Kachori, a smart new Indian restaurant, opened this week at the Elephant Park development scheme in southeast London, with a kitchen run by highly rated Brinder Narula, a former head chef at Gymkhana and Benares. Named after the savoury or sweet-stuffed deep-fried batter balls sold as snacks in India, Kachori describes itself as a modern […]
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 […]
Brighton’s Chilli Pickle has reached its £700,000 crowdfunding target to bankroll an expansion into four “affulent market towns” in southern England. The first new branch is expected to open this summer. Chef Alun Sperring and his wife Dawn opened the original Chilli Pickle, serving authentic regional Indian cuisine, in Brighton’s Lanes in 2007. Having twice outgrown its surroundings […]
Chef-entrepreneur Atul Kocchar will open his first UK restaurant under the Not Real Indian (NRI) brand in Birmingham this September, serving cuisine developed by Indian cooks living abroad. Born in India and trained with the Oberoi group, Kocchar made him name at Tamarind in London and in 2003 opened his Mayfair flagship Benares. He launched NRI in Mumbai last year, and […]
⦿ 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 […]
Chef Atul Kochhar of Benares – Mayfair’s well-known ‘nouvelle Indian’ – is turning the tables by launching his first restaurant to celebrate British food — and in a quintessentially English setting. Hawkyns opens on January 15 inside the marvellously traditional Crown Inn in Amersham. (It is named after Sir William Hawkyns, apparently a representative of the […]
The humble chop – or should that be the mighty chop? – is having a moment, appearing in the name of two new London restaurants. The Tandoor Chop House in Covent Garden, which opens on November 28, is described as “the meeting of a North Indian communal eatery and a classic British chop house”. Its […]
Veteran restaurateur Rajesh Suri, formerly of Tamarind, the smart Mayfair Indian, is to open a new venture, Grand Trunk Road in South Woodford, northeast London, on Monday November 7. The menu will reflect cooking in the towns found along the Grand Trunk Road, the ancient route across northern India running from Kabul in Afghanistan southeast to Calcutta in […]
Modern Gujerati-inspired pioneer Indian Summer in Brighton is celebrating its 15th anniversary in November with a month-long range of offers, events and competitions. Diners can choose two courses for £15 on Mondays; a table will be chosen at random for a £15 for two courses voucher each night; there will be a free raffle; and an Indian […]
⦿ Marina O’Loughlin of The Guardian reviewed Jikoni 7/10 in Marylebone, the first restaurant from “chic and beautiful” TV chef and writer Ravinder Bhogal, which she found “immensely girly“. “Jewel-coloured saris and handmade Indian tablecloths notwithstanding, the girliest element is the food, which is light years from the usual Brit curry machismo… You can’t escape the cuteness: […]
