The Criterion in Piccadilly Circus, one of the West End’s most famous and lavish restaurant sites, is to re-open next month as a branch of the Indian restaurant Masala Zone. Designed by architect Thomas Verity in the Neo Byzantine style, the glittering, Grade II-listed Criterion opened in 1873 and hosted the movers and shakers of […]
Asma Khan has relaunched her Darjeeling Express as a pop-up in a Kensington pub while she looks for a new permanent site, having closed last month after less than two years in Covent Garden. The restaurant opened this week in its temporary siding at the Pembroke, almost next door to the Troubadour in the Old […]
Former Barnsbury pub The Cuckoo reopens today as The Tamil Prince, showcasing the food of Tamil Nadu on the southern tip of India. The transformation has been led by Tamil Nadu-born chef Prince Durairaj and former Bao operations manager Glen Leeson, who first worked together at Roti King. They are also the team behind Tamila, […]
A third-generation chef who virtually grew up in her family’s well-known Southall restaurant has opened a new central London venture under her own name. Dipna Anand Restaurant & Bar in Somerset House, the arts complex on the Strand, shares its Neoclassical accommodation with the Courtauld Gallery and Skye Gyngell’s highly related restaurant, Spring. The first […]
Mowgli, the Indian street food chain that has found extraordinary success since its launch in Liverpool seven years ago, opens its first branch in London next week, in Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia. Dubbed “Liverpool’s answer to Dishoom”, Mowgli was founded by former barrister Nisha Katona to showcase the sort of food that Indian people eat at […]
Chef Atul Kochhar’s long-planned temple to South Asian gastronomy, Mathura, will finally open next week (October 20) in the Grade II listed 1906 former Westminster Fire Station in Greycoat Place – around the corner from Vivek Singh’s Cinnamon Club, another grandee of Indian cuisine currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. The 200-cover restaurant was scheduled to […]
Indian restaurant mogul Anjan Chatterjee will open his first UK venture next month with the Marylebone launch of Chourangi, showcasing the cuisine of Kolkata. Chatterjee’s Speciality Restaurants Group has 130 venues in five countries across South Asia and the Middle East, with plans for expansion into Britain and North America. Chourangi, also spelt Chowringhee, is […]
Kricket, the modern British-Indian small-plates pioneer, is closing its original venue – a former shipping container in Brixton – at the end of May. Founders Rik Campbell and Will Bowlby opened their 20-seater in the Pop Brixton community project in June 2015, and expanded into permanent Soho premises earlier this year. They are now looking for a new site […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed Tandoor Chop House, an Indian “concept” restaurant off the Strand, where he found the quality of the food was mixed and the prices high. “The best dish is the Dexter ‘dripping’ keema naan, a charred flatbread piled with highly spiced minced beef. Black pepper chicken tikka brings sizable cuts of bird […]
⦿ The Observer’s Jay Rayner reviewed Jihwaja, “a hilariously brilliant new Korean place in London’s Vauxhall” where “I felt like I had been glazed inside and out by their sweet-salty chilli sauce.” “Fried chicken is completely outrageous: crisp in a way that echoes through your jaw and muffles chatters, salty and sweet and fiery. Seaweed rice balls, laced with […]
