Chutney Mary, London
First of all: “Chutney Mary”, explains the restaurant’s chief executive Ranjit Mathrani, is a glancingly derogatory term used in India for women giving themselves western and “white” airs and graces. It’s like calling an Australian restaurant “Tall Poppy” – or “No Better Than She Ought to Be” (restaurateurs: you can have these). Chutney Mary recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, and relocated from its original West London location to Piccadilly, five minutes’ walk from Gymkhana, London’s other high-end, ultra-contemporary Indian fine dining restaurant – a move which can really only be interpreted as the restaurant equivalent of sidling up to the most popular kid in high school and whispering, “I’m going to steal your girlfriend” (or, more pertinently here, your Michelin star).
It’s a handsome space on an enormous scale: the cocktail bar (serving classics with a spiced twist: I had something as effervescent as lemon sherbet, cut through with star anise and cumin seeds) is as big as many London restaurants. Here, as in the main dining room – there are, in addition, two private dining spaces – the intention was to meld Indian colour schemes with contemporary patterning to avoid cliché. Industrial lamps dangle looped cords in plastic tubing over the long communal table in the bar; colourful canvases on the walls depict flatly stylised Indian scenes, and the colour scheme is pared back to platinums and tasteful, muted metallics – richer than the décor of Chutney Mary’s cheap-and-cheerful sister restaurant chain Masala Zone, but a long way from the stiflingly over-patterned “trad” curry houses a few streets away in Soho, or out in Brick Lane.
Chutney Mary, London
With nine different cooking teams in the kitchen, each working on a different regional cuisine, Chutney Mary can serve Hyderabadi cooking next to Goan, a Mangalorean take on griddled scallops next to a Parsi dish of Duck Jardaloo. The idea is to surprise diners by preparing familiar, often un-Indian, proteins – venison, lobster, quail – using traditional techniques. There is tikka monkfish, a terrific piece of cooking, the fish lightly but convincingly seasoned and perfectly cooked (by comparison, in a certain West London restaurant the previous week I’d been served a monkfish fillet I could have used to break a window). The venison comes as a samosa, which I felt slightly overwhelmed the minced meat with spice, as well as in the form of a chop served with little puffed kulcha breads. And there’s a kid biryani so tender I might never eat lamb again.
I’d saved it for last and was rather hoping for something that would leave my tastebuds jangling
With an eye to London’s fancier and fussier diners, the tandoori roti is gluten free, and the naan bread made with spelt. You could, should you wish, order a butter chicken masala and basmati rice, but the adventurous will be rewarded here. I was slightly disheartened that the “hot and fresh” Goan green curry, a dish of a pleasingly rich deep green, was fresher (with a great sour-sharp flavour of tamarind) than hot; I’d saved it for last and was rather hoping for something that would leave my tastebuds jangling (to be soothed by, perhaps, a scoop of the chocolate and bergamot sorbet that is so voluptuous I cannot believe – though I was happy to suspend disbelief – it could possibly be good for you). You hope that this isn’t Chutney Mary deciding for its customers just how spicy their meal should be. The impeccably dressed, elegant Mayfair diners should be allowed to go wide-eyed and blow out their cheeks with air when the chillies hit. C
Chutney Mary, 73 St James’s St, London SW1
020 7629 6688; www.chutneymary.com