Regional Indian Cooking in London: A Guide by State, Not by Curry

"Indian restaurant" is about as useful a category as "European restaurant". It tells you the continent and nothing about the dinner. The food of Goa has little in common with the food of Gujarat, and neither resembles what a Bengali kitchen does with a river fish. London, helpfully, has all of it. The trick is knowing which state you are hungry for.

This guide works by region. It names only places where two separate sources agree, and it says plainly where the evidence runs out. That matters most for Gujarati and Punjabi cooking, covered near the end.

Goan: Portuguese echoes, coconut and vinegar

Goan cooking carries both Indian and Portuguese influence. Seafood, coconut and toddy vinegar do much of the work, which gives the food a sour, sweet and spiced profile quite unlike northern restaurant menus. Two dishes are a good test. Aad mass is a sweet and tangy pork-on-the-bone curry. Chicken xacuti is built on white poppy seed, star anise and grated coconut.

Casa de Goa, Hounslow. Time Out places it in its current list of the best Indian and South Asian restaurants in London, rates it 4 out of 5 and describes it as one of several Goan businesses around Hounslow Central. Both the pork aad mass and the chicken xacuti are named in that write-up. A Yelp reviewer praises the prices and the Goan atmosphere. Check opening hours before you travel, as listings differ.

Palms of Goa, Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia. One reviewer on Tripadvisor calls it a constant on the street for 30 years, and reviews single out the lamb xacuti. Yelp puts it in the middle price band. One review is a useful caution: a Goan diner found few truly Goan dishes on the menu. Treat it as a central London option for the xacuti, and go to Hounslow for a fuller sense of the cuisine.

An old favourite, Ma Goa in Putney, closed after 30 years according to Harden's, though some directories still list it. If a website tells you otherwise, trust the closure.

Keralan and South Indian: coconut, curry leaf and the dosa

The south of India is a set of distinct cuisines, not one. Coconut, curry leaves and rice are common threads, and a cook in one state will argue with a cook in the next. London's best known southern menus are often a broader southern sweep rather than a single state, so it helps to know what you are getting.

Kricket, Soho. The Michelin Guide lists it as a Bib Gourmand in its 2026 UK edition. Soho, on Denman Street, was its first permanent site, and it now has four London branches. Michelin says the menu leans towards India's southern states, with Goan sausage croquettes, Keralan fried chicken with curry-leaf mayonnaise and Karnatakan pork neck among the highlights. A review of the Canary Wharf branch on The Nudge notes that the menu is designed for sharing. To be clear, this is modern, Anglo-Indian cooking from several states, not a pure Keralan restaurant. It suits a first southern evening, with a few dishes passed round the table.

Hoppers, Soho. This one is Sri Lankan and South Indian street food rather than strictly Keralan, so think of it as a gateway. Its speciality is the appam, the bowl-shaped fermented rice pancake that gives the restaurant its name. Balance Journal puts a meal at roughly £25 to £40 a head, and notes a walk-in-only policy at the Soho branch on Frith Street. The World's 50 Best Discovery listing calls it a tiny, perennially packed casual restaurant from the team behind Gymkhana and Trishna. Both the price and the booking rules can change, so check before you go. There is also a branch at King's Cross.

Broadsheet's guide to Indian food in Soho also mentions Sagar, an entirely vegetarian South Indian restaurant serving around 20 varieties of dosa, plus uttapam and idli. That is a single source, so consider it a lead rather than a recommendation.

Bengali: rivers, fish and mashes

Bengali cooking is about fish, rice and the careful treatment of vegetables. It is worth separating two things. The food of Bangladesh and the food of West Bengal, with Kolkata at its centre, share a language and plenty of habits but are not identical, and Brick Lane is mostly the former.

Graam Bangla, Brick Lane. A reviewer on Tripadvisor says it serves real Bengali dishes rather than the predictable British-Indian standards, and mentions fish dishes, bortha (mashes) and parathas. The listing shows vegetarian, vegan and halal options and late opening. Yelp lists it under a slightly different spelling, in the lowest price band, with a high rating but only a handful of reviews. That small sample is worth remembering. Order the fish and the mashes, and skip the dishes you could find anywhere.

Gujarati and Punjabi: where to look, and what we cannot yet tell you

Here the evidence is thin, and it is better to say so than to bluff. We have no confirmed Gujarati or Punjabi restaurant to send you to, so we are not naming one.

What can be said is about the food. Gujarati cooking is usually built on a flavour base of coriander and cumin, mustard seed, asafoetida, jaggery, tamarind, yoghurt and coconut, which is why it can taste gently sweet, sour and savoury in one mouthful. Many Gujarati menus are vegetarian. That profile comes from an older Londonist regional guide, so use it as a cross-check on a menu rather than as a venue list.

For where to look, Broadsheet says Soho offers pani puri, Gujarati snacks and Punjabi classics, and names Wembley, Tooting and East Ham as areas with large South Asian communities. Those are sensible places to start a search. Look for menus that name dishes, not just "curry", and for regional words such as thepla or the names of specific breads.

How to order regionally

• Ask what the kitchen is known for. A short, specific answer is a good sign.
• Choose the dish with a name you do not recognise. Regional cooking hides in the unfamiliar.
• Match the dish to the state. Pork and vinegar for Goa, fish and mashes for Bengal, dosa and appam for the south.
• Check before you go. Hours, booking rules and prices change, and several directory listings are out of date.