What: A huge Indian restaurant within the Criterion Restaurant site on London’s Piccadilly Circus. The 150-cover Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus is part of MW Eat’s Masala Zone collection, which launched as a casual dining concept in the early 2000s offering great value thalis and street food dishes but has pivoted into upmarket informal territory in more recent years. MW Eat also operates a trio of higher-end London Indian restaurants - its flagship Chutney Mary and the Michelin-starred Amaya and Veeraswamy - but Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus is probably the most ambitious restaurant project it has ever undertaken.
Who: MW Eat is led by Indian-born hospitality industry veterans Ranjit Mathrani, Namita Panjabi and Camellia Panjabi. The trio opened the first iteration of their Indian fine dining restaurant Chutney Mary some 33 years ago in Chelsea. It was the first restaurant in London - quite possibly the world - to make the argument that Indian food could be elevated and served in a manner that was both upmarket and creative. It would become the cornerstone of what is arguably the UK's most influential Indian restaurant group.
The food: The menu is an extended and to some extent reimagined version of the existing Masala Zone offering (which vary from site-to-site, but are all constructed along the same lines). It begins with an extensive starters/street food section - though it rarely gets any credit for it, MW Eat was one of the very first UK operators to bring regional Indian street food items into a mainstream restaurant setting - that includes masala papad; Lucknow dahi puri; Bombay pao bhaji; and Madras chicken 65. Guests can order these dishes individually or choose from a set selection. The smaller dishes are followed by an equally expansive selection of more substantial dishes and sides including curries, grills, biryanis and thalis. Options include chicken saffron korma; Malabar green chicken curry; and Lucknowi lamb seekh kebab. Given the location, pricing is surprisingly democratic with street food dishes ranging from £5 to £9, generous portions of curry averaging out at £16 and all sides under £5.
To drink: As with the food offer, the drinks menu at Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus has been overhauled and extended with classics including the group’s ‘proprietary’ masala coke sitting alongside new creations such as chai-infused Negronis.
The vibe: Adjacent to the London landmark’s famous statue of Eros - the Greek god of love and, apparently, beatboxers and luminous backpack-wearing teenage tourists - the Grade-II listed restaurant was constructed in 1873 (it is referenced in A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story). Notable modern-era tenants have included Marco Pierre White and Bob Payton. More recently, it was operated by the Gatto family as Savini At Criterion but is understood to have been vacant since before the pandemic with MW Eat having taken on a new lease with the site’s landlord Criterion Group. With its glistering gold-mosaic ceiling and ornate wall tiling, the Neo-Byzantine space is not short on wow-factor but its layout, cavernous size and listed building-status have proved extremely challenging for operators over the years. MW Eat and its long-standing designer Jeffrey Wilkes have taken the bull by the horns, removing the room's famous-yet-totally impractical long bar and coming up with a bold design that fills the space with colour and interest without impacting the fabric of the building. Tactics include screens that ingeniously house much of the restaurant’s electrics and a latticework of grills. MW Eat has also had to contend with the site’s unbecoming corridor-like shape by creating three distinct zones. Unlike those that have come before, the group has had the confidence to put its own mark on the space by combining Indian visual themes with contemporary design. The result is nothing short of stunning.
And another thing: MW Eat is understandably keen to sweat its assets. Soon after the restaurant launched a creative Anglo-Indian afternoon tea menu was introduced and, within the next month or so, the group will launch its first ever breakfast offering. Full details are yet to be released, but dishes are likely to fall into three distinct camps: pure English, English-Indian fusion and pure Indian.
MW Eat is back with a bang
Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus is a comeback of sorts for MW Eat. The group hasn’t opened a new site since the (successful) relocation of Chutney Mary from Chelsea to St James’s in 2015 and has quietly shuttered a few of its Masala Zone sites in the intervening years. A casual observer would have been forgiven for assuming the trio behind the group were winding down given their senior years but as this high-profile opening proves that is not the case.
MW Eat has, in fact, been looking for new opportunities in its West End heartland for a number of years with the group’s financially-disciplined chairman Mathrani having stoically waited for the right site and the right deal. While the area makes a lot of sense for the group, the former Criterion Restaurant is not an obvious address for a premium casual Indian restaurant, or indeed any multi-site brand. That said, it’s easy to see the attraction - 224 Piccadilly is unquestionably one of the most prominent, accessible and high-footfall pitches in the whole of the capital.
As the trio are well aware, a busy location does not a successful restaurant make. Representing the group’s largest investment to date, Masala Zone Piccadilly Circus is about as high stakes as restaurant projects come. The group has passed its first test with flying colours by overcoming the site’s awkward corridor-like shape and Grade-II listed status to create one of the most impressive restaurant spaces London has ever seen. Now it just has to fill it.
