After its beginnings and a long run at its former Memorial Boulevard home, the Clay Pit lives on and keeps the naan coming, now serving the cuisine of India from its location on Broad Street, just off of Clark Boulevard.

The Clay Pit, Murfreesboro’s original Indian restaurant (now, at least four other establishments focusing on Indian food have opened in the town) opened in its current home in 2022.

“The butter chicken and chicken vindaloo were exceptional, each bursting with rich flavors,” said a recent customer, Michael. “Paired with their garlic naan bread, the meal was nothing short of spectacular. If you’re a fan of Indian cuisine or simply looking to try something new, I highly recommend giving The Clay Pit a try.”

Many others rave about that butter chicken. While the restaurant does offer a full lunch and dinner menu containing a wide assortment of various chicken, seafood, lamb, goat and vegetarian options, the lunch buffet, available each day from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., makes a quick, hot, nutritious and flavorful lunch—and for $11.99 quite the all-you-can-eat value.

Photos by Sarah Mayo

Walk right in and the chicken tikka masala awaits on the hot bar. A server asks a diner if he would like plain or garlic naan, a light and buttery bread cooked hot to order and brought to the table. The naan bread reminds an eater of the crust of a thin brick-oven pizza—toasty, buttery, slightly charred, served hot, with or without garlic.

The Clay Pit lunch bar may not be the most massive buffet in town, but it has plenty of quality items to try. There’s the tandoori chicken—a good smoky, bone-in chicken grilled in the clay oven—tasty, yellow, spicy shredded cabbage; the famous mild chicken tikka masala, swimming in its warm tomato sauce; a spicier chicken curry and more.

I very much enjoy that creamy, garlicky spinach (saag)—so good on the bread.

The buffet also contains pakoras—vegetables battered and deep fried, resulting in a fritter-like creation—lentils.

“There is always an excellent selection on the buffet,” said Evelyn Kent, praising the “clean, elegant restaurant and delicious food.”

Further exploring the buffet leads a diner to try a delicious lamb dish in a gravy, similar to the roast beef that many Tennessee diners may be more accustomed to (though beef is not common in Indian cuisine; in fact, many parts of the country have religion-based laws against serving beef or slaughtering cattle).

The chicken vindaloo contains cubes of chicken cooked in a spicy sauce with potatoes, ginger and garlic—a specialty of the southwest Indian state of Goa, formerly a Portuguese colony, according to the Clay Pit.

The paneer tikka masala is similar to the chicken tikka masala, but a vegetarian alternative with cubes of cottage cheese in the flavorful tomato sauce.

Find all of these on the lunch buffet, along with an herby chickpea dish known as channa masala, salad and rice, making it a good introduction to Indian food for the uninitiated—a “great selection,” according to Erin Rowland. “A really good balance of vegetarian and meat options, and plenty for folks who can’t handle spice.”

For something sweet, some lovely and fragrant reduced milk balls served in rose-flavored sugar syrup with a touch of cardamom, a dessert dish known as gulab jamun. End a meal with these little sweet treats to counter some of the rich and spicy savory dishes

Newcomers need not feel intimidated trying to figure out what to order from the menu. The lunch buffet provides an easy opportunity to dip one’s toes into the waters of Indian cuisine and sample various items. Invest only $12 in the buffet experience and discover that Indian food doesn’t have to be incredibly spicy.

Even a local young man who often hesitates to venture too far from cheeseburgers and fries admits that the naan and tandoor chicken are pretty tasty.

The somewhat puree-like consistency of some of the dishes may give some diners pause, but cover some rice in some of the sauces and broths or dip some bread in them and experience some of the fantastic flavors.

“Personally, I prefer quite a bit more spice, but it was tasty. I think the buffet is a nice safe place for newcomers to try Indian food for the first time,” Doug Austin posted in a review of the Clay Pit. “Next time I come I will order off the menu to spice things up.”

The Broad Street location appears a definite step up in atmosphere from the Clay Pit’s former restaurant, being more modern, clean, roomier and well lit. The place smells wonderful with scents of seasonings filling the air as the indie folk-rock of the early 2000s plays and fish swim in a beautiful aquarium near the entrance.

Even a large meal at the buffet feels like a fairly healthy affair, consisting mainly of lean meat, rice and vegetable-based items.

Aside from the buffet, the sizeable Clay Pit menu contains various soups, biryani (rice casseroles with choice of meat), shrimp mango curry, cheese naan, kababs, fried rice, a pistachio kulfi (a thick ice cream) and all sorts of dishes to explore, continuing the Indian cuisine tradition that Clay Pit founder Balbir Darar brought to Murfreesboro over 20 years ago.

The Clay Pit Indian Cuisine
1312 NW Broad St.
Sun.–Thurs.: 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m.; Fri.–Sat.: 11 a.m.–10 p.m.
Lunch buffet: $11.99; Chicken tikka masala, vindaloo, jalfrezi, curry, malai methi or butter chicken: $16.99; Lamb seek kabab: $17.99; Lamb or goat rogan josh: $19.99; Samosa chaat: $7.99; Chicken or lamb man chow soup $7.99; Lentil or corn soup: $5.99
615-962-9602
theclaypitrestaurant.com