Veeraswamy aspires to be London's premier source of expensive, tasty curry. They claim that "Veeraswamy is the oldest surviving Indian restaurant in the U.K, and possibly the world." which is pretty bold.
The restaurant is on the first floor, so one enters through a weird narrow corridor-cum-cloakroom and a tiny lift. The space is a bit variable; there's a lovely open space by the big windows from which one can look down on the hoi polloi on Regent Street, but most of the tables are hidden in a sightly unfriendly dark bit at the back. Decoration is quite sparse; there is a display of a variety of turbans on the wall and that's about it.
The menu (not on their website, but there is a subset here) is pretty short. Hotter things have chillies next to each other. One is "fairly hot" but not pain-inducing - this is probably only proper given that at a full-price of 15-20 quid one should aim to taste some of it. Only the crab sheek starter has two chillies, and only only one each of the lamb and chicken curries has a chilli next to it.
Starters we've tried include the mixed leaf pakora (crispy fried leaves like mustard greens and maybe bok choi), the crab sheekh kebab.
Like the food at their (rather less flash) chain sister Masala Zone, the curries are very different from each other, generally light in texture but strongly flavoured led by just a couple of spices. The rogan gosht is dark red and rich with cardamom. The lucknawi (or was it hyderabadi?) chicken stew is creamy but still with a good kick.
The bread is excellent. Get the chef's bread basket of the day - three fresh, soft-yet-crispy kinds of tasty bread.
As you can see it has been a while since I was there and I don't remember the food that well. But I do know I enjoyed it.
The portions are not particularly generous, but given the quality it's nice to have an excuse to try more things. If the prices seem a bit steep — I was glad to be on the work dollar the second time — they have a three-course Sunday lunch menu for the bargain 20 GBP per head.
3 comments:
Mr scoffer
said establishment is mentioned in my Madhur Jaffreys curry bible
must ask
there is a "curry club" in london, not the one that meets in some hotel and is online, this place serves the real stuff, lino floors and asian diplomats go there, do you know where it is?
Hitch,
Not sure I do know it. The India Club at the Strand Continental Hotel is probably an authentically "basic" experience (it was barely more than a building site when I was there), but I wasn't over-enamoured of the food.
Scoff.
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