Soho, Indian Restaurant Guide

Rahul Khanna and Kabir Suri, the duo behind Azure Hospitality, have taken over the veteran Indian restaurant site that was home to Gaylord (RIP); in October 2020 (delayed from May by lockdown) they opened Pali Hill, a Indian seasonal restaurant, and also Bandra Bhai, a basement cocktail bar that's inspired by an illicit smuggling den.

“So many layers of taste… a throwback to living in India” – their “fantastic take on subcontinental flavours and textures” has helped blaze a trail for Rik Campbell and Will Bowby’s street-food brand. Since mid-2015, their “always interesting and very tasty” bites have taken them from a Pop Brixton shipping container to three permanent outlets in Soho, Brixton and White City’s TV Centre. “Busy” Soho in particular is “great for counter dining”. Top Menu Tips – “spot-on bhel puri”, “fab chai, dazzling deep-fried chicken and delicious halwa”.

“A hidden pearl in the heart of Soho”, this “smart-casual” spin-off from Mayfair’s Tamarind has a “lovely, buzzy vibe”; and serves “really impressive and refined modern Indian cooking” – “with a fresh-tasting twist to the traditional dishes” – from “a short menu that changes regularly.

“For a cuzza in Soho”, this “good Indian in the centre of all the action” is just the job thanks to its “flavoursome and so tasty” cooking and “top price/quality ratio”. Family run since 1988, its unfashionably traditional basement setting is also a great antidote when you’re sick of being dazzled by trendy new restaurant design-concepts.

Anirudh Arora’s two-year-old, north Indian, street-food café on the West End’s ever-bustling Shaftesbury Avenue also has a new outpost in a smart hotel dining room, near Marble Arch. The duo’s title refers to classic Roomali Roti: bread, hand spun into thin sheets, cooked and folded into a ‘hankie’, and both branches win praise for “great food at a relatively small price”.

“You’ll be lucky to get a seat at this bustling, Indian street-food outlet” in Soho – London outpost of an NYC-chain with six Manhattan locations. It serves “excellent, wholesome south-Asian-style filled rolls” – “there’s a huge variety of rolls to choose from” – and “Bollywood posters and songs make up for what’s a very compact space”.

“Magnificent biryanis” are served in a ‘dum’ – a heavy pot – at this three-year-old Indian café just south of Oxford Street, the first venture from Dhruv Mittal, who quit his job in the City and retrained as a chef in Mumbai. “All the individual spices, often quite unusual ones, could be identified and appreciated”, and there’s a “good choice for vegetarians”. But the basement setting isn’t its strongest point.

Designed to capture the spirit of the Indian market place, this new hotel restaurant (with its own entrance) is an ideal spot for a quick street-food pit-stop or one of their spiced cocktails.