Dishoom King’s Cross will include the main restaurant, a Bombay-style juice bar and the ‘Permit Room’ cocktail bar in the basement. There will be 250 covers in the main restaurant and the Permit Room bar will sit an additional 90 customers.
Dishoom’s kitchen will be on a mezzanine level with balcony seating so customers can watch the chefs, while the Permit Room bar will be in the building’s basement, which was once a stable.
The King’s Cross restaurant will be the group’s third and largest site, following the opening of Dishoom Covent Garden in July 2010 and Dishoom Shoreditch in 2012.
London meets Bombay
The restaurant will be located in a restored Victorian industrial building next to Granary Square. Dishoom founder Shamil Thakrar told BigHospitality that the building’s industrial heritage would help the new restaurant reproduce the feel of twentieth century Bombay.
“We wanted to find a very special place to open our next site,” explained Thakrar. “A space where we could share what we’ve learnt about historical Bombay. This site is steeped in early twentieth century heritage around the time of the industrial revolution, and similar things were going on in Bombay at that time.
“We’ve always liked King’s Cross and when we heard about this development we loved the idea of it. They took great pains to restore some of the features of the old warehouses and in our unit a lot of the features are intact, that was enormously attractive.
“I thought that we needed a place where all types of people could eat together and have fun, like they used to in old Bombay cafes. I think King’s Cross is all non-exclusivity and Dishoom is very much about that too, our prices are very reasonable and all sorts of people come in.”
Dishoom’s style reflects 1900s-style cafes in Bombay and the new site will be no exception. The owners sourced over 100 items of antique furniture from Bombay and have restored them to use in the restaurant.
Food and drink offering
The new Dishoom will be open every day from early morning until late at night. Like the other sites, it will serve a breakfast menu designed by executive chef Naved Nasir. After breakfast his all-day menu will include small plates, grills, biryanis, salad plates, rolls and curries. Dishoom King’s Cross will also serve a signature dish unique to the new site which is currently a work-in-progress.
Dishoom King’s Cross will have a juice bar serving fresh juices throughout the day, including specialities such as sugar cane juice and sugar cane cocktails.
The Permit Room bar will serve cocktails which have been aged in bottles or barrels and served over chipped ice. This site will also be the first Dishoom to serve beer on tap.
“I’m really excited about the drinks, we’ve done a lot of tasting,” said Thakrar. “We’re happy to be doing these new things in King’s Cross and I think we’re going to make this a very special Dishoom.”