London,

New Tayyabs

Your rating

Click on a star to rate

Cuisine: Pakistani

83 Fieldgate Street, E1 1JU

Nearest Tube: Aldgate East

Critic rating
Reader rating
 Add your review

Description: "Absolutely astounding" Pakistani food ensures this "cheap-as-chips" (and BYO) Whitechapel canteen is always "rammed full"; indeed, the only real criticism is that it's "too popular"!

Food:    Service:    Ambience:   

Phone: 020 7247 9543
Website: http://www.tayyabs.co.uk

Good for: Good food, Ambience.

Payment options:

 

 

• 
• 
• 
•  

Close X

Directions

 

A curry to beat the credit crunch at New Tayyabs

New Tayyabs: astoundingly good value

Variety is the spice of life, as the last few days have reminded me. After a split weekend in Italy (I had to fly home halfway through for a birthday party, and then go back for the Perugia chocolate festival), I was booked for lunch at a spicy venue in Whitechapel.

Unfortunately, this kaleidoscopic part of the city is forever associated with the Kray brothers who dominated gangland London during the Fifties and Sixties. It's the kind of place where Guy Ritchie makes his one-dimensional films (something he may be doing rather more of in the future), but I saw no sign of any dodgy dealing. In fact, the skyline is filled with spire and cupola. A synagogue is sandwiched between a mosque and a funeral parlour. The traffic is quieter than in other parts of town and the call to prayer sounds oddly soothing.

I was headed for New Tayyabs, a restaurant that is currently at number seven in the Zagat guide's top ten for London, compiled for diners, by diners, and which I've trusted ever since I had lunch with Mr and Mrs Zagat themselves in Los Angeles (he ate the largest, rarest steak I have ever seen, and she had a salad). Along the way, this fast-growing restaurant has garnered drooling reports as being the best Indian in London. Actually, it's Pakistani.

The last time I tried to eat at New Tayyabs, it was closed for Ramadan, a time when Muslims fast during the day and forgo all earthly pleasures for a month. It seems an admirably Spartan regime and I found myself wondering if the world's discredited bankers might not benefit from a similar exercise. (As way of currying favour with the disenchanted general public, perhaps). Indeed, such discipline might be good for us all.

I was meeting a friend who helps fix interviews with foreign politicians and who happens to be a prodigious curry-lover, although usually the late-night, postpub version. Being lunchtime, he assumed the place would be empty but even though we arrived early, New Tayyabs was busier than a cut-price supermarket. There are three inter-connecting rooms - two low-ceiled yet brightly painted in terracotta and lemon, with tables set closely together. The third is a more private place with giant golden coffee pots giving it a distinctly Alice In Wonderland feeling which is heightened by the rainbow display of confectionery, heaped enticingly behind a nearby glass counter.

The menu is as recognisable as any you'll see in your average high-street curry house. All the usual suspects are here - tikka, samosas - but some more unusual offerings lift it out of the ordinary. We shared starters, although our dishes arrived in no particular order, crowding the little table like a station concourse during rush hour. The masala fish was particularly good, as was the seekh kebab, and at 60p the samosas were better value for money than Fiona Shackleton.

Tandoori grilled prawns were so plump they looked Botoxed, but were subtly spicy and delicious. Karahi gosht was perfect; the meat so tender you could have sliced it with a spoon, and a meat and lady-finger stew tasted like home-cooking.

I hate being spoilt for choice so the two-pudding selection was a dream. My friend had rice pudding, which arrived in a kind of Petri dish (slightly worrying, since the Royal London hospital is a stone's throw away) and which he said tasted like good old tinned Ambrosia with nuts sprinkled on top. My kulfi (pistachio ice cream) was an alarming green ice lolly, shaped like one half of Madonna's famous conical bra, but it was wonderful.

The bill was astoundingly low even though they charged for poppadoms that never materialised. But what the service lacked in efficiency was more than compensated by an abundance of charm and the relaxed atmosphere. The chattering clientele reaches across all age and occupation boundaries and local doctors pile in at the end of a busy day. And if you want booze, you'll have to bring your own since they don't sell alcohol.

I left New Tayyabs thinking about the party I was attending later that evening - Nicky Haslam's silver, black and violet-themed extravaganza. A mutual friend in New York, the legendary Dominick Dunne, had wondered on the phone from Claridge's that morning whether such an occasion signalled the end of a great era, or the beginning of a new one.

We'll have to wait and see.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

What's on today   What's on tomorrow

Receive our newsletter