Tandoor Chop House — Restaurant in London

Listen, Two great things combined doesn’t always work. Joggers and leggings both work. Jeggings? Something’s been lost in the amalgamation. Smashing a good old English chop house together with a tandoor oven does feel like a no brainer though. Large pieces of meat on bone, slathered in Indian spices, burnished in a 500 degree tandoor oven. Is a review even necessary? Annoying bits first. QR codes for menus are nonsense. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Restaurants, stop it. We prefer to gaze lovingly at a piece of paper so we can map out our meal in a more tangible way. Call it a life pleasure. After much scrolling and squinting we deduce the menu is fairly small. A few meats and fish from the tandoor. Four sides and a selection of naan, that’s the gist of it. Something of a relief if choice fires a bright beam of light to your bunny eyes. I crave simple almost as much as I crave curry so we’re in a good place here. We order the lamb chops and tandoori chicken from the tandoor along with some black dal and a tomato, cucumber and onion kachumber. My reflex ‘rice for the table’ is swiftly rebuked by our helpful, knowledgable server. ‘This is North Indian cuisine’ we learn. I like that he was steadfast about their preference for naan, of which there were a few to sample. But first some nibbles. An impressive looking stack of onion rings that weren’t impressive in any other way. Soggy batter and the onion still raw inside. The smoked aubergine raita was nice though, and my index finger an adequate carriage. Cauliflower bites were more successful. The subtlety of the cauliflower brought out with sensitive spicing, they were at once crispy and soft, the raison d’être of a croquette. The rest arrives soon after and is a pleasing array. Tandoori chicken comes with the breast separated from the thigh and leg. I wonder if they cooked it this way too because both pieces managed to retain some of their juice. Skillz to the operator of that piece of kitchen equipment. 500 degrees can do bad things to a chicken breast but this one was plump and pleasing. Spicing wasn’t too dissimilar to many other tandoori chickens I’ve eaten and that’s a compliment. That there is a universal flavour to this dish gives hope that the collective unconscious can indeed make the world a better place. Jung would be delighted. Lamb chop spices leaned more towards the pepper and clove end of the scale and were a pleasing contrast. The tandoor is a lot kinder to lamb. Outsides are allowed to be burned. Insides actually benefit from a lack of prolonged hear. Something the Chop House exploits well. Black dal came as expected. Plenty of it. Nice and creamy. Perhaps not as sugary as the daddy at Dishoom. Onion and tomato Kambuchar did its job of lying to the brain that this was indeed the right amount of green to be putting in the body. Breads worked well. Bone marrow naan was a plain naan spread with a good bone marrow sauce. Never seen that. Would order it again. The naan were thin and not indelicate. The thinness made it feel like these were to be enjoyed in their own right rather than just to fill any last remaining pockets of air in the stomach. My companion in this latest culinary adventure came all the way from Portland. An old friend lost to the brain drain. I wanted to remind her what she was missing in good old Blighty and all I could think was ‘curry’. The marriage of the old English chop house provided a relaxed, informal, sturdy setting in which to gabble, gossip and grab at food. The Tandoor Chop House does what it says on the tiffin. Meat and spice in an English Indian canteen. Simple. Effective. A good marriage. Like a spork. Prices are steep though, perhaps as a consequence of being slap bang in the middle of the world’s capital. Nonetheless, in this age of divorce, a successful marriage of ideas which I hope lasts until my Portland pal...

Booked a table for 2 for Monday evening, received a text Monday afternoon requesting confirmation of the booking which also stated a maximum 1hr 30min table seating 🤔

Please confirm your booking today at Tandoor Chop House for a maximum 1hr 30 mins sitting. Could you please reply with either; Y to confirm, or N to cancel.

Please note, we are a busy but small restaurant. Your booking will be released after 10mins so please contact us as soon as possible if you are running late so we can best acommodate. Thank you

TANDOOR CHOP HOUSE

I feel this message to be disgusting and the beginning of the downward spiral for the experience that unfolded.

Struggled to find any parking near the venue, on arrival, completely ignored when I entered the front door by an english looking chap until I tried to get his attention, eventually directed to a table by simply pointing to a corner. The service was almost non existent and very slow, with the exception of a youvery cheerful. The menu was only available on your phone via a QR code. We ordered a few starters, they were okay but far from outstanding. Beetroot kebab was soggy, lamb kebab was very small and lacked taste, the naan the lamb kebab roll was served on was soggy. The Bhel chaat was ok although the portion was small. Onion bhaji rings were simply overcooked onion rings served with the smallest possible portion of a dip. The bottles of coke have to be the smallest I’ve seen being served in a restaurant, absolutely criminal. When we ordered mains, we found there were absolutely no Indian curries on the menu, all dishes are dry which doesn’t really sit well with naan bread. We ordered lamb chops and pie that was a special for the week only I had seen on social media to celebrate pie week. There was no mention of this on the menu or by the staff until I enquired. With two of us dining, ordering two mains, the lamb chops and pie were served approximately 15 minutes apart 😳 We were also served rib eye steak that we hadn’t ordered as the consumption of beef is against our religious beliefs…. this really wasn’t an acceptable mistake as there wasn’t much else being served to any of the other tables. The small naan breads were okay, nothing to write home about, but considering this establishment is all about the tandoor lacked immensely. The lamb chops have to be amongst the worst I’ve ever had, extremely chewy, more fat than meat, Luke warm and far from tasty. The pie to celebrate pie week was spinach and chicken, this was the only dish that was hot when served and tasted good although the mash on top of the pie could have had a little more time in the oven. We had a different waitress (African descent) come over to clear the table who came back three times in 5 minutes to clear the same plates as we were not finished. We were drawn to booking this establishment from the oversized thaali advertised on social media, however this is only served between set hours on a Sunday. Not something we look to come back for after the far from great experience with the dishes we tried. This establishment might be okay if it was offering snacks with pints of beer but as a restaurant the menu needs to be revised as does the chef and...

This was our first time in Tandoori Chop House and it hasn’t disappointed us.

We visited on Friday for business Lunch and had their Thali. Between the 4 of us we tried; Pepper Chicken, Lassan Paneer and Bhaingan.

Restaurant & Ambience: was easy to find. Equal walking distance from Charing Cross and Embankment stations. Size of the restaurant was moderate and on this Friday lunch hour it was 60-70% occupied. Appointments mandatory Ambience didn’t have a wow factor but was reasonable for a quick lunch.

Drinks: only had Nimbu Paani. I’d rather it had more liquid than ice. Won’t buy again.

Food: portion size for Thali was just there thereabouts and depending on how hungry you are you may end up ordering more. But for £14, it was tasty and delicious food with the exception of a few minor glitches. The not so good first;

• Paneer lacked some flavour depth
• Pepper Chicken - we could not taste any pepper
• you may think the size of the plate is too small. The trick is to move all the bowls out of the plate, make space then tuck in.
• considering the fact that menu is pretty static, I’d hope for slightly bigger portion size for the salad, desserts and daal. Chicken/Paneer/Bhaingan size was adequately large. Now for the good bits;
• the whole plate as a meal works well and is balanced in terms of nutrition.
• The taste of daal, salads, chilli chutneys, dessert, was delicious
• The naan we had here has to rate amongst the very best we have ever had in UK. Super sleek, soft and tasty.

Overall albeit some minor glitches, all of us left with a happy sensation and for that purpose I’d give TCH five...