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London,
Rowan Moore's rating
Reader rating
Description: As soon as you walk in you'll feel like an extra (or even a star!) in a Merchant Ivory movie. Laid out on a palatial scale with high-ceilinged cocktail lounge and a bright, airy conservatory, The Bombay Brasserie is relaxed, elegant and a perennial favourite amongst smart curry fans. Sprawl out on Raj style furnishings and enjoy a gin sling before your lunch or dinner. Actress Faye Dunaway favours the mouth-incinerating charms of Hyderabadi Bhuna Gosht (lamb with green chillies) while others might prefer something more gentle such as saffron king prawns. The large buffet delivers excellent value for £22 per person (plus service charge), and features 3 vegetarian and 3 non vegetarian mains, plus an assortment of starters, sides and desserts.
Open: Mon - Sun 12:30pm - 3pm & 7:30pm - 11:30pm
Dress code: Smart
Payment options: All major credit cards
Changing room: when it opened in 1982 the Bombay Brasserie’s décor reflected the colonial style of the British Raj — cane furniture, palms and ceiling fans. Now the look is more one of self-made opulence and display
It’s the early Eighties. The Jewel in the Crown, a TV series about the dying years of the Raj, is grabbing the ratings. In the cinema Gandhi and David Lean’s A Passage to India play. India changes from backpackers’ paradise to dream destination for the more adventurous Sloane Ranger.
The subcontinent is in fashion, and part of its charm to the British, relieved of colonial guilt by the still-young Thatcher government, is that they can permit themselves nostalgia for the days of empire. Indians are mostly too polite to make them change their minds.
In South Kensington the Bombay Brasserie is launched, a deliberate departure from the normal curry house and its formulaic hierarchies of hot-ness, korma, bhuna, Madras, vindaloo. The menu is considered, changing, delicate, surprising. The décor is cane and palms and ceiling fans evoke a place where you might help the sun over the horizon with a chota peg or two. Flock wallpaper is out.
A quarter-century later the Brasserie has revamped itself. Now the style is Big. Somewhere during the design of the chairs, someone set the enlarge button at 130 per cent. There are big swirls in the carpet, chandeliers like UFOs or giant inverted jellyfish, gilt-framed mirrors scaled for supermen, striped sofa backs that climb halfway up the walls of the capacious dining room.
It’s no longer the India of the Raj but the new one of self-made opulence and display. It’s Mumbai, not Bombay. Yet the showiness is not aggressive. It’s not the place for the flash baddies in Slumdog Millionaire. The Bombay Brasserie is owned by the Taj Group, as in the Taj Mahal in Mumbai, and as in that hotel before it was visited by terror, there’s an unforced courtesy about the place which is well sustained by the troops of maroon-clad staff who attend you.
And the food is a delight, releasing delicate sequences of flavours in your mouth, little firework displays of taste. Extreme hotness is avoided, keeping your tastebuds alive. It is balanced and light, from the scallops with tomato chutney to masala sea bass and the cardamom kulfi. The monkfish wrapped in newspaper is moist and firm. Prawns taste, as they rarely do, like beings that have come out of the sea. Soft-shell crabs are true to their name. Seeming gimmicks, like kebabs on sugar cane skewers, work: the sweetness you chew out of the cane genuinely adds to the experience. Simpler dishes, like lamb chops achari and chicken pilao, are delivered with skill and without undue elaboration.
The long-ish wine list has a few too many labels you might know from Oddbins, like Norton Argentine malbec or Marques de Caceres rioja, at prices that are more exotic. When I asked the waiter if a riesling was dry he said “Yes, and also quite sweet,” which I hope was a very sophisticated description, but may not have been.
But the German (and dry) riesling we went for had the right freshness and zing to go with the food.
And so a delicious, expansive, unhurried evening drew to a close, needing only the bill to round it off. Of this the best thing that can be said is that it was refreshingly uninhibited by the credit crunch — the only crunching being of my credit card as the little machine dragged £512 out of it for dinner for four adults and three children, none of whom was unusually greedy. The bill whacks you for the extras — £3 for a nan — while buying mineral water, for which you are then clubbed at £4.60 a bottle, is virtually a command.
Which is a shame. As a resident of E1, where the Brasserie bill would pay for about 40 individual meals at the outstanding, if more crowded, Tayyabs, I have always been sceptical of more pretentious Indian restaurants. The Brasserie won me over but, even allowing that you have to pay for quality, space and all those attentive staff, the bill lost me again.
It made me feel more slumdog than millionaire.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Very overpriced. You can get better cheaper food at tiffintin and a lot better quality at Eriki in Swiss Cottage for cheaper as well.
Terrible service, food is ok i guess but overpriced, and price is way too high.
- Fred Estoque, london
I dined there with friends about 15 years ago. It was a truly superb if expensive experience. We finished with the famous Cobra Coffee which they prepare at the table.
The food was delightful but the bill was horrendous. They do have the most delightful knack of making you feel ever-so-important but you come back to earth with a helluva bump when the time to pay arrives.
- Burton J Helling, LE HOMMET D'ARTHENAY, FRANCE
What the review doesn't mention is that the Sunday buffet brunch remains outstanding value at £22 a head. Both the food and service were superb and though it was quite full, there was no attempt to hurry people up-- in fact we were encouraged to linger and sample more of their delicious cocktails. There were a number of European diners and the staff took the time and trouble to explain the intricacies of the various dishes on offer and I can assure you that they were all authentic and tasty if lacking the fiery heat of somewhere like Tayyabs. As for the refurbishment it was long overdue and makes it more light and airy.The only improvement I would suggest is the addition of background indian classical music at a low volume-- that would be perfect in the context of the surroundings. In all other respects it fully meets the high standards expected of any Taj establishment around the world.
- Ashwin, London UK
I have to say the new decor looks absolutely dreadful - who did that?? It looks like a hotel lobby in the Emirates from the seventies.
- Chris, London
This review needs some decoding. "Self-made opulence and display" means suitable for footballers' wives. "Expansive, unhurried evening" means incredibly slow service. The conservatory is quite gone. To see a much-loved institution as vandalised as this has been is distressing.
- Mourner, London
