Eating Indian In London
 

I can get excellent Indian food where I live - big city with lots of Indians here. But I have always heard that Indian food in in London is far better than the North American variety. Is this true? Given that there are so many restaurants and so little time, I'd prefer not to eat something I can get at home just as well.

Cafe Spice Namaste seems to get the most raves. Other possibilities seem to be Zaika and the Cinnamon Club.

Comments?

I've been to a reallly good Indian restaurant on Queeensway once. It's always crowded and noisy though!

Sadly, the last time I was in London, I tried to go back but I couldn't find it !

Perhaps someone from London knows what I am talking about?

It's on Queensway, really good, really noisy, Indian obviously, and soooo crowded! believe me, Iam not into crowded noisy restaurants at all, but it was very clean, and the food was good. It was a nice, different experience for me actually!

That sounds like Khan's..possibly.

However, you're quite right in saying that Zaika/Cinnamon Club aren't the norm. Both are excellent, but for ambience and surroundings I'd advise Cinnamon Club which is that much smarter - the food is excellent, and not all that madly expensive either.

My father has actually been there with fellow businessmen and some really wealthy people to eat there!

I wonder if English people of your status m_kingdom eat there?

If you are feeling adventurous, head out to Southall's Broadway, you'll find one good Indian restaurant after another. Somes recs here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...047636,00.html

I second m_kingdom’s recommendation for the Cinnamon Club. I was there last night and was delighted with the food (such subtle spicing and excellent presentation) and the service is and ambiance is superb.

To give you an idea of the menu: I started with Anjou Squab (pigeon) (9 GBP) and had the Smocked Rack of Lamb with Rajastani (?) corn sauce and pilau rice as a main course (22 GBP). Total bill, with two glasses of wine and bottle of water was 53 GBP.

Obviously, this is more expensive than one would normally pay for an Indian meal, but this is a totally different dining experience than an average Indian restaurant. I was so delighted with the food, I bought the recipe book, so my hubby can cook it for me at home :) .

You can book on-line (as I did), using their website:

http://www.cinnamonclub.com/index1.html

Regards Ger

The Cinnamon Club is not formal is it?

ralf005:

I did not think the Cinnamon Club that expensive, when compared to an equivalent standard of food, ambience etc. in London.

The FOOD is very reasonably priced but if, as you said, a group of business men were dining, I can guarantee that the bar bill was horrendous (as it usually is), as they have an extensive wine list, with wines in the hundreds of pounds. Obviously, as I was dining alone, I had to settle for wine by the glass (nothing special, but perfectly acceptable). I would have preferred to order a half-bottle of good wine (which I usually do in France), but they have no half bottles. This would have pushed my bill up, for sure. I also normally start my meal with a glass of champagne, as I peruse the menu, but, at 9-12 GBP a glass, decided not to.

If you are Canadian, as some have suggested, then translating these prices into Canadian dollars is a bit of a shock. I have learned NOT to do that when I am in London; otherwise, I’d be inclined to forage in bins for food or, worse, eat at McDonalds!

Regards Ger

Ralf005:

Sorry, our posts crossed.

Define formal. If you are talking about how other diners were dressed, then definitely not on the night I was there. I dressed for dinner and was decidedly over-dressed. Most diners (all locals) where dressed casually, but smart. I would imagine that during the week, when they cater more for the business crowd, you would see more suits, but probably because the diners would be coming straight from work. I have to defer to regular diners for this.

Regards Ger

Ditto to that comment. Just dress relatively smartly and you won't feel out of place.

Thanks you guys, So I guess the jeans I'd be wearing for a leisurely walk around Trafalgar Square and Westminster is fine for lunch, but not for dinner.

We always go back to the Standard Indian Restaurant in Westbourne Grove. Wonderful food at reasonable prices.

My dear it depends on what jeans you're wearing, and I'm quite sure if the top half is covered respectably you might even get in.

Thanks alot

When we have visitors from the US they always want to go for Indian food, saying it's no good where they live (New York City and upstate New York). And Edinburgh's is not the best in the UK.

Khan's is on Westbourne Grove, not Queensway. I gave up going there when they stopped serving alchohol =:-O

The Red Fort in Soho is sometimes recommended but the service was terrible when I tried it, so I never went back.

I, too, recommend Cinnamon Club and I suggest Benares ,in Berkeley Square.
Neither are ordinary and neither are inexpensive. Each is a wonderful experience.
Here is a brief description of both places I posted on Fodors last November:

"The Cinnamon Club remains on my favorite's list. It's in the Old Westminster Library, the walls of the mezzanine and the bar are lined with shelves of books. The food and wine were excellent, the service impeccable and friendly. I had a zucchini flower and asparagus starter and I ordered spice encrusted monkfish for the main course.



Benares is a place that had been recommended to my friend, Stephan . Each year we like to try one Indian restaurant that is new to both of us.
The restaurant furnishings are contemporary with colonial touches .
One reaches the dining room via a flight of stairs. There are several water features, one of which is a low pool with floating flowers.
The cuisine is Pan Indian. The menu wasn't extensive,but I always hope that indicates each of the dishes will be cooked to perfection. <And in this case they were. > We were brought crispy poppadums and a selection of fresh chutneys. My starter was a chickpea and spinach salad. My main course was sea bass that had been poached in coconut milk. Stephan had prawns in a spicy sauce. We shared a raita and a paneer that was seasoned with fenugreek and onion.
The food was good, the service was friendly, the surroundings were stylish."

I still don't see the answer to the big question: is the Indian food in London so good that it is worth paying double to triple what I would pay for a very good Indian meal at home?

I can't even imagine an Indian restaurant where I'd be willing to pay 53 pounds for dinner. And I have a good imagination

ImHornet, I have absolutedly no idea if it's 'worth it' for you, because I've no idea what the local Indian food is like where you're from.

If anything, wouldn't it just be interesting to go and see what all the fuss is about? And I'm sure you'll find some local variations that you won't get at home. There are a number of 'indian' dishes served throughout the UK that you won't even find in India, for example.

And you don't have to spend 50 quid on indian food here - these recommendations are all upscale restaurants - not the norm here for indian food, which is normally a budget option. BUT, at these places, you'll get indian food like you've never tasted.

Great budget indian can be had (try hardens.com for recommendations) - and you can't come all this way and not try our national food!

Well, Imhornet, you don't say exactly where "home" is. I've answered to the best of my ability, which is that my friends from New York City & upstate New York consider Indian food in Edinburgh to be far superior to what they can get at home, and Edinburgh is by no means the best place in the UK for Indian food.

The Cinnamon Club is quite famous & I'd describe it as very upmarket - popular with MPs and people on expense accounts.

If you want to try out Indian food in London without spending a lot, go to Southall or Brick Lane.

Incidentally, most Brits drink lager with Indian food, rather than wine, & that cuts the price down.

I loved tayyab. great food, great price. be prepared to wait as the line goes out the door. here are some links for you:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...n_England.html

http://chezpim.typepad.com/blogs/200...w_tayyab_.html

GAWD yer makin me hungry! Wish there were good Indian restaurants here in Sicily (I don't know of any!) :(

We found that the average Indian restaurant meal in London was no better or worse than the average Indian restaurant meal we can get at home. We also live near an area with a large Indian population so understand where you're coming from. We didn't try any of the more expensive Indian restaurants in London though.

We get excellent Indian food where we live too (and I've had some not so excellent Indian food in India, but that's another story) and we were very impressed with Mela at 152-156 Shaftesbury Ave. near the Leicester Square tube. The food was different than any we've had here and was excellent and not outrageously priced (not cheap either, but well worth it.)

It got rave reviews on chowhound.com, which is where I found it.

It's disgraceful bigotry - as well as downright ignorant from a culinary point of view - to imply that Indian food isn't worth spending £50 on.

Do you really live somewhere so deprived of proper restaurants that there aren't "French" restaurants charging £50? And whether they're "worth" that, when it's possible to live on a tub of rehydrated Pot Noodles you bought for 50p, is something only you can decide. Personally I'd pay £50 to avoid eating some of the junk people poison themselves with to save money. But it's a personal choice.

Cinnamon Club is a posh restaurant. It charges the same prices as other posh restaurants. And in this city, no-one is so insular - or racist - as to question the rights of Indians to charge the same as Italians, Japanese or anyone else.

If you don't spend that sort of money, then eat at other sorts of South Asian restaurants. There are actually few decent such places in central London, which is as stuffed as a keema naan with mediocre places churning out virulently coloured stews to the undiscriminating - and that's why some people are unimpressed with London's South Asian restaurants. I'd definitely put Khan's and Mela into this group: enjoyable places for an unambitious, raucous meal with friends -but 0/10 in the decent food stakes.

Offhand, I can't think of a single place in Brick Lane that serves decent food (though some sensible people speak well of the self-serve Sweet & Spicy).

The best food is in the suburban South Asian enclaves, like Southall (Punjabi, but originally East African Hindus and Muslims), Wembley (the subcontinent generally) and Tooting (South Indian, Tamil, Sri Lankan), Buying and careful reading of the Time Out Eating and Drinking Guide gives you a host of unusual cuisines from what is, after all, by many million light years the world's most diverse and complex cuisine. If you're interested in Indian food, nowhere on earth (not even Bombay or Delhi) offers such a range of the region's eating styles, or such high-quality cooks and ingredients. But, unless you investigate carefuly (and, to be frank, ignore most of the ill-informed nonsense that finds its way onto this board about London's South Asian restaurants) you'll eat junk as tasteless (and overspiced) as the worst Tex-Mex chain in Peoria.

In Central London, if you don't want to spend a lot of money, Chowki in Denman St W1 is simply outstanding. It ranges over the regional cuisines, with spectacular value set meals. Masala Zone is enjoyable, bustling, nouvelle Indian fast food. Sekara (Lower Grosvenor Place, Victoria) has interesting Sri Lankan food if you're a hopper addict. And the Indian YMCA in Fitzroy Square is always reliable.

Personally, I've found Cafe Spice Namaste dull and generally tasteless - though that might be because I've eaten too many of their promotional meals. Some guides have spoken well of their proper a la carte, which does actually look interesting.

But get a proper guide book (and that really does mean Time Out) and start trawling the suburbs to understand why our South Asian restaurants really are as important a part of making this the world's greatest city as our museums, our pubs, our over-rated theatre, our music and our streetscapes.

Bravo, Flanner!!

"It's disgraceful bigotry - as well as downright ignorant from a culinary point of view - to imply that Indian food isn't worth spending £50 on."

There was nothing "disgracefully bigoted" about Imhornet's post--he merely asked if London's Indian cuisine is worth being THREE TIMES as expensive as what he spends at home for VERY GOOD Indian cuisine. Who knows? Maybe there happens to be a fantastic but inexpensive Indian restaurant in hornet's home town. If he can eat extremely well in his hometown for $35, why shouldn't he say he can't imagine spending three times as much for food that wouldn't be three times better? I don't see anything "disgracefully bigoted" about that post.
We've tried a few Indian restaurants here that came highly recommended (not CC, though) from locals. They were good, but not worth raving over and no better than some of the Indian restaurants we've eaten at in the U.S. They were, however, much more expensive (if you translated the ££ bill back into $$, which simply isn't a good idea these days). So I have some sympathy for imhornet's views. And I'm not a bigot for saying so.

I think it's worth mentioning that in general, restaurants in Britain are much more expensive than restaurants in the US - maybe Imhornet (wherever he lives) doesn't realise that ?

Living in outer West London, I have to agree that the restaurants in Southall are generally better than in central London; that said, the best (in my opinion) Indian restaurant in West London is the Royal Club, on Ruislip Road, Greenford (only a short bus ride for Southall) which is far and away better than most of Southall. take the District or Central Line tube to Ealing Broadway, then an E7 or E9 bus, both of which stop right outside the Royal Club.
If you don't enjoy it, I'll pay for it!

Southall as great and lively as it is...mainly one street with many restaurants, bakeries,clothing stores along it...is a bit of a chore to get to. The biggest challenge is once you get off the train station there are no cabs to take you to the main shopping/eating area (forget the street name) and only once have we caught a bus down - we usually hoof it and if you're not able to walk or are with small children it can be long for them.
On a good note - once you're ready to leave you can call a local car and they can drive you back into the city (or the train station) for cheap.

if we put all the political correct nonsense aside, most londoners would never imagine spending £50 for a curry either.

the reality is that curry houses have a certain reputation that typically involves a cheap meal often as a start to a night of drinking.

I am NOT saying that indian cuisine can not be considered on the same level as French, Italian, etc...just commenting on the place that indian cuisine holds with most people in the UK.

if it's racist bigotry to equate a curry with a night out on the cheap then about 95% of UK is racist. furthermore, here it is generally equated often not only with cheap but also with a hard drinking "lads night out". also, it's not uncommon for people to bring their own bottle even when wine/beer is sold at the curry house. Most would never dream of doing this in a french or italian restaurant. this might be tacky but is it bigotry???

having also lived in the US, I can assure you that stylish, upscale indian places are generally more accepted than in the UK.

i had a good laugh at flanner's pious view.

My favorite Indian restaurant in London is The Red Fort on Dean Street in SoHo. Excellent!

www.redfort.co.uk