3 March 2015 | Food | By: Sejal Sukhadwala

In this series,we review restaurants from an entirely vegetarian angle. While some restaurants will be specifically vegetarian, others will be mainstream. Well be tasting everything from veggie burgers, to posh meat-free menus. Along the way, well try to find out, as far as possible, whether chicken stock, cheese made from animal rennet, gelatine, fish sauce and so on are not lurking in the supposedly vegetarian dishes.

Dishoom Kings Cross ground floor entrance

Londonist Rating:

Dishoom burst into Londoners consciousness around five years ago like a well, dishoom. The word means pow! in Bollywood-speak, the sound effect made when heroes and villains throw punches at each other. So dishoom-dishoom films are action movies beloved of everyone from excitable kids to elderly unclejis (and in London, trendy film studies students). What an old movie genre thats a throwback to the 1970s has in common with a completely unrelated restaurant concept, we dont know except that the first four letters of the word are found in both.

The much-loved Dishoom brand (it was voted Yelps UKs best restaurant earlier this year) is a widely-publicised homage to the Irani cafs set up by Zoroastrian Iranian immigrants in the early 20th century in what was then called Bombay. (Dishoom is all about the pre-Independence Bombay; not modern-day Mumbai). Hugely popular between the 1920s and 1960s, these quaint all-day brasseries were clean, affordable places that welcomed all regardless of caste, class, wealth or religious beliefs. So students, taxi drivers, servants and beggars could be found eating alongside upcoming writers, struggling film stars and wealthy memsahibs highly unusual in India at the time. They were furnished with colonial-style bentwood chairs and marble-top tables with glass cabinets displaying freshly made cakes and desserts, and glass jars filled with colourful confectionery and biscuits baked on site.

Then at the start of this century, Indian media began to lament their dwindling numbers, from around 400 in their heyday to currently less than 25. Second and third generation Iranis were getting a good education and moving abroad, the cafs were facing stiff competition from fast-food outlets and more glamorous venues, they were finding it tough to keep the prices low as per their original democratic spirit, and there was in-fighting between the owners. Some were beginning to transform and lose their identity, offering pizza and Chinese food to attract younger customers.

Owned by cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar, Dishoom captures this fascinating period in Indian history: its a romanticised nostalgia-fest of design, concept and, to some extent, the food viewed through a 21thcentury London lens. Interestingly, its success has triggered a renewed interest in Irani cafs among the foodies of Mumbai. In reality, however, these eateries were little more than the equivalent of greasy spoons, mostly known for their cakes, biscuits and toast (highly exotic in early 20thcentury India). Their most notable role was in shielding coy courting couples from prying eyes and gossipy auntyjis by providing secluded dining areas.

Dishoom Kings Cross, located beside the new Granary Square development, is the newest branch that opened around four months ago (after the original in Covent Garden in 2010 and Shoreditch in 2012). Much is made of the location, with parallels drawn between the similar Gothic style of St Pancras station and Mumbais Victoria Terminus. Its housed inside a restored Victorian building, a former railway transit shed dating back to 1850. In Indian-speak, its a godown, a warehouse where a large-number of goods once passed between Britain and the Empire, significantly between London and Bombay. In further myth-making for the restaurant, some of Bombays Irani cafs had once started out in similar transit sheds.

Sprawled over four floors, the exceptionally buzzy venue is impressively large, with a reception and a bar on the ground floor (the only brightly-lit area in the building), a dim basement bar, a first floor dining room with curved banquettes overlooking a private dining area, and a chefs table and kitchen on the second floor where you can see the cooking in action. The early 20thcentury transit shed aesthetic includes ornate floor tiles, wicker chairs, ceiling fans, an over-sized railway clock, and photos, posters, signage and replicas of advertisements from colonial India. Its sexy and moodily lit like something out of a movie or an epic novel; and the attention to detail down to the tiniest fixtures and fittings, including taps in the loos is staggering.

Read the original:
Vegetarian London: Dishoom Kings Cross Restaurant Review