Dishoom to launch Biggest Menu Shake-Up since Opening

Dishoom will be launching the biggest shake-up of its menu on September 30, 2024, since the company opened its first restaurant in Covent Garden in 2010.

Co-founders and cousins Kavi and Shamil Thakrar are introducing 23 new and updated food dishes and drinks.

The launch follows a series of supper club events to test out the new menu.

The company, which has 13 restaurants, revealed that its revenues soared 23% in 2023 to £117 million.

Shamil said: “One of the issues about our menu is that so much of it is proper Bombay comfort food which has persisted over decades and maybe centuries in some cases.

“It’s a bit like if there were British restaurants in India which were serving shepherds pie or fish and chips or roast beef, it’s pretty hard to change.

“Some of these are such classics and for that reason, we don’t change them very much.

“We also get howls of protest when we take things off so from that point of view we’re careful about it.

“This time, we just felt we had done so much exploring and thinking and eating in different places we had to reflect that and it felt like the right time to do it.”

The cousins are launching outlets of Dishoom and its sister brand Permit Room slowly despite the wild success that would justify a far quicker expansion plan.

Kavi said: “We spent so much time in Bombay with our grandparents as children and its been such an important part of our history as people.

“When you meet a Bombay-ite they are very passionate about food and it’s really rooted in nostalgia and so a lot of we do is telling their stories around that food and the communities that celebrate that food.

“One of the joys in our job is that people often come off the plans from Bombay and the first meal they will have is a Dishoom and that is a real compliment in many ways because it shows the people from that city enjoy what we do and it allows them to access the favourites of their city in one place, and that’s not something they can do in Bombay.

“But we’re able to offer this experience to enjoy the food and hospitality and service in a way that they cannot at home.

“This menu change of maybe 15 to 20 per cent of new stuff is quite significant for us because there are so many favourites and classics on our menu, but is also allows us to tell more stories that are also rooted in nostalgia and culture and migration and the different communities.

“A good example of that is a new Goan fish curry that we’ve got.

“In south Bombay, there’s a wonderful fish market called Sassoon Docks and a 10-minute walk from there is a bunch of Goan restaurants and we love spending time in those restaurants and of course, the fish is just around the corner so fish curry is a big part of Goan cuisine and Goan communities are a big part of Bombay.

“We’d never really done that but we wanted to tell those sorts of stories and go deeper.

“It’s not all about new, we’ve had Pau Bhaji, which is a wonderful dish of fresh vegetables and freshly baked buns, and Bombay-ites will often fight about which their favourite one is in the city.

“We’ve had it as a recipe on our menu for 14 years.”

“We were back there with our chefs earlier this year and we ate in all these other places we don’t normally always go to and we’ve come back and tweaked our Pau Bhaji recipe.

“So what’s lovely about this menu change is that we’ve got some tweaks to some classics, we’ve got some hopefully newly established classics that people will love, and then are some like our black dahl and chicken ruby where we’ve tried a lot of our stuff and we’re really proud of the ones we’re selling to our guests so they’re going to stay as is.”

The menu change means one item replaces another, making it a difficult choice for the Dishoom team.

Kavi told the Evening Standard that one example is Dishoom’s popular Malai Mushrooms being replaced by Tandoori Chaat.

He added: “There’s a new fish dish called Fish Amritsari which is replacing Prawn Koliwada which was a favourite of many people but there’s just not space to do all of it all of the time.

“We’ll see if there’s howls of protest, but hopefully howls of support for the new stuff as well and if not we’re happy to take that feedback on the chin.”

The new dishes are inspired by a trip to Mumbai earlier in 2024 where Kavi and Shamil tried nearly 700 dishes.