In or around 2012, a housemate of mine received an invite to a soft launch of an Indian restaurant opening in Shoreditch. Three of us went along and had a riot. Its vibe, energy, service, and food were unlike anything else around at the time. My housemate had just secured an amazing promotion, and we toasted his success with curries, a wonderful black dhal, flatbreads, many Indian nibbles, and mind-blowing lamb raan buns.
Dishoom was then, as it is now, styled on Irani cafés of Mumbai and Pune, an institution that, by all accounts, is dying out. Not so in the UK, where their first restaurant in Covent Garden was joined by Shoreditch, and then eleven others around the country, the majority being in London.
The soft opening came at a time in London that I look back on with only the fondest memories. We ate well, at a raft of painfully trendy new restaurants, such as Riding House Café, Duck & Waffle, Bubbledogs, and Tramshed. This was during the hipster wave and giddy Olympic optimism, and places seldom survived, and if they did, they didn’t stay as they were for long. Tramshed, along with Hix’s other restaurants, suddenly vanished during the pandemic. Bubbledogs became Kitchen Table, a two Michelin star wonderforce that we were lucky enough to visit last December. Riding House has become a little chainy, and the less said about Duck & Waffle, the better. Service standards have basically collapsed there, as it inevitably regressed to solely trading on its view.
Dishoom has bucked the trend. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have visited. Like Big Mamma’s equally invincible restaurants, Dishoom is a place I love to take out-of-towners to show them exactly how good we have it in the capital when it comes to amazing and affordable places to eat. They always love it, as do we. We try to book but it’s not always possible. This is a place you queue for. The line for the branch in Covent Garden is round the block, whether it’s 11 am on a Monday morning or 7 pm on a Saturday night.
On our most recent visit, a couple of nights ago, to the café in Canary Wharf, we were informed that a wait for a table for two was around fifty minutes. We gladly obliged and started drinking in their bar. If I could level any criticism at Dishoom, it would be this, the waits. Essentially, it’s become a victim of its own success, with a restrictive reservations system (none for dinner save large groups), meaning that walking right in for a meal after 5pm is a lottery, and any breakfast or lunch booking at the weekend will need you to plan at least a couple of weeks out.
Dishoom’s enduring popularity comes from its consistency, at a level unimaginable for an established restaurant chain in London, where the quality sadly ebbs and flows as tastes change and the availability of chefs and waiters fluctuates, thanks to the government’s unique approach to managing migration. Dishoom somehow remains immune to this nonsense, and whether you visit for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, in large groups or small, you’re in for the best time.
Because we’re not fans of waiting to eat, our most recent visits to Dishoom have been for breakfast, but that’s an event in itself and should never be regarded as fighting for scraps. Interspersed with sips of house chai (often refilled for free) or a Dhoble, named for a vicious ex-Assistant Commissioner of Police in Mumbai, made with vodka, jaggery, orange, lemon, and bitters, you are treated to morning treats with Indian flare. Egg and bacon naan rolls are amazing enough, but the keema per eedu, a self-described “Parsi power breakfast”, is off the charts. A deep bowl of keema and diced chicken liver, it’s topped with fried eggs and served with potato chips. Any argument about this being less than spectacular is invalid. Lunch is incredible too, but take a detour to Shoreditch for the lamb raan buns. Ginormous, fluffy, and filled with spiced shredded lamb, they are, and forever will be, the only way I eat young sheep.
My point is that every meal at Dishoom is a spectacular event, and it was lovely to head back there the other day for a proper, non-breakfasty meal. The fifty minute wait for a table at Canary Wharf flew by, greased with copious bottles of Road Soda N.E.I.P.A. and a comfy table under the wide fans and Irani café artwork interspersed with retro terracotta designs of the sixties.
Once seated, and toasting a momentous day of a momentous week, we celebrated with the usual. A plate of Indo-Chinese, Fatt Pundit-style chilli chicken knocked us for six, the spice dissipating wonderfully (but resurfacing the morning after). Mattar paneer served with garlic and cheese naans is obligatory comfort food, the black dhal accompanying it perfectly, as good as it ever is. A tray of Chole puri halwa is good fun. We teared and shared the giant puffed puri and stuffed it with chickpeas, sweetened semolina and pickled carrots. It filled in the gaps in our stomachs and acted as a lullaby, readying us for the train home, a Rennie, and bed.
Funnily enough, we ended up back for dinner at the very same Dishoom, exactly a week later, when The European’s brother came to town (remember what I said? Tis a place to show off!). We ordered pretty much the same as before, but had a full plate of salli boti, a braised lamb curry served with Rooomali Roti. Proof again that at Dishoom, lamb is the way to go, it was a sultry and addictive mess on a plate that was devoured in minutes. Her brother loved it, but was less enthused about the black daal.
“It’s too buttery”.
Since when has anything been too buttery?
Prices vary, but for dinner, working off £fifty per person, including drinks and service charge, is about right.
The food thing. 
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