Some restaurants do exactly what they’re supposed to do, and do it extremely well, and make sure that you leave with a smile on your face. Trafalgar Square’s Colonel Saab, the second in what by rights should become an extremely popular group, is one such example.
It isn’t that it’s cheaper than the likes of Chutney Mary, Benares or Gymkhana – some of the wines are so expensive that you could happily spend a Maharajah’s ransom here – but it’s more that it’s serving up excellent, innovative food at fair prices, which, in the West End, is something remarkable. Anyone dining here is going to be very happy indeed.
You arrive in the capacious dining room – which, in a former life, used to be the similarly excellent Les Deux Salons – and immediately there is a sense of bustle and buzz to the whole affair. If it’s a bit too clean and sleek to imagine that you’re in an Indian bazaar, then the warmth of the welcome and the always pleasing offer of a cocktail put you at your ease immediately.
The signature house cocktail, named after the restaurant, is a particularly excellent take on a whisky sour, but if you’re after something slightly longer and fruitier, there’s just as good a choice in their version of a Singapore Sling, cheekily named Indian Sling.
This welcome sense of irreverence, in fact, is one that permeates the entire dining experience. I spent a few enjoyable moments in consultation with our knowledgeable and drily witty waiter, who steered me away from several of the dishes that I would have expected to order towards other, more esoteric options, and everything that we ate was superb.
Starters of Noor Mahal chicken tikka and prawn chimichurri are simple in presentation and thoroughly delicious in flavour, with the spices pitched perfectly to compliment the excellence of the meat and seafood.
Then there was some good-natured badinage about what to order for the mains: I’d expected the butter chicken to be the recommendation, but instead we are steered towards the (excellent) chicken chettinad, just as I’m slightly surprised to be told to order the Sunday lamb curry rather than the more esoteric-sounding Shikari raan, a kid lamb dish.
I should never have doubted the Colonel. Both are superb, just as the side dishes of garlic naan and cheese & truffle kulcha and a particularly excellent, Dishoom-rivalling daal makhani come to be the perfect complements to a truly delicious meal. A wine recommendation is asked for, and rather than the £1100 Sassicaia, we are steered towards the rather more manageable Norton, £40 a bottle and delicious with it.
By the time that we make our way to desserts of super raspberry and pistachio tart and carefully, delicately flavoured milk cake, there can be no doubt in our minds that the Colonel’s offering is a very fine one indeed. This is a place that should, and undoubtedly will, attract serious attention, and I’ll stand up and salute that highly deserved outcome.
Colonel Saab Trafalgar Square, 42 William IV St, London WC2N 4DD. For more information, including details about their art, and for bookings, please visit www.colonelsaab.co.uk.
