Namaste Taste of India

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195 Park View
Whitley Bay
NE26 3RD

07875 971796

(Facebook only)

Accessibility? No
Gluten free options? Yes

I had always vaguely known, but it was on an Indian cookery course many years ago that it was brought crashing home to me just how little subcontinental home cooking has in common with the Anglicised, vaguely Bangladeshi stuff we know so well from our own curry houses. The food we cooked and ate that day was relatively quick and simple, but completely delicious. No one-size-fits-all heavy ghee or cream-based gravies; the spicing was clear and to the point, with each ingredient contributing something worthwhile.

Thali Tray/Arch 2 Brewpub

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Stepney Bank
Ouseburn
NE1 2NP

07446 011 941
newcastlebrewingltd.co.uk 
thalitray.co.uk 

Accessibility? Yes
Gluten free options?Yes

Where can you eat a curry in a brewery, followed by a pudding in a different brewery, followed by watching snooker’s Steve Davis perform in a leftfield electronica act, all without having to walk more than a few hundred yards? This might sound like some fever dream, but no, this was the shape my actual evening took last night as I tap these words out. So where was I? The impossibly cool Ouseburn, obvs.

For as long as I've lived round these parts, the Ouseburn has always been home to some excellent pubs. A very fine summer’s day could be spent flaneuring between The Cumberland, The Free Trade, The Tyne and The Cluny. But over the last few years things in the valley have really gone a bit next-level, with actual breweries setting up and opening their doors to punters, as well as a smattering of top-rate food businesses taking root.

Bundobust (Leeds)

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6 Mill Hill 
Leeds 
LS1 5DQ 

0113 243 1248 
bundobust.com/leeds 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

Much as the nastiest jokes tend necessarily to contain a grain of truth, so some of the grimmest ideas have just a whiff of genius. Take, for example, the peculiarly Anglo-Saxon cultural practice of getting severely pissed-up on poor quality lager before laying siege to a phall in the local curry house. I can scarcely imagine a more despondent or dyspeptic way to spend an evening. 

And yet, there’s no getting away from the fact that, occasionally, spicy food and beer can improve each other in a rare, alchemical fashion. When both are of the proper type and quality, magic can occur. Which takes us to Leeds, and to Bundobust, where the beer is craft and the food is street. Yeah, I know. Roll your eyes all you like, though, because they've got it absolutely nailed.

Karma Kitchen

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6 Bigg Markett 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 1UW 

07473 908 309 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes
www.karma-kitchen.co.uk (for delivery)  

Can there be anything more stereotypically and pejoratively “Geordie” than the sight of two boozed up lads heading to the Bigg Market for a curry? Until someone figures out how to joyride a Greggs Sausage Roll, probably not. 

You might think that this wouldn’t be my kind of thing. Surely my gentle and genteel disposition would prevent such larks from floating my boat? Well, think again. Granted, this wasn’t a conventional Bigg Market curry story. My friend and I, finding ourselves with a rare free afternoon, didn’t stagger to the curry house filled with pissy “Australian” “lager”, in search of the world’s spiciest hell-broth - I like to think we are at least a little better than that. For our destination, Karma Kitchen, purveyor of home-style vegan cooking, is a great deal better than your average Bigg Market curry house.

Dosa Kitchen

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7 Osborne Road (rear) 
Jesmond 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE2 2AE 

No phone number 
www.dosakitchen.co.uk 

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free? Yes 

As a rule I like new things: new tech, new movies, new music and particularly new restaurants. Sometimes, however, it’s comforting to return to somewhere from the past, and find it just as you left it. Dosa Kitchen may have changed postcode since we last ate there, but as we pulled our chunky wooden seats under the table and scanned the menu, the sense of déjà vu was very welcome.

Simla

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39 Side 
Quayside 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3JE 

0191 261 8800 
simlarestaurant.net 

Accessibility? Yes 
Gluten free? Yes 

This week we were all supposed to have been celebrating British Curry Week. Missed the fun? Me too. I did have one good Indian meal, though. And some of it was curry. 

I ate at Simla, on the Quayside, which Tripadvisor says is Newcastle’s #1 restaurant (out of all 1,017 in the city). 

That statistic alone probably disqualifies Tripadvisor from claiming any shred of credibility.

The Funky Indian

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39 Borough Road 
Sunderland 
SR1 1PS 

0191 567 4444

www.thefunkyindian.co.uk

Accessibility? No 
Gluten free/friendly options? Yes 

It’s fair to say that Sunderland and I aren’t what you would call best mates. 

It was never personal, I can assure you. My previous criticism of the city has been based on pure, professional amazement that a population of some 175,000 is so poorly served when it comes to eating out. 

After the latest disappointment, a two star let-down at the still shiny Karbon Grill, I asked the Twittersphere why Sunderland had no good eateries. The place went mad – it seems the place doesn’t just have a chip on its shoulder, it has a whole bag of them, slathered in cheese and served with a bottle of blue pop. 

“Man’s a TIT!!” shouted Richard Gray on Facebook, garnering two likes for his troubles, while Bryan Hopper likened me to a more masculine part of the anatomy. Six likes for that. 

Anna Crosbie was more philosophical: “People just can’t help but be negative towards others. It’s like a poison”. 

It’s a cruel world Anna, as I was finding out. Being persona non grata in the city, I returned under cover of darkness, and decided to visit one place that a couple of my more constructive critics had said would change my view. It’s called The Funky Indian. 

So, Sunderland: please consider the following words a sort of peace offering, an act of detente. The Funky Indian has become my second recommended restaurant in your city.

Ury

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27 Queen Street 
Quayside 
Newcastle 
NE1 3UG 

0191 232 7799 
www.uryrestaurants.com 

A few months ago I received an invitation to visit the "Grand Opening" of a new restaurant called Ury in Queen Street, Newcastle. 

“Come for a free Kerala banquet,” it said. 

As you probably know, I don’t accept freebies, preferring instead to arrive unannounced like a thief in the night, leaving no visiting card or thank you other than a few mild-mannered comments on this page.  So I politely declined their offer, but was secretly confused and upset in equal measure. For Ury’s address was the very same location as one of my all-time favourite Indian restaurants, not just in Newcastle, but anywhere else for that matter. It meant that Rasa had closed its doors.

Dosa Kitchen @ The Beacon

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NOW REOPENED (Dec 2017) at:
7 Osborne Road
Jesmond
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE2 2AE

www.dosakitchen.co.uk
Bookings via website

Formerly at: The Beacon, Westgate Road

[THIS REVIEW WAS PUBLISHED IN 2015, BEFORE DOSA KITCHEN MOVED TO ITS NEW PERMANENT LOCATION IN JESMOND]

This place is not just unlikely: for most of the time it doesn’t even exist. 

The Beacon is a community-focussed business centre, sitting where Westgate Road meets Wingrove. Opened in 2012 on the site of what used to be a fire station, I have actually been here for the odd meeting. To the right of the main entrance is a café, where I might once have had a coffee. They have sandwiches, probably, and baked potatoes, maybe, but it’s not the sort of place that would demand a review on this page. Or so I thought, until I heard whispers from an Indian friend that something very interesting happens there after office hours.

Vujon

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29 Queen Street 
Quayside 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3UG 

0191 221 0601 
www.vujon.com 

A few years ago I attended one of Maunika Gowardhan’s excellent Indian cookery classes at Blackfriars (Maunika’s first book, Indian Kitchen has, incidentally, has just been published; it’s a stunner). 

As Maunika explained to the attendees that most British curry house standards are in fact an anglicized hybrid of Bangladeshi cooking, which would be largely unrecognisable in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, I noticed a split in the room. Half the guests nodded intently, their hard-won knowledge validated by a real expert; the others looked taken aback, the Indian rug swept from under their feet.  Surely their beloved tikka masalas and jalfrezis, previously thought the real deal, couldn't be just counterfeit inventions? 

Of course, in these days of authenticity and provenance, it creates a problem for the best restaurants. Do you stock your menu with the standards that so many of your potential customers expect to see, and which most of them are likely to order? Or do you offer genuine cooking from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh’s varied regions and traditions, hoping to attract a clientele that cares, and educate some who don’t? 

Vujon, in Newcastle’s Queen Street, has attempted to square the circle by offering dishes that name-check a number of India’s regions - here a lamb from Kashmir, there a Pondicheery pheasant - and yet, also, there’s our old fake friend chicken tikka masala, ready to be ordered with vast jugs of Cobra, a beer as authentically Indian as Burton on Trent.

Zyka

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44 Priestpopple 
Hexham 
NE46 1PQ 

01434 600333 
www.zykahexham.com 
Accessibility: Yes 

There are several Indian restaurants in Hexham’s Priestpopple. I’m using Indian in the loosest sense, of course, because 80% of British curry houses are actually Bangladeshi. 

We should be extremely grateful to the nation of Bangladesh for giving us our national curry craving. Except that, of course, to describe any dish as ‘curry’ is pretty meaningless: the word on its own gives no indication of a dish’s origin, taste or recipe. We use it as a generic word for a thousand different sauces. 

One of the problems of having so many curry houses in every town in the land is that everyone is a curry expert.  People get hung up on their favourite local vindaloo or korma, and judge everyone else's against it.  Which is crazy.

Haveli

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3-5 Broadway 
Darras Hall 
Ponteland 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE20 9PW 

01661 872727 
www.haveliponteland.com 

Mon – Sat 5pm-11pm

What do you do if you’re very rich and can’t find a good restaurant? You build your own, of course. 

That’s what Sunil Mehra did.  

He’s a property developer who owns chunks of real estate in Darras Hall, and was fed up with the absence of Indian fine dining restaurants in the North East. By which he didn’t mean curry houses, of which there are plenty, or even the excellent regional dishes you find in Rasa, but the sort of food you can only find in a few top hotels in Delhi, or in London’s Michelin-starred Benares, Tamarind and Trishna. 

He wanted beautiful food, with subtle blending of spices, colours and textures – painstakingly prepared, imaginatively intricate cooking. If you haven’t experienced modern Indian cuisine, you haven’t lived.

Sachins

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Forth Banks 
Newcastle upon Tyne 
NE1 3SG 

0191 261 9035 

www.sachins.co.uk 

Mon-Sat 12-1.30pm, 6-11.15pm 


Bob and Neeta Arora are a Newcastle institution. They fell in love with Sachins as customers, and eventually bought the place. 

That was thirteen years ago. Since then they’ve worked tirelessly on the brand, which now caters outside events and even has a takeaway outlet at Fenwicks. The Aroras are involved in community and charity projects – they are, in short, an asset to our region’s life. 

But what of their pretty restaurant, tucked away at the top of Forth Banks, under the shadow of Central Station?

Dabbawal (Jesmond)

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1 Brentwood Mews 
Jesmond 
NE2 3DG 

0191 281 3434 

www.dabbawal.com 

Daily 5-10pm (Closed lunchtimes) 

It’s incredibly hard to find. On the website, rather than the posh-sounding “1 Brentwood Mews,” they really ought to say: “it’s in the back lane behind Avanti in Brentwood Avenue”. It looks like a shack beside the railway tracks. 

Which, of course, is exactly the point. It looks as authentic as the old Moti Mahal in Old Delhi, home of the butter chicken. A red, corrugated sheet of metal separating it from the Metro line, a load of tables outside, freezing in the October night (it’s only open in the evenings) and inside, a half finished interior – or so it appears. 

Bright red and yellow walls, and a ceiling draped with lights that look as though the electrician is off on an extended lunch break until the ceiling tiles arrive. I love it.

Dabbawal (High Bridge)

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Ambience ✪ 

69-75 High Bridge 

Newcastle upon Tyne 

NE1 6BX 

0191 232 5133 

www.dabbawal.com 

Mon-Thu 12-2.30pm, 5-10.30pm 

Fri 12-2.30pm, 5-11pm 

Sat 12 - 11pm 

Sun 5 - 10.30pm 

I’ll say one thing for my friends on Twitter: they are nothing if not persistent. 

“Visit Dabbawal,” they kept urging. “It’s authentic Indian street food.” 

"We are the evolution of Indian food," it says on the @Dabbawal Twitter account.

Feeling in an obliging mood, I took a friend to the branch on High Bridge.

Rasa (CLOSED - now renamed as Ury)

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Mon-Sat 12-3pm and 6pm to 11pm 
Sunday: dinner only 

27 Queen Street, 
Newcastle Upon Tyne 
NE1 3UG 
0191 232 7799 
www.rasarestaurants.com 

***BEST ASIAN RESTAURANT 2013***

[NOTE: RASA shut its doors at the end of October 2015 and immediately reopened under new branding but the same team - it's now called URY.  Not an attractive name - it's derived from a traditional cooking pot, apparently.  Hopefully the food will be as attractive as Rasa's]

When Das Sreedharan opened his first vegetarian restaurant in Stoke Newington, a downmarket part of North London, he singlehandedly transformed Indian cooking in the capital. It’s still said to be Jamie Oliver’s favourite curry house.

Raval

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Church Street
On the Tyne Bridge
Gateshead
NE8 2AT
0191 477 1700
www.ravaluk.com

A nice bar to relax and read the menu, nice waitresses to deliver your 8% strength giant Cobra beers (or your gin and tonics): this is Indian Smart.

Akbar's

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Akbar's Newcastle:
City Quadrant
Westmorland Road
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 4DP
0191 232 3234

Akbar's Middlesbrough (pictured left):
192-194 Linthorpe Road
Middlesbrough TS1 3RF
01642 244566

www.akbars.co.uk 


If Bradford is the home of good curries in the UK, Akbar’s is its front room.

Founded in 1988 as a tiny 28-seater gaff, it has grown into a poppadum empire, with branches in Leeds, Manchester, York, Birmingham, Sheffield and now Middlesbrough and Newcastle. It’s a phenomenon, still run by its founder Shabir Hussain, and it’s also very good.