The light touch: Islington gastropub The Tamil Prince is celebrating Diwali on 24 October
(Picture: Press handout)Is there a religious festival more suited to restaurant-going than Diwali, the Hindu festival of light? The five-day celebrations are marked by wearing one’s finest clothes, sharing family feasts and exchanging gifts — and where better to do any of that than at the table of one of London’s best Indian restaurants?
For Hindus, Diwali celebrates the return from exile of Lord Rama and the victory of light over darkness and good over evil, as well as honouring Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and good fortune. But Hindus aren’t the only ones celebrating Diwali. Sikhs mark the end of the imprisonment of sixth guru Hargobind Singh in 1619; Jains celebrate the moment Lord Mahavira, the last Tirthankara, achieved Nirvana; and some Buddhists celebrate Diwali, too.
What unites each of these faiths is a sense of joy. Brightly burning clay lamps called diyas are lined up outside homes and temples and also in many Indian restaurants. Sweet snacks are a prominent feature of the feasts while many Hindus give up meat for the five days — most of the restaurants below offer dedicated Diwali veggie menus.
Diwali follows the Hindu lunar calendar, which means the date changes every year. This year today, Monday October 24 is the focus of the celebrations, and London restaurants are offering special Diwali menus, some available until the end of the month — here we’ve picked 10 worth shining a light on.
Kutir
Chef Rohit Ghai’s serene modern Indian is one of the most upmarket restaurants in Chelsea, an elegant townhouse where diners must ring a doorbell to gain admittance to a series of rooms decorated with Zoffany wallpaper and fragranced with rose-scented diffusers. High-end ingredients strike an appropriately celebratory note on the Diwali menu: quail seekh with mint, lamb with garam masala, and chicken korma with truffle for meat eaters; aloo tikki with honey yoghurt, peppered paneer with raw papaya, and aubergine with peanut, sesame and curry leaf for veggies. Sister restaurant Manthan in Mayfair is offering a similar menu.
When? Until October 23
How much? Four courses, £65 (min 2 people)
10 Lincoln Street, SW3 2TS, kutir.co.uk
Pahli Hill
Bangalore-born chef Avinash Shashidhara moved to the UK to cook in icons such as two-Michelin-starred Hibiscus and served a 10-year stint at the River Café before returning to his southern Indian roots at Pahli Hill in Fitzrovia, though that Michelin background is evident both in the chef’s distinctive combination of ingredients and the restaurant’s Bib Gourmand. Shashidhara is celebrating Diwali with a short menu of special dishes along the lines of slow-cooked Pyrenean lamb leg with yoghurt, saffron, turnip tops and a mace and cinnamon marinade, or a porcini and wild mushroom biryani with banana chilli saalan. Continue the celebrations in the restaurant’s Bandra Bhai DJ bar.
When? Until October 24
How much? Three courses approx £50
79-81 Mortimer Street, W1W 7SJ, pahlihillbandrabhai.com
Kricket White City
The west London (but thankfully not Westfield) outpost of the three-strong, Mumbai-inspired modern Indian is worth knowing about for anyone who struggles to get into the delightful-but-cramped Soho original: this one has a whopping 100 covers. In true Diwali style, Kricket is offering a vegetarian menu on the day itself, with a thali feast promising Jerusalem artichoke gujiya, leek and potato samosa, delica pumpkin kachori and brown butter paratha, plus lots of chevda and papads to dip into chutneys made from scratch for the night by owner Will Bowlby. Good value, too.
When? October 24
How much? £35
2 Television Centre, 101 Wood Lane, W12 7FR, kricket.co.uk/white-city
Chutney Mary
This luxurious St James’ Indian, which began life in Chelsea in 1990, has long been a pioneer of matching Indian food to wine and its Diwali tasting menu sees each of the courses paired to top European vintages: baked venison samosa with Mâcon La Roche-Vineuse 2019 from Burgundy, say, or a dessert platter of gulab jamun, kulfi, boondi and chocolate feuillant with an Oremus Tokaji Noble Late Harvest 2019 from Hungary; the food and wine matches on the veggie menu are no less illuminating. Both menus can be ordered without wine, while the dessert platters are also available at sister restaurants Amaya and Veeraswamy.
When? Until October 30
How much? £65 (£105 with wine) for veg, £70 (£110 with wine) for non-veg
73 St James’s Street, SW1A 1PH, chutneymary.com
Cinnamon Club and Cinnamon Kitchen City
Vivek Singh’s pair of trailblazing Indians are both celebrating Diwali in their own way. The Cinnamon Club, housed in the book-lined surrounds of the Old Westminster Library, is offering a nine-course tasting menu kicking off with canapés ahead of the likes of tandoori partridge breast with peanut, dried mango and gooseberry, and halibut with shallot and tamarind sauce. Over in the industrially styled warehouse surrounds of Cinnamon Kitchen City, four courses includes samosa chaat, stir-fried shrimps, grilled aubergine, lamb rogan josh and chargrilled king prawns. Vegetarian menus are available too and there’s also an at-home meal kit.
When? Until October 30
How much? Cinnamon Club, nine courses, £65; Cinnamon Kitchen City, four courses, £42
The Old Westminster Library, 30-32 Great Smith Street, SW1P 3BU, cinnamonclub.com; 9 Devonshire Square, EC2M 4YL, cinnamon-kitchen.com/london-city
Farzi Café
Brilliantly located close to Piccadilly Circus, this contemporary pan-Indian is a very big deal in Asia and the Middle East, with multiple branches across India and Dubai. It doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to picture the glitzy two-floor space in a well-heeled suburb of Hyderabad rather than here on Haymarket. Farzi Café is offering a six-course tasting menu for Diwali, kicking off with a panipuri shot and finishing with gulab jamun ice cream by way of a trio of starters followed by duck khurchan, venison laal maas and chicken tikka masala. Dining by candlelight is a nice touch, too.
When? Until October 29
How much? Six courses, £75
8 Haymarket, SW1Y 4BP, farzilondon.com
The Tamil Prince
This Islington boozer is the kind of local pub we all wish we had at the end of our road, not least because The Tamil Prince has Aesop soap in the loos and serves some cracking cocktails as well as draught beer to wash down the lip-smackingly delicious southern Indian cooking. For one day only, a menu of food traditionally prepared for Diwali will be served from midday until 10pm, offering Chettinadu mutton masala, chicken 65 and prawn peratal among a feast of medu vada, stir-fried cabbage, poppadoms, potato pepper masala and sambar; there’s a veggie menu, too.
When? October 24
How much? £25 for veg, £28 for non-veg
15 Hemingford Road, N1 1BZ, thetamilprince.com
Kanishka
Atul Kochhar was the first-ever chef to win a Michelin star (at Tamarind) and he continues to offer something out of the ordinary at this solo project in Mayfair focusing on the cuisine of India’s far north-eastern Seven Sister States. For Diwali that means a menu for the table to share split into three courses of ‘Kanishka feast’, ‘curry feast’ and ‘dessert feast’. Think: masala lamb chops and chicken kebab followed by goat kosha and prawn malai curry, with festive sweets to finish. Veggies get their own menu featuring tofu- and raisin-stuffed morels and ceps with malai sauce among other meat-free treats. Kochhar’s Wembley Park street-food restaurant, Masalchi, is offering a Diwali sharing menu for a more wallet-friendly £35 .
When? Until October 30
How much? £65
17-19 Maddox Street, W1S 2QH, kanishkarestaurant.co.uk
Jamavar
As glossy as its five siblings within India’s Leela Palace hotels, Michelin-starred Jamavar offers creative cooking in a smart dining room entirely at home on Mount Street, Mayfair’s most desirable food thoroughfare. For the Diwali set menu, small plates along the lines of Kawari soft-shell crab will be followed by Old Delhi butter chicken and Hampshire lamb with sun-dried chillies and tomato. A vegetarian menu (sago pearls with winter truffle, asparagus and peanuts; vegetable dumplings with a saffron cream sauce and fresh chillies) is also available, as too wine pairings with each course.
When? October 20-24
How much? £105 for veg, £115 for non-veg
8 Mount Street, W1K 3NF, jamavarrestaurants.com
Trishna
Before Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi hit the jackpot with Gymkhana, the JKS siblings opened Trishna in Marylebone. It’s a more sedate proposition than Gymkhana and Brigadiers (which both also have Diwali menus this month) and the calm atmosphere will be enhanced by a five-course candlelit feasting experience. Dishes include duck chutney seekh and cashew and pepper chicken while veggies get coconut and corn tikki and jackfruit pepper fry, plus there’s chocolate chikki for pud. A wine pairing for £95 focuses on small -production vineyards from both the old and new worlds.
When? October 21-31
How much? £85 for veg, £90 for non-veg
15-17 Blandford Street, W1U 3DG, trishnalondon.com
