Spice levels: asking for what you want
"Medium" is not a fixed quantity. It's the kitchen's guess about you — and that guess changes depending on the restaurant, the country and, frankly, what you look like.
What the words tend to mean
| Mild | Flavoured but not hot. Korma, butter chicken, malai dishes are mild by construction, not by adjustment |
| Medium | Noticeable heat that builds. In most places this is the honest default |
| Hot | Front-loaded heat. Still meant to be eaten, not endured |
| "Indian hot" / "as you'd eat it" | Ask for this only if you mean it. It is a different order of magnitude and the kitchen will take you at your word |
How to ask, without the dance
- Be specific rather than brave. "Mild for two of us, medium for the others" is a normal, easy request. Nobody is judging you.
- Pick dishes that are mild by design instead of asking for a hot dish to be defused. A korma made mild is a korma; a vindaloo made mild is a sad vindaloo.
- Order the cooling things. Raita, plain rice, a lassi. This is how the meal was designed to be balanced in the first place.
- Children. Dal, plain rice, curd, paratha, idli, plain naan and tandoori chicken without the marinade rub are the reliable ones.
Water makes it worse — capsaicin doesn't dissolve in water, so you're just spreading it. Reach for yoghurt, milk, lassi, rice, bread or something sweet. And do say something: any decent kitchen would rather remake a dish than have you push it aside.
Heat isn't one thing
Green chilli is bright and fast and fades. Dried red chilli is deeper and slower. Black pepper — which carried the heat in this food long before chillies arrived from the Americas in the sixteenth century — is warm and sits at the back of the throat. A dish can be strongly spiced and barely hot at all: the spice guide separates the two properly.
Restaurants differ enormously — by region, by owner and by country. This describes what is common enough to expect, not a rule every kitchen follows.
See also: desi spice guide: what each spice actually does · indian restaurant menu, decoded · how to order for a table
Last updated: 2026-08-12
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