Darjeeling Express to return to its pop-up roots ahead of relocation

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Asma Khan’s Darjeeling Express is returning to its pop-up roots taking up residency at Kensington-based pub The Permbroke.

The pop-up will be taking bookings from 24 August and will run from Wednesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner.

The pop-up will serve a reduced a la carte menu of Darjeeling Express but featuring many of its most popular dishes with starters to include lentil fritters with tamarind chutney and green chilli chutney; chicken pakora; and tangra prawns.

Larger rice plates will include methi chicken; beef tamatar gosht; and kala channa - black chickpeas cooked with chillies and ginger.

Also available will be Khan’s popular range of toasties, such as a cheese and green chilli chutney toastie; one made with potato tempered with mustard seeds and chillies with cashew nuts and curry leaves; and a chicken kebab with onions and chopped green chillies.

Khan is no stranger to cooking and serving her dishes in a pub. Before she opened the first iteration of Darjeeling Express in Soho’s Kingly Court, she ran a hugely popular three-month residency at Soho pub The Sun and 13 Cantons in 2014, later returning for an eight-month residency the following summer.

In March this year Khan announced that she would be closing her Covent Garden restaurant in July to move to a new location with an open kitchen in order to better allow her all-female kitchen team to be more visible.

While this location has yet to be announced, it is thought that it could open as early as this winter.

It will be the second time Khan has relocated the restaurant with it originally launching in Kingly Court in 2017. The restaurant however didn’t reopen following the lifting of Covid lockdown restrictions in 2020.