a category. There are hundreds of chicken curries across India — each region has its own version, its own spice balance, its own technique. What they share is this: the chicken cooks in the sauce, not separately. The two things build flavour together. The chicken gives the sauce its depth. The sauce penetrates the chicken.
At Bhabhi, our chicken curry follows the North Indian dhaba style — onion-tomato masala base, whole spices, dark and smoky from long cooking, with a sauce that has texture and bite rather than smoothness.
- Butter chicken: chicken cooked separately, smooth creamy sauce, mild, sweet
- Chicken curry: chicken cooked in the sauce, textured gravy, deeper spice, more complexity
- Butter chicken pairs with naan — it needs bread to carry the sauce
- Chicken curry pairs equally well with rice — the sauce absorbs beautifully
- Butter chicken is a restaurant invention; chicken curry is a home kitchen tradition
Which should you order?
If you are new to Indian food, or eating with people who are cautious about spice, order butter chicken. It is a brilliant dish, rich and comforting, and there is a reason it became globally famous.
If you have eaten Indian food before and want to understand it more deeply — order the chicken curry. It is less famous but more revealing. It shows you what North Indian cooking actually tastes like when it is not being made accessible.
At Bhabhi, we serve both. We are proud of both. We will not tell you which one to order — but we will tell you to try them on separate visits, so you can taste the difference properly.
