Pahli Hill Bandra Bhai — Restaurant in London

I recently got very obsessed about the Michelin's Guide list of restaurants in London that have a Bib Gourmand status and that's how I found out about this place as I hadn't seen any foodie influencers promoting it and none of my friends knew this place either. As a massive foodie and a lover of Indian food, I naturally had to come try it out and see what my own verdict would be.

I made a reservation in advance with 3 friends for a Thursday night for an early birthday celebration. It's not too busy at 7pm and I absolutely loved the interior design. We got seated downstairs and I fell in love with the vibes instantly. It's got the old school Indian pictures and posters to give a retro vibe but it's also kinda of giving a modern stylish finish at the same time. The staff was super attentive and friendly. When I told them one of my friends had a gluten allergy they immediately went away to scrap off a few items on the menu and clearly flagged to us what we shouldn't order to avoid those dishes.

We took some time to decide because the entire menu looked amazing but the staff member never once rushed us. In the end, we went for the summer chaat and the mengalorean bun with crab sukkha as starters, switching out the bun for some gluten free Indian style pancakes. They were absolutely fluffy and soft and the crab sukkha was so flavourful and not seafood-y and got a really good kick to it. The summer chaat was absolutely fantastic, one of my personal biggest highlights of our whole dinner I must say. It's so refreshing with the honey figs and peaches. We also ordered the tandoori chicken tikka which was so juicy and tender and well-marinated. We were off to a great start.

For mains, we had the saag paneer and fish curry with lamb biryani and a sourdough roti on the side. Again, everything was absolutely delightful. Didn't know spinach puree could have so much flavour and the fish was so tender it basically melted in my mouth. Curry was rich and not overly spicy and the lamb biryani had a good amount of lamb meat in it. The sourdough roti was flaky and fluffy and well-made, went well with the curries.

For dessert, we ordered the signature carrot halwa vanilla ice cream which was the absolute highlight for me in the entire meal. I have never had something quite like this before! It's almost like an elevated carrot mash with crushed pistachios sprinkled all around the vanilla ice cream to give it a nutty flavour and crunchy texture. And the flavours were so pleasant they just all worked so well together it's basically like a symphony in my mouth!

My friends and I had the best time in this restaurant thoroughly enjoying our dinner and we all agreed that this was probably one of the best modern Indian restaurants we have ever had in London! I will be sure to come back very soon to try the other...

I organised a dinner at Pali Hill after reading about the restaurant reviews in The Times and the Standard. I absolutely adore Indian food and so was very much looking forward to our meal. London has some stellar restaurants - think Gunpowder, Dishoom, Attawa - and I was really hoping Pali Hill would fall in line with these other greats.

A summary note of our evening for future diners:

Started the meal with a round of cocktails. Considering there is a hidden cocktail bar underneath the restaurant and the price of the cocktails, we were expecting some banging drinks. They were fine - not terrible, but nothing exceptional. Rest of the evening was spent drinking beers. Based on the cocktails - drinks were 3/5.

Small plates - To get our tastebuds going we ordered: the Papadi Chat (lacked balance. Very heavy on the tamarind and a very poor comparison to Gunpowder's Chat); Mangalore Bun & Crab Sukha (which I was particularly looking forward to following the reviews) (lacked flavour, crab did not taste fresh, overall very forgettable); Pali Hill Chicken Tikka (my piece was dry but other members in my group thought it was good); Grilled Hampshire Pork Spare Ribs (how could you go wrong here? Ribs, spice, BBQ - amazing. Unfortunately the ribs were dry and the meat was mean. Very upsetting); and the Grilled Lamb Cutlets (these were fine, slightly overcooked and nothing compared to Gunpowder's or Dishoom's lamb cutlets). Small plates and Grill - 3/5

Big plates - Chettinad Style Veal Shin (finally! Something delicious. Best dish of the night); "Paper" Dosa (good dosa but the accompaniments fell flat); Home Style Chicken Curry (dull curry, was sad to eat); Wild Sea Bass (overcooked, lacked flavour. I squeezed the lemon over the fish hoping to add some level of brightness, but alas the dish fell flat). Big plates - 1/5

Sides - Sourdough Roti (I did enjoy this. Interesting twist on a roti); Flat Bread (also good); Coconut Golden Beetroots (the golden beetroot was substituted for the red beetroot which was interesting as IMO, red beetroot is a more earthy, less sweet veggie. As a result of this change (I believe) we could barely taste the coconut and so it was just a bowl of strips of beetroot. Bit confusing and didn't fit with the other dishes). Sides - 2/5

Service - The waitress was good, albeit clearly stressed as it was a full night (but can't really fault her for that too much). However, the service was exceptionally slow. Considering the market this restaurant is aiming to be operating at - Service - 2/5.

Overall - 3/5. Requires much improvement. Until then, would recommend going to one of the other stellar restaurants mentioned...

Visited this place for lunch as I've often passed this place commuting to work and wanted to check it out. I was intrigued by the theme having spent quite sometime in Bandra. The board at the entrance was quite well done. Photos and frames of old Bandra theme were also well done.

Cocktails were ok. Disappointed to find that the bar was closed for lunch and didn't get the cocktails we were looking forward to. The Tamango was our favourite cocktail and the pineapple daiquiri was quite nice. Summer in Bombay was ok, didn't like the martini.

The spicy khakra was a nice twist and presented well. The set menu of chicken and fish was quite nice too with the fish curry quite tasty.. Ordered some grilled dishes and starters which were quite good but completely over priced. Hara kabab was nice, the chicken tikka was very succulent and tasty as was the Tandoori monk fish. The grilled lamb cutlets were the most disappointing as they were just 3 lamb chops cooked very rare for £28. When we cut it in our plates and found it rare, we called for the waiter as we weren't expecting to have kebabs rare. He simply took back the remaining one on the serving dish and brought it back after a couple of mins, no effort to give us a fresh dish or bothered to check if it was ok. This was clearly not the service I'd expect from a restaurant that charges these prices.

Desserts were quite good with the mango cheesecake and the pistachio cake taking the prize. The carrot halwa was not good, wouldn't recommend it.

The service was overall prompt and the dishes were freshly made with good ingredients throughout most of the food. The chef's clearly are quite skilled with their Indian dishes, barring the rare cutlets.

We found the restaurant very overpriced for the ambience and food we had as I've had Michelin starred restaurants towards Mayfair offering much better...