Today, Condé Nast Traveler joins Chef Karan Gokani, co-founder and creative director of Hoppers, to try three of London’s top Indian restaurants. London has always had a thriving Indian food scene–from the delicious chaat at New Colaba in West Hampstead to Govinda’s thali and Hoppers’ bestselling bone marrow varuval in Soho, join Gokani as he shares the city’s must-try Indian spots.
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00:00Come on, what's not to love about this?
00:04I am Karan Gokhani, and today I'm going to take you to some of my favorite Indian restaurants
00:09across London, and this is where the chefs eat.
00:15That samosa is actually really good.
00:18I think London is the place in the world for food right now.
00:22You've got all the cultures, every little street offers so much.
00:27At every price point, you've got Paro Market, you've got obviously the pasta in Mayfair,
00:32you've got the little neighborhoods, you've got so much happening in the East.
00:34I think London keeps it real.
00:36Yes, you can get your crazy expensive, you know, bougie meals in some restaurants, but
00:41at the same time, you can get some really fun, authentic food.
00:45That's the kind of food I love eating.
00:54When I come to New Calabar, I always get the chaat.
00:57So chaat is a category of food that you find in most metros across India.
01:01It literally means lick, because you eat that food with your fingers, you're sort of licking
01:05your fingers afterwards, and it's so tasty.
01:08These guys do something that I grew up eating in the streets of Bombay, a Bombay bhel puri.
01:13So it's got rice puff, it's got little crisps, it's got potatoes, onions, and the most important
01:19thing are the different chutneys that they use to make it.
01:22You've got spice from the green chutney, and then you've got tang from the tamarind, you've
01:26got this lovely garlicky background from the red chutney.
01:29It's just delicious.
01:31You get this in newspaper cones on the street, and typically you won't get a spoon, but you
01:35get one of these, so you kind of dig it in, use it as a spoon.
01:39Final, the last bite, you load your last little bit of bhel on top and eat the whole thing.
01:45So it's, you know, it's just fun.
01:47Now that, what I love about this is, both of them are puris, and puris are these crisps
01:53made from wheat or semolina, which you just fry up and puff.
01:56And there are two versions here.
01:57These are pani puris, really simple, there's black chickpeas, there's potatoes, sometimes
02:01you can put things like moong beans in there, you can put spices in there.
02:05And then there's a simple sort of minted tamarind water.
02:09So you pour that in, and the idea is to have it in one shot, a bit like a balloon exploding
02:13with textures and flavours in your mouth.
02:16And the fun thing is, with the same puris, you can fill them up with yoghurt, a little
02:20bit more tamarind chutney and the same crisps, pomegranate just for, again, a little bit
02:24of sweetness and fruitiness to it.
02:26It's the same dish, but just tastes so different because of the yoghurt in one and the pani
02:30puri pani in the other one.
02:32Now obviously, this is a bit of a starter.
02:34But when we were kids, we'd sit and eat pani puri, my brother and me would just eat piles
02:39of pani puri as a main course, which I can't think of doing today.
02:44New Calabar is my choice for chaat, for North Indian food and for that homely Indian food
02:50that you'd find at restaurants back in the 90s, if you were growing up in Bombay.
02:54Right, so that was a great start, got my belly full of chaat, I'm going to take you to the
02:59next spot.
03:08So I am in Soho, possibly my favourite part of London.
03:13This is something really unique, we're at Govinda's restaurant, which is part of the
03:16Hariram Hare Krishna temple.
03:19So you've got a temple on the first floor, you'll see the big Hariram Hare Krishna procession
03:22that goes all around Soho, people singing and dancing.
03:26And I think it's a bit of an establishment, so it's not just about food for me when I
03:30come here.
03:31You can get great food across London, but for me it's about this little moment where
03:35you're rubbing shoulders with people from all walks of life, all sorts of beliefs and
03:40faiths.
03:41It's the ethos and the thinking behind the food, so it's all for a good cause, it's such
03:45good value.
03:48So when you come to Govinda's, and I hope you do, obviously visit the temple upstairs,
03:52but then when it comes to eating, I go for the thali.
03:55And you've got various thalis, you've got a vegan thali, you've got a slightly bigger
03:59one, I've obviously gone all in with the giant Govinda thali.
04:03Thali, it actually refers to the plate, and you've got a whole selection of dishes.
04:08So we'd have that, you know, at a normal lunch at home, at Diwali, my grandma would have
04:12a massive thali for us.
04:16I'll start with, what's on my hand, that's a papad, you have different versions of papad,
04:20this is a fried papad.
04:21Then they do a spring roll, I prefer samosa, so I've taken an extra samosa.
04:25Something I love with a lot of my food is the roti, so they've got a simple chapati,
04:29which is our easiest, lightest option when you're eating something like this.
04:33A dal, which is like a light lentil curry, you've then got a kidney bean curry, it's
04:38a couple of dried stir fried dishes, I think that looks like cabbage and corn to me.
04:42Rice, which is essential, I normally eat rice after the roti.
04:45And then my favourite thing, and I'm glad it's there on the menu today, there's a mango
04:49shrikhand, which is like a hung yoghurt with mango puree, a little bit of saffron, a little
04:53bit of cardamom whipped through.
04:55Even my youngest son, he just loves shrikhand, I made the mistake of giving it to him once
04:59with his meal.
05:00So I think it's in my blood, but I love that stuff.
05:07Anything in Govinda's cooked, Hargisana temple, love and devotion, we cook with the love and devotion.
05:13But you can feel that.
05:14Exactly.
05:15When you get the food from the people, and this is, you know, another special thing about
05:18this place.
05:19Then when they're cooking, they have to listen to bhajan.
05:23When you cook with that mode, then you cook, actually, literally, you create some dishes,
05:29which is nourishing for your health and soul.
05:35So I've just dined at Govinda's here in Soho, and it's been so special because it wasn't
05:40just a meal, I got to go to the temple, it's reinforced everything I've believed about
05:44how clean and homely their food is.
05:46It was a fantastic meal, but now I'm going to take you to arguably my favourite spot
05:50in London.
05:51Come follow me.
05:54I know I'm biased, but I think London is the place to get the best Indian food outside
06:00India.
06:01Wembley for one, Tooting, but if you're more central, there's Brick Lane, where you get
06:05the curry mile.
06:06So there is incredible regional Indian food.
06:09Generally, when you're in a neighbourhood and you walk around, you get a very good feel
06:12for where people are going, what has the queues, and what looks fresh.
06:17Here we are at our last and final stop of the day.
06:21This is something that's very special to my heart.
06:23Come join me at Hopper's.
06:28So we're in Hopper's Soho, tiny little space, as you can see, 40 seats, almost a bit like
06:33a film set, where it's immersive, it's hidden, it's just exciting.
06:38The crowd we see over the last nine years of having this restaurant, I've noticed that
06:42you know, people have gone from what is South India to, oh, we know a dosa.
06:48You kind of understand the finer nuances, maybe not to the extent that we know them,
06:52but that's what we're here for.
06:53So we've got probably the dish we've sold most of at Hopper's ever since we opened nine
07:00years ago.
07:01Our bone marrow varuval, we've got beef bones, simmer them in this lovely curry made from
07:07coriander seeds, coconut, chillies, loads of curry leaves, and then we serve it with
07:13a homemade malabar paratha.
07:15Beautiful flaky paratha, it's almost like a croissant, like an Indian croissant.
07:19All those layers, all that lamination, then squashed together, and then fluffed back out.
07:24So break a little piece of this, load this on top, and enjoy.
07:29I don't know how many of these dishes have been sold over the years, but it is still
07:34the first thing I feed anyone or come in and eat when I'm at Hopper's.
07:39Eat more than the restaurant, it was about creating a space where you just come in and
07:45feel like you're transported, like you're taken away somewhere, because a lot of dining
07:49is about that whole experience of, you know, the sounds, whether he's making a dosa in
07:53the kitchen like that, or the people you end up sitting next to and chatting to, the friendships
07:58you make.
07:59I've had guests who've come in, sat next to each other, one has paid the other person's
08:04bill by the end of a 45-minute meal, because they became such good friends.
08:08I think it's stories like that that really define dining in Soho, dining in London.
08:14Oh, look at that bite.
08:20I'll tell you what, I've been on all kinds of diets over the last nine years, but the
08:25one thing I just cannot avoid, is if I walk past the dosa gurdi, and the guy's making
08:32a fresh dosa, I can't resist ordering one for myself.
08:35And it's this one particularly, look at that.
08:39The chilli cheese dosa.
08:41This is just magic.
08:43We make the dosa, we get a layer of podi on top, which is this lovely sort of lentil spice
08:49and chilli powder.
08:50We get a mix of mozzarella and cheddar, and then we get fresh green chillies.
08:55It's nuts.
08:56And all you need to really eat a dosa is some chutneys, maybe some sambar, but when I'm
09:02having this as a snack, just those chutneys are more than enough.
09:05I'm almost three lunches down now, and I'll tell you what's next.
09:08It's time for a big, long nap.