Review: Dishoom, Soho

Coming back to London after 7 years away, there’s an awful lot of eating to catch up with. Plenty of places I remember drooling over on Cheese n Biscuits or The Critical Couple when they first opened that are now staples of the London dining scene. Often with one or two branches and offshoots popping up elsewhere.

And so it is with Dishoom, which rode in on the early wave of authentic Indian street-food cooking and landed in Covent Garden but now has seven branches, including Edinburgh and Manchester. Did I miss the party?

We stopped in for lunch and yet another daft small plate experience. “It’s a small plate menu, we suggest you pick 2 or 3 dishes each… we suggest one from the starters, one from the mains, and one accompaniment.” So, what, like a normal meal then?

Their place on Kingly Street is vast, going back behind the street for room after room, but splendidly kitted out with a colourful mix of Indian decor and nostalgic 70s bits-and-bobs. It feels friendly and the staff work hard to make it so, we felt well looked after in spite of the busyness and bustle.

First dish up was a Bhel, a nicely spiced jumble of puffed rice, pomegranate and other scrunchy things. Two lamb chops turned up next, and they were as good as you’ll find anywhere, charred to perfection in the tandoor and delightfully juicy pink from their spicy marinade inside. Char-grilled sweetcorn with spicy salt and lime were just absolute classic street snacks, could have gobbled a dozen. Dishoom’s signature dish is a dal, and wow I have never had a finer dal. There was an underlying coconut flavour, the dal itself a beautiful brick red and insanely warming and silky smooth. It vanished. Our other pick was a jackfruit biryani, and this was very tasty too. I don’t really think it had the fantastic perfume that I like in a classic biryani, but it was satisfying.

Shout out to their drinks too, a massive and inventive list especially for anyone not boozing. I tried the non-alcoholic version of a punch simply because it was described as having leather and tobacco notes, and bloody hell did it! Next time I’m having the grown-up version. Maureen’s fruity sharbat was great too, a smashing balance of sweet and salt that you don’t often find. Bravo. Oh, and of course they do bottomless cups of chai tea. Good chai – saltyplums approved. And they do mean bottomless, as I was brought more as soon as I’d necked one and eventually downed four… or maybe five…?

Satisfyingly big lunch was £20-ish each before drinks, making it very good value for my money. Everything was good, although only some things were amazing. I’m happy to have Dishoom as a London institution with a growing number of branches. If they could put one out in Blackheath I’d be chuffed to bits.