In 2020, London's wildly popular Indian restaurant chain Dishoom will celebrate its tenth anniversary, making us feel very old indeed.
It’s hard to believe it, but the group of much-loved Bombay cafés, which changed the face of casual Indian dining in London, will soon celebrate its milestone year. To mark the momentous occasion, Dishoom has announced plans to make some major changes at the original Covent Garden location that started it all.
The restaurant group's Covent Garden site is getting a new look
Dishoom Covent Garden will undergo a significant redesign to mark a decade in the business, and the restaurant will also expand its square footage by moving into the neighbouring unit at 11 Upper St Martin’s Lane, meaning more room for diners and hopefully shorter queues (Dishoom is famously a no-bookings restaurant at dinner time, unless you’re in a group of six or more people).
The renovations will take place in partnership with Dishoom’s long-term creative partners, Macaulay Sinclair, the architecture and design studio behind several of their existing locations. Working together as a team, they plan to take numerous trips to Bombay, where they will seek inspiration for the new design.
The Covent Garden restaurant will also expand into the site next door
Dishoom Covent Garden first opened its doors back in July 2010, with the restaurant being both a critical and commercial success. Since then, Dishoom has gone on to launch four more locations in London (Carnaby, Kensington, King’s Cross and Shoreditch), as well as a site in Manchester and one in Edinburgh.
Speaking about Dishoom’s importance to the restaurant industry in London, Editor of SquareMeal Ben McCormack commented: “Before Dishoom, Indian restaurants tended to divide between high-end Michelin-starred joints and cheap and cheerful curry houses. Dishoom was a game-changer: stylish, affordable and with a defiantly youthful outlook that was more focused on how Londoners wanted to eat in the 21st-century than outdated British attitudes to both Indian cuisine and India itself. What’s more, it was somewhere that made Indian food not only appealing at lunchtime but, with its legendary bacon naan, at breakfast, too. Without Dishoom, there would be no Gunpowder, Hoppers or Kricket, but queues outside all of its branches prove that Dishoom’s appeal is as fresh today as it was 10 years ago."
Further details about Dishoom Covent Garden’s redesign, and more information about the group’s tenth anniversary celebrations, will be released later this year.
If you can’t get a table at Dishoom, check out some of the other best Indian restaurants in London.