Evening Standard
Jimi Famurewa was the first critic to the latest opening from all-conquering JKS Restaurants – this one a “typically fine-drawn love letter to the princely flavours and riotous drinking traditions of the undivided Punjab”, a “maximalist sanctuary” in busy Heddon Street inspired by the Sethi siblings’ maternal grandfather’s Himalayan holiday home – “all filigreed jewel box interior, riveted vault doors and bustling patterns”
Jimi hinted at a possible limitation: that something of a formula has developed among what he called London’s “world-beating contemporary Indian” restaurants – “squint and you could be in Gymkhana, Brigadiers or other, non-JKS businesses like Gunpowder, Jamavar and Dishoom”.
Any misgivings he had were soon swept aside by the “confidence, swagger and boldness” of the cooking, displayed in dishes like Hariyali keema made with rabbit and a “transcendent Ajwaini warqi naan that combines smoky char, fragrant carom seeds and the buttery flakiness of roti canai… Despite the gloss, you get the constant sense of deep emotional investment, light experimentation and restaurateurs that are enjoying themselves”.
Jimi Famurewa - 2024-09-08The Guardian
Grace Dent followed Jimi into print a day or two later – broadly agreeing with his positive take on a restaurant she described as a “paean to grandness, cocktails and snacking” and a place that “seemingly wants to lead you astray, with three types of margaritas, one of which you can buy by the 1½-litre bottle for £200”.
Overall, she reckoned it “handy, ostensibly fancy but still semi-affordable, open late and easier to get into than Gymkhana, which reportedly has a waiting list of about 1,000 every evening”.
The food was “authentic” – not Anglified, Frenchified or anything else-ified, with a menu full of Indian names and terminology – rich and delicious, although for Grace “the real fun was in the opening papads, chaats and ‘bitings’ sections, which feature nine small snacky plates of joy to pick at, scoop through and share”, including a basket of mutton keema naan with a dipping bowl of bone marrow masala.
And while Jimi held out against dessert, Grace manned up for all our sakes to sample a mango angoori rasmalai with mango mousse – “It’s very refreshing,” she was assured by the insistent waiter. “Reader, this was a bowl of sweet, plump milky mango dumplings crowned with God-tier whipped mango cream.”
Grace Dent - 2024-09-08The Times
Giles Coren led a posse of fellow reviewers, including “the original and best London Evening Standard restaurant critic, Fay Maschler (1972-2020), and the newly appointed, indeed self-appointed one, David Ellis (2024 onwards)”, to dinner at the latest venture from the JKS group on an “enormous site” in “now rather Dubai-ified” Heddon Street.
A “baroque hymn to the banqueting traditions of pre-partition Punjab”, it is “another nail in the coffin for the bog standard curry house” – whose numbers, Giles noted, have dwindled from 12,000 in 2011 to about 8,000 today, in parallel to the rise of previous JKS restaurants Trishna and Gymkhana among other smart new-wave Indians including Dishoom and “desi pub” the Three Falcons.
The food was all “fanastic”, from papads and chutneys, via “Bitings” such as chilli cheese pakode, nargisi chicken koftas and mutton keema nan, to a “magical masaledar lamb biryani (£28) which could have fed 12, with its sweet, melting lamb buried like treasure in a rice and onion and pine nut lucky dip” – all served on “insanely lavish” tableware.
All in all, then, for Giles and his party, “a top cuzza boss night”.
Giles Coren - 2024-10-13
