An old north London boozer has found new life as an Indian restaurant, and redefined ‘gastropub’ along the way.
The Great Indian, 139 Marlborough Road, London N19 4NU. Small plates £7.50-£11.50, large dishes £9.50-£23.50, desserts £6.50, wines from £23, Cobra £6.30.
At the top of the menu at the Great Indian, a new and thoroughly delightful food pub in London’s Archway, there’s a set of slogans of a sort guaranteed to make my teeth itchy. It says things like “comfy”, “social” and “vibe dining”. I looked up the last one. Apparently, it means the place is, y’know, nice. We can all get behind nice. It was, however, another phrase that really stood out. It said “Indian influenced”. The Great Indian is owned by Aman Dhir who already has a takeaway of the same name in Hackney where they serve chicken tikka, seekh kebabs, aloo gobi and the rest. The executive chef here is Surjan Singh, an experienced restaurant consultant from India known there as Chef Jolly and familiar as a judge on MasterChef India. He has been spending time in Archway, alongside his Indian cooks and the Indian front of house team. The charming head waiter who served us had not long arrived in the UK from India.
