Dishoom

Dishoom pays loving homage to the Irani cafés that were once part of the fabric of life in Bombay. Opened early last century by Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran, there were almost four hundred of these cafés at their peak in the 1960s. Now fewer than thirty remain.

Dishoom | Bombay Café

The Old Irani Cafés of Bombay have almost all disappeared.

Bentwood chairs were reflected in stained mirrors, next to sepia family portraits.

Families dined.

Opened early last century by Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran, there were almost four hundred cafés at their peak in the 1960s.

http://www.dishoom.com

Dishoom Covent Garden Review – IAMNRC

Dishoom - London Restaurant Reviews | Hardens

A smart and comfortable chain-prototype Indian, which makes a very useful addition to the West End.

Service is certainly friendly, but on our visit it was a bit disjointed, with drinks we hadn't asked for being brought to the table, and the service of a wrong dish.

The food on our visit was remarkable largely for being Indian: Indian food may be widely available in the UK, but usually from independents, rather than from chains or proto-chains.

Is this the best Indian food in Covent Garden?

The answer to the right question - is this comfortable restaurant a really useful addition to the dining possibilities of London's ever more glittering West End?

Night at the Bombay Roxy, Dishoom Kensington, review: 'a delicious ...

The restaurant is housed in the Art Deco Barkers building, and so the restaurant gorgeously recreates a Bombay Art Deco building of the 1940s, all curved glass and vintage brass.

The story goes that Irani, a petty criminal nonetheless unjustly banged up for crimes he didn’t commit, is now out and trying to make a fresh start by opening a restaurant-cum-nightclub, serving up hot curry and hotter jazz.

But the police are still on his tail, there’s an escaped criminal on the loose, and his wife, who sings jazz to customers, might also be singing to the police… The pleasing thing here is that this is no flimsy pop-up: the restaurant itself is sumptuously designed, and these guys know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to serving up a generous, gut-stretching three courses of delicious Bombay dishes.

Night at the Bombay Roxy makes for a happy marriage of venue and story, where one genuinely enhances the other, coming together to form a delicious night out.

‘Night at the Bombay Roxy’ is at Dishoom Kensington till 14 December

Dishoom, London WC2, restaurant review - Telegraph

P carried on with the spicy lamb chops (£9.70) – black pepper, chilli, cumin and coriander, garlic for sure, salt in a pleasing amount, everything perfectly balanced.

I ordered the chicken tikka (£6.50), the grilled vegetables (£6.50), some naan (£1.90), some funny stretchy pancake bread (roti, £1.70) and some black dal (£4.50).

The tangy dressing on the vegetables was really a mulch of fresh coriander, spring onions and more garlic.

I didn't go crazy for the roti (a bit tasteless, like diet food), but I did for the naan; it had the same quality as those samosas, namely that it could not have got faster from the pan to the table had the chef lobbed it at us.

P had the vanilla yogurt on fresh mango (£4.50), and this was not, as the yoot say, all that.

Vegetarian London: Dishoom King's Cross Restaurant Review ...

The much-loved Dishoom brand (it was voted Yelp’s ‘UK’s best restaurant’ earlier this year) is a widely-publicised homage to the ‘Irani cafés' set up by Zoroastrian Iranian immigrants in the early 20th century in what was then called Bombay.

Owned by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, Dishoom captures this fascinating period in Indian history: it’s a romanticised nostalgia-fest of design, concept and, to some extent, the food — viewed through a 21th century London lens.

In further myth-making for the restaurant, some of Bombay’s Irani cafés had once started out in similar transit sheds.

The restaurant menu, written with a touch of of ‘Bombay English’, is a seemingly random mish-mash of small and large plates, street food items, meaty grills, roti wraps, salads, vegetable dishes, rice and bread.

The signature black dahl, a rich special-occasion dish made from whole black urid lentils, is smooth, buttery and creamy with a depth of flavour and a velvety mouthfeel that comes from genuinely being slow-simmered overnight (many Indian restaurants only claim to do so).

Dishoom restaurant review 2011 July London | Indian Cuisine | food ...

The first sign that this was a place making some effort were the chutneys: mint, tamarind and chill chutney were not from a jar but were made from scratch, the chilli chutney in particular excellent.

This was frustrating since there were good elements (the fish fingers, the replaced roti) that indicate that the kitchen can deliver when it has a mind to.

Dishoom is wildly popular and perhaps the kitchen was stressed tonight, but this was not a good performance.

As a bonus they make romali roti, my favourite Indian bread (the only other place I am aware of that does this is The Brilliant in Southall, though it is common in India).

The nice thing about Dishoom is that it has opened in an area that is almost utterly devoid of decent Indian restaurants, so is particularly welcome.

Night at the Bombay Roxy, Dishoom Kensington, review: 'a delicious ...

The restaurant is housed in the Art Deco Barkers building, and so the restaurant gorgeously recreates a Bombay Art Deco building of the 1940s, all curved glass and vintage brass.

The story goes that Irani, a petty criminal nonetheless unjustly banged up for crimes he didn’t commit, is now out and trying to make a fresh start by opening a restaurant-cum-nightclub, serving up hot curry and hotter jazz.

But the police are still on his tail, there’s an escaped criminal on the loose, and his wife, who sings jazz to customers, might also be singing to the police… The pleasing thing here is that this is no flimsy pop-up: the restaurant itself is sumptuously designed, and these guys know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to serving up a generous, gut-stretching three courses of delicious Bombay dishes.

Night at the Bombay Roxy makes for a happy marriage of venue and story, where one genuinely enhances the other, coming together to form a delicious night out.

‘Night at the Bombay Roxy’ is at Dishoom Kensington till 14 December

Dishoom, London WC2, restaurant review - Telegraph

P carried on with the spicy lamb chops (£9.70) – black pepper, chilli, cumin and coriander, garlic for sure, salt in a pleasing amount, everything perfectly balanced.

I ordered the chicken tikka (£6.50), the grilled vegetables (£6.50), some naan (£1.90), some funny stretchy pancake bread (roti, £1.70) and some black dal (£4.50).

The tangy dressing on the vegetables was really a mulch of fresh coriander, spring onions and more garlic.

I didn't go crazy for the roti (a bit tasteless, like diet food), but I did for the naan; it had the same quality as those samosas, namely that it could not have got faster from the pan to the table had the chef lobbed it at us.

P had the vanilla yogurt on fresh mango (£4.50), and this was not, as the yoot say, all that.

Restaurant review: Dishoom | Life and style | The Guardian

Meal for two, including wine and service £70 Dishoom, a new, self-styled Bombay Café in London's West End, feels like the answer to a question nobody is asking.

That question is: where do you go to eat if you fancy Indian food but are tired of your local curry house?

The room, with its open kitchen and bustling, young, mostly non-Indian waiters, has a jolly buzz and when they bring all of us in the queue a glass of hot chai – sweet milky tea flavoured with cardamom – I begin to hope that everything will be fine.

From the list marked "small plates", the most successful is the Dishoom calamari, even if it is dependent on the high street fast-food virtues of breadcrumbs, deep-fat frying and a slick of something tooth-achingly sweet.

So if you had a bottle of wine or beers you would quickly be paying £70 for two, which is quite a lot more than your high street curry house.

Dishoom Kensington restaurant review - London, UK | Wallpaper*

The winning formula is still there: show-stopping Indian cuisine served in a space inspired by the old Irani cafés of Bombay.

Dishoom Kensington, however, takes this journey one step further and draws design cues from the city’s abounding art deco architecture, created by the first generation of modern Indian architects in the 1940s.

Based in the art deco Barkers Building, the restaurant includes a bar, a 200-seat dining hall and an open kitchen.

Architecture studio Macaulay Sinclair has filled the restaurant with original period furniture, art and light fixtures sourced in Bombay and a number of striking bespoke features including stone frieze panels, marble monogram insets and, in a further nod to the era, which also heralded Bombay’s jazz age, original photographs of jazz icons.

With ‘hot jazz’ humming in the background, the sweltering heat of Bombay nights seems closer than ever.