Dishoom: 'I queued up to eat at Yorkshire's first Dishoom - but once inside it was rocking'
Inspired by the 19th-century Irani cafés of Bombay, the Dishoom chain of restaurants have flourished across the UK since 2010. Jill Turton visits the new Leeds branch – and joins the queue to enjoy its food.
‘Involve poetry in whatever you do’ was the advice of father to son.
The father is Rashmi Thakrar, who, together with his own father, founded Tilda Rice, the company credited with bringing authentic Basmati rice to the UK.
The son is Shamil Thakrar, the founder, with his cousin Kavi, of Dishoom, the chain of Indian restaurants blossoming across the UK and now, after much anticipation, settling in a beautifully designed restaurant on Vicar Lane, in Leeds, the former home of the Man Behind the Curtain.
Shamil and his cousin opened their first café in Covent Garden in 2010 and today have 13 Dishoom’s, mostly in London but also in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh and now in Leeds.
In early 2000, they saw a gap in the market between the Michelin-starred Benares in Mayfair and the curry houses of Bradford.
The inspiration for the cafés - they call them cafés, not restaurants - was the 19th-century Irani cafés of Bombay, opened by immigrants from Iran.
They were relaxed, informal, secular places not divided by religion, where everyone could break bread together.
Once there were 400 such cafés in Bombay, today only about 20 are left.
Call it poetry, whimsy or an overactive imagination, but for every café in the group, Shamil Thakrar weaves a fictional story which becomes the inspiration for the look and feel of the cafés.
For Leeds, he imagined Café Flamingo, owned by one Samir, who becomes involved in a plot to steal gold bars from a sunken ship in Bombay docks and uses the cash to restore his bombed-out café.
The interior designers took the story and ran with it, travelling to Bombay to visit the few remaining Irani cafes and take in the city’s Art Deco architecture.
Back home they created a striking interior, installing decorative columns, timber panelling, pink marble, green marble, inlaid marquetry, bentwood chairs and rattan blinds.
They sourced vintage furniture and lighting from Bombay and, using curves and pastel pinks, they brought an Art Deco aesthetic to Vicar Lane.
It looks expensively gorgeous, a long way, I imagine, from the shabby Irani cafes of old, but the sentiment is there.
The first step in dining at Dishoom is to join the queue. I know, who wants to queue for their dinner?
They do take bookings, but their policy is to keep most of their tables for walk-ins; consequently, there is always a line.
All the cafes are spacious, tables are turning all the time, and they claim the queues move quickly. I hear they sometimes serve chai to the waiting customers.
No chai on this Saturday lunchtime, but true to their word, we are soon led to a table upstairs, thanks to a staff member outside co-ordinating it all with a two-way radio.
Inside it’s rocking. Dozens of servers are weaving in and out of tables with loaded trays, water glasses are being refilled from tin jugs; there is the happy babble of a hundred voices enjoying their lunch
The waiters have been on the go since breakfast.
I can’t think of another Indian restaurant in Leeds that serves a freshly baked naan, spread with cream cheese, tomato chilli jam, bacon and fresh coriander at 8am, all washed down with a cup of their signature Masala chai, sweet and softly spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and ginger.
Lunch comes from the all-day menu of snacks, grills and curries.
A delicious snack is a combo of fried fish: soft-shell crab, squid, bream and prawn with a chilli mustard masala and brightened with a squeeze of fresh lime.
Okra is the slimy veg we love to hate. Dishoom’s okra fries are of a different order. Thinly sliced and fried to a crisp, then dunked in tamarind chutney, they are crunch and spice in one bite.
Service is swift. Trays come shoulder-high holding lidded ceramic pots and soon our table is littered with fragrant curries, bottles of Kingfisher and Dishoom’s IPA.
We’ve over-ordered, obviously.
But who could resist a South Indian Malvani lamb curry, slowly roasted with flavours of coconut, cardamom and chilli or a soft and tender sheikh kabab with a hint of smoke and in case that wasn’t enough, an aromatic biryani.
We needed to sample their famous black daal too, the thick brick-red lentil stew that has been simmering on the stove for 24 hours, long enough for the black lentils to break down into a thick, creamy, comforting dish that we mop up with flaky, buttery paratha.
The name Ruby Murray, the 1940s Irish pop singer, may well have been lost to history were it not for Cockney’s stealing it for their rhyming slang. Choose from monkfish paneer, lamb or chicken.
Chicken Ruby is fantastic, our best dish. It’s rich, warming, indulgent, Dishoom’s take on butter chicken.
Within a rusty red Makhani sauce of tomato, cardamom and cinnamon, lurk tender chicken pieces gently sweetened with honey, and then finished with a spoonful of cream.
A pineapple chaat salad brings a bright, clean freshness to the table and stops our lunch from being a total meat feast.
We are tempted to finish with a refreshing kulfi, the Indian ice cream on a stick, but we are as stuffed as Christmas Day, all except for the tall and lanky teenager in our party who has no limits and orders a big slab of pistachio cream cake and cardamom custard.
When we leave, the place is as full and boisterous as when we arrived.
It looks like Shamil Thakrar has added yet another successful Dishoom café to his portfolio.
Whether this has involved poetry, as his father advised, or a very good business plan I can’t say, but rest assured the spirit of old Bombay is alive in Leeds.
Dinner for two with bottle wine and service approx. £100
Welcome 5/5
Food 5/5
Atmosphere 4/5
Prices 5/5
Dishoom, 68-78 Vicar Lane, Leeds LS17JH www.dishoom.com/leeds