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Description: Urban Turban is a modern Indian restaurant courtesy of Vineet Bhatia, chef-proprietor of Michelin-starred Rasoi Restaurant, serving delicious and highly-acclaimed Indian tapas, which is a variation of street food.
Phone: 020 7243 4200
Open: Open daily 6pm-11.30pm (all day opening noon-11.30pm to follow)
Dress code: Smart / Casual
Payment options: All major cards accepted
Cold reception: The champagne may be on ice but there's nothing to celebrate about Urban Turban's self-important staff and loud music
I am a huge fan of Vineet Bhatia. From his early days at the Star Of India, where his light was hidden under the enormous, camp bushel that is owner Reza Mahammad, through Zaika and the short-lived Zaika Bazaar to the dizzying pleasures of his Michelin-starred, Chelsea swankerama Rasoi, I've never not loved his fresh and vibrant cooking.
And I enjoy much of what I eat at his new diffusion line, Urban Turban (his wife Rashima, who undertakes the look of his restaurants, is apparently responsible for the wince-inducing moniker). But, despite reasonable food and an accessible price - just like your local Taj Mahal if you avoid the mango and rose coladas and ginger daiquiris - I have no intention of ever darkening its doors again.
It is tricked out like a suburban nightclub: mirrored surfaces, shiny, glittery soft furnishings, its overwhelming darkness pierced by blobs of coloured light. Decibel levels are aimed at those uninterested in conversation - I'm sure these are the most banging of tunes but I'm here for dinner, not a dance around my handbag.
I wonder if the waiting staff have been taking lessons from legendary (read rude) Khan's across the road. When we're not being ignored by harried floor waiters, we're being condescended to by a manager who seems to fondly imagine himself somewhere more elitist than this is supposed to be. He's living in his own private Groucho Club, permanently accessorised by an invisible velvet rope.
We're shown to the worst table in the house: a canapé-sized job for two pressed against the mirrored rear wall, behind the central bar and flanking the entrance to the toilets.
I ask - nicely - to be moved to one nearer the front. He shakes his head with an insincere moue of regret: those are for parties of four. So, imagine my rage when two twentysomething, willowy blonde lovelies who arrive after us are shown straight to a lovely big window-front table.
If he'd said 'you are too old/badly dressed/unattractive/whatever,' he couldn't have made his disdain more clear. And my pal and I are reasonably cute, you know. Where will he seat the genuinely unprepossessing? The loos?
The menu is one of those irritating jobs that pontificates 'dishes are served as they are prepared, with no formal sequence!' (love that exclamation mark), which always seems to translate as 'everything arrives at the same time'. With a table the size of a doily, this is less than ergonomic.
The shtick is Indian street food, little snacky things such as samosas and chicken lollipops bolstered by a volcanic rock grill platter (grilled at the table) and classic mains.
No Bombay hawker of my acquaintance has ever purveyed the likes of home-smoked honey and mustard tandoori salmon with cucumber-dill raita, or queen scallops gratinated and flavoured with mustard seeds and coriander, but I won't hold a little tweaking with authenticity against them.
What comes out - rapidly and in teeny portions, sometimes in cutesy paper cones - is fresh, pleasant and unchallenging: lovely, crisp little lamb and pea samosas with a touch of tamarind sweetness; battered tilapia goujons with a zingy herb chutney; squidgy spiced crab cakes with a sticky ketchup.
There's an appropriately urban legend that the first ever chicken tikka masala was invented as a sop to British tastes by an intrepid chef adding cream and Heinz tomato soup to a masala base and slopping it over tandooried meat.
Which is exactly what our chicken makhani (butter chicken) tastes like. I'm not saying that's a bad thing - what's not to like with that comfort-food combo? - but it's somewhat unreconstructed. The only thing I actively dislike is bhaala chaat: gritty lentil dumplings doused in syrupy tamarind and gloopy yoghurt, fridge cold and jarringly sugary. And plates are delivered and cleared with little care or interaction.
You might love the place. I hope you do. Bhatia is a talented, enterprising chef. But he's clearly no longer in the kitchen. A good restaurant should cheer you up, send you out into the night with a warm glow of satisfaction; this sent me to Le Café Anglais for some proper attention and a well-mixed Martini.
As I watch a table of Notting Hillbillies bellowing hopelessly at each other across the vast expanses of a table for four, I acknowledge that being patronised and noise-polluted, even with decent enough food, is not for me.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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