place of the week: Dishoom, a Bombay café in London
12th March 2015
We visited Dishoom in January for my brother’s birthday, and ever since then I have been thinking about how yummy the food was so I thought I must tell you about it. There is a good chance you may already know about Dishoom as it has just been awarded Yelp’s ‘number one restaurant in the UK’ award, super impressive and well deserved I think. Dishoom now have three restaurants across London; Shoreditch, Kings Cross and we picked to try out the Covent Garden branch.
I can see why Dishoom is so popular with everyone who goes, it’s so different, so stylish and the food is so delicious. It’s not your regular curry house, in fact nowhere near, it’s a Bombayan experience with an authentic vibe and bustling atmosphere from morning to night. They serve up Bombay breakfast, lunch, afternoon chai, dinner & cocktails.
The owners of Dishoom say their quirky restaurants are “inspired by the original Bombay café’s – The old Irani café’s of Bombay have almost all disappeared. Their faded elegance welcomed all: rich businessmen, sweaty taxi-wallas and courting couples. Fans turned slowly. Bentwood chairs were reflected in stained mirrors, next to sepia family portraits. Students had breakfast. Families dined. Lawyers read briefs. Writers found their characters.”
I love love love the design of the Dishoom restaurants. The interiors have a cool and retro feel with an amazing big open kitchen, old school ceiling fans, tall shutters, dark wooden tables topped with luxurious marble and beautiful industrial lighting hanging from the super high ceilings. The black and white tiled floor is perfect and the walls are adorned with vintage Indian magazine cuttings and family photos. Super stylish.
Dishoom promote the idea to order lots of different small plates for your table and share them, I love this and it’s exactly what we did. The menu has just the right amount of dishes, all very reasonably priced, you don’t have to flick through a ton of pages and you don’t get that overwhelming feeling of not knowing what on earth to pick! (not that I ever really experience that as I’m very boring and usually opt for the Korma, sorry mum!!)
There was no Korma to be seen on the Dishoom menu, but there was a beautiful selection of traditional Bombay dishes which really did all sound delicious. We went for the ‘Black House Daahl’, which was recommended by our very lovely and knowledgable waiter, it was amazingly tasty and creamy. We also tried the ‘Chicken Ruby’ a good old chicken curry with heaps of flavour, the ‘Sheekh lamb kebab’ with some yummy and cooling ‘Raita’ and a gorgeous chicken ‘Biryani’ served in a cute little clay pot. Of course it wouldn’t be an Indian feast without a couple of fresh roti’s and naan breads, yum.
Dishoom do not take reservations in the evening for parties of less than 6 so we did have to wait about fifteen minutes for a table, we didn’t mind at all though, they have a lovely cocktail bar downstairs so we enjoyed a drink before we were seated. As well as cocktails, Dishoom serve up some unusual Indian beers and they even make their own coca cola, beautiful Lassi concoctions and hot spiced chai.
The Dishoom website is really nice too and definitely worth checking out. They have their own blog where they post the most beautiful pictures and stories and recipes and news, I love how they call it their ‘journal’, what a lovely name for a blog. Dishoom also made a pretty cool time-lapse video of the making of their Kings Cross branch, check it out here.
We had such a great night at Dishoom, I love everything about them, from the food, to the style, the branding and just the whole ethos of the company. Definitely worth checking out I think!
p.s If you were wondering what ‘Dishoom’ means, it’s apparently the Indian word used in Bollywood films to represent the sound made when the hero’s fist hits the flesh of an opponent, just like the English word ‘Kapow!’
picture credit: Dishoom
