Dishoom arrived in London in 2010 with a proposition that the city had not encountered before: a restaurant modelled on the Irani cafés of Bombay, those Zoroastrian-owned institutions that from the early twentieth century served as the great democratic spaces of the city — open to everyone, all day, without hierarchy or pretension. The Covent Garden outpost, on Upper Saint Martin's Lane close to the theatres and the piazza, remains the most centrally positioned and consistently vital location in the group.
The room is the key thing at Dishoom. The founders — Shamil Thakrar and Kavi Thakrar — worked with their design team to build spaces that feel genuinely transported, not theatrically re-created. Ceiling fans, dark wood, vintage Bollywood posters, the low hum of a room always full at every hour of the day. It opens at eight in the morning and stays open until midnight or beyond on weekends. The queue outside is considered, by a certain kind of Londoner, to be part of the experience — a social ritual that has its own community of regulars who know to arrive at 7:45am for breakfast or to book the dinner service well in advance.
The food is built around the specificity of Bombay café culture. The house black dhal, simmered for twenty-four hours, is the signature and the standard-bearer: rich, deep, unmistakably itself. The bacon naan roll — soft naan, good bacon, cream cheese, chilli jam — is a breakfast that removes the need to consider any alternative. The chicken ruby, slow-cooked in a cardamom-and-tomato gravy, is the evening dish that most clearly expresses the kitchen's understanding of layered spice. The house black chai, sweet and spiced and made in the traditional Bombay fashion, closes every meal with the same proprietary warmth that the room has maintained since opening.
At £30–£40 per head, Dishoom represents London's single best argument for the proposition that exceptional food and atmosphere do not require exceptional expenditure. This has made it, inevitably, the most queued-for restaurant in the city.
