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“From Bombay with love” says Dishoom, the restaurant chain that pays homage to the food of Mumbai and whose first café opened in Covent Garden, London, in 2010. There are now five altogether in London, a café each in Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh, and – in 2020, during the first lockdown – the launch of the Dishoom delivery service.
The Dishoom team has since opened six delivery kitchens in London, a kitchen in Brighton and one in Cambridge. It also created the Dishoom Store, which is stocked with meal kits, bottled cocktails, the Dishoom cookery book, and many more gifts for at-home enjoyment.
Co-founders and cousins Shamil and Kavi Thakrar previously caught up with employees daily in person in the cafés. During the pandemic this moved to Zoom. Additionally, they held their bi-weekly Chai pe Charchas – discussion over tea – sessions, addressing everyone directly and answering any questions with transparency.
Dishoom celebrates the food of old Bombay with its traditional Irani cafés that welcomed everyone “from rich businessmen to families dining and writers finding their characters”. Contemporary customers today across the UK are an equally diverse and interesting mix, as the testimonials on the Dishoom website show.
The group still sees food as a way of breaking down barriers and this is at the heart of what it does. Through its partners Magic Breakfast and Akshaya Patra Foundation, Dishoom donates a meal to a child for every meal it serves so that those from poorer backgrounds are not distracted by hunger at school.
